Day 3 and 4

Unfortunately due to an all day and all night trip home from South Cakalaky, I was unable to blog yesterday. It's ok. We'll do two for one today. Two verses, one theme for your mediating pleasure. Alright, I have to admit the first one doesn't have the word behold in my translation, it is the same word and so I am going to use it anyway. Gen 22:13,

"Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son."

And now to the New Testament, John 1:29,

"The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!"

Here it is the dual fulfillment of the word that Abraham spoke to calm his worried son Isaac, "Don't worry. The Lord himself will provide the sacrifice." In the short-term He did. Abraham looked and saw a ram, a substitution to spare the life of his beloved son. But thousands of years later John the Baptist stood on the river bank and saw Jesus Christ as a lamb that would take away the sins of the world. Once again here is the substitution, the atonement, the one who will face the slaughter so that the beloved sons of God won't have to. This is one reality that I feel like I could gaze at for years and still be mystified by. God became a man and then died for people. Even as I write this I have to pause and look at it again. It seems incredible or foolish even. Surely God in all His infinite wisdom could have found a way to save humanity that didn't involve Him dying, couldn't He? No, the infinite wisdom of God declares that this was the only way that humans could be reconciled to God. There was no other way, no better plan. This is the wisdom of God. What kind of God is this?!? Once again I see that His ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts and that when it comes down to it; I have no idea who this God is. The only solution: pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation and keep reading His word and He will surely make Himself known.