The Lion & The Lamb

Did March come in like a lion and go out like a lamb for you this year?

 This phrase is used to tip off weary winterers, depending on whether March entered with gusto or with ease, that the finale of March will be like a lion or a lamb. And what do I care about which way it goes? Sooner or later, I’m going to experience both lion and lamb!

 And that’s how it is with God. One way or another, you will experience Him. He’s the Lion of Judah – fierce and wild and mighty! He’s the lamb - gentle, compassionate and once-for-all sacrifice. John the Baptizer, an eccentric, Spirit-filled dude, called out to all his followers as Jesus approached, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”

 His Jewish audience understood exactly what he meant. They were accustomed to the Day of Atonement’s procedure of presenting a sacrifice without blemish, often a lamb, that would serve as their offering. The lamb was slaughtered. The sins of the people atoned for. Removed. Paid for by the lamb.

 This Easter, I couldn’t long more for the Lion and the Lamb to be pressed more deeply into my weary soul:

 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter…. Isaiah 53:6,7.  

 Then three days later.

 See the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals….They saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne…He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Rev. 5:2, 5,6.

 What a way to cover the entire weary world this Easter with lamb-like compassion and lion-like resurrection power!

To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! Rev. 5:13.

I’m real because He is so real. ~ Nancy