The Lion and the Lamb
I've always been struck by
the contrast between the Jesus who appears in the stories of the final week of
his life and the Jesus who appears throughout the rest of the gospel. Before
his final days he is like a lion. Performing miracles, healing the sick,
raising the dead, he literally walks on water. There seems to be no limit to
his power. And he always comes out on top. The demons always flee, the bad guys
constantly try to trap him and trip him up and he always has just the right
thing to say to confound them and frustrate them. For the first 3 1/2 years of
his ministry the good guys always win, the bad guys are always sent packing.
He's exactly what I expect a hero to be.
Then, as the end approaches,
Jesus says to his disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified." (John 12:23)
The stage is set, he's paid
his dues, it's time for the final showdown, the big reveal.
But the Jesus we see in the
few hours before his death is so different from the lion like character that
has been drawing such a crowd. First, he comes riding in to town on
an under aged donkey. I don't care who you are, you're not going to
look like a hero astride a shaggy, wobbly legged donkey. And once he gets to
town, the bad guys get away with murder and Jesus has nothing disarming to say.
He's bound and beaten, mocked and spit upon by the same clowns he's showed up
in every confrontation for 3 1/2 years. Where's the hero? Where are the words
of wisdom? It's frustrating to read the story. Why doesn't he show himself for
what he really is? He seems the opposite of a hero. He seems like a victim. Is
he really a lion? Or is he just a lamb?
The reason this part of
Jesus' life is so frustrating to us is the same reason that it was so confusing
and sad for his closest disciples, his friends. They thought (and we usually
think) that a person's finest hour is when they rise up in all their strength
and ability, put their greatness on display and triumph completely over the enemy
for all to see. But when Jesus said that the hour had come for him to be
glorified, he meant that he was going to demonstrate what glory really is. And
it turns out glory is not what we think it is at all.
If we are honest, we have to
admit that the biblical account of the original sin that Adam and Eve committed—not
just the sin of eating forbidden fruit, but their prideful arrogance to want to
be "as gods..." to do what they wanted when they wanted—is very
believable. Adam denied God's will to do what he wanted to do. And from that
day on mankind continued to do just that. We all want to be our own boss,
to be as strong and fearsome as the Lion in defending ourselves and making a
life for ourselves.
But then Jesus came along.
In Jesus the human race finally had a man that could resist the temptation to
have it his way and instead say, "Not my will but thine be done." And
that is precisely what it means to be worthy of glory: to know God's will and
deny oneself and do it.
When his hour had come, he
showed us what kind of a hero he really was. He said, "Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses
it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal
life." (John 12:24, 25)
He delivered himself to his
tormentors, riding right into their stronghold on the lowliest beast of burden. They bound him, beat him, insulted him and
he said nothing because everything that needed to be said had already been said
between him and the Father. To be a lamb like this requires the
power and courage of a lion.
This truly was his finest
hour on the earth and they never stop talking about it in heaven because it was
and is the most amazing, selfless and courageous thing any man has ever done. And in the
songs they sing to him, about him, the name He is known by is the one he proved
he deserved in his finest hour: The Lamb of God.
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