MARCH IS KNOWN for its changeable weather. It comes at the time of year when winter gives way to spring. The atmospheric streams battle one another for dominance, in which the balmier weather of spring inevitably, day by day, gains the victory. Then the glories of spring color begin to splash vividly across the earth’s vegetation and trees. “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” is the ages-old proverb that describes, in one short sentence, the yearly weather forecast for this pivotal month.
The spring that begins with March is also the lambing season, that time of year when the autumn mating season of bucks and ewes produce the birth of the multitude of lambs, their fleece-white progeny that show so much boundless energy of life. Spring is also the season of the Passover Lamb, celebrated, for the same and yet for intrinsically and exponentially different reasons, by both Jews and Christians. Passover and Easter are inexorably linked, one the outcome of the other, the first a pale foreshadowing of a great revelation of God.
In the Jewish celebration of Passover, the heritage is rich and deep. It is the time of release from four hundred thirty years of slavery in Egypt, from the time of Joseph to the time of Moses. God delivers the Hebrews from Pharoah, giving instruction through Moses: “On the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, slaughter them at twilight. Take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses. That same night they are to eat the meat. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover. On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.” (Ex. 12:3-12)
This is not just a living tradition, but an ordinance of God, handed down from generation to generation since the fifteenth century B.C. to today for all observant Jews. “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.” (Ex. 12:14) This has been a central unifying tradition that has held a people of God together for three thousand five hundred years despite war and diaspora, and which has seen them through to their regathering as a nation in modern times.
In the Christian celebration of Easter, not just a greater, but the greatest progressive self-revelation of the God of all creation is made manifest to and in the people who call on his name for freedom from the captivity to sin. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God said “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, and will bring you back from captivity.” (Jer. 29:13-14) This is an O.T. promise and prophecy that could never, would never, will never be found in the mere observation of religious traditions.
Jesus phrases it as a transcendent promise, the outcome expressed as a participatory process: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7-8) And what is this great promise except the relationship of mankind, specifically those who accept the promise of God in Jesus, to a restored and life-giving relationship with our heavenly Father?
This promise is most clearly made as recorded in John’s gospel. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) John’s revelation tells us that these men and women are those whose “names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8) Paul speaks of the finished work of God in Christ. “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Eph. 2:4-5)
We have been made alive in Christ through his death on the cross, as Paul affirms. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” (1 Cor. 5:7) This once-for-all sacrifice transcends the sum of all the sacrifices, Passover and otherwise, made in the O.T. In Hebrews we see that this sacrifice was not “by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” (Heb. 9:12) The great promise is realized for you and me as Peter describes: “It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” (1 Pet. 1:18-20) All of this history and mystery is clarified for us through the revelation of God in, by, and through his son, Jesus, the Passover Lamb.
But all of this will be most fully realized at Jesus’ return, no longer the sacrificial lamb. During his vision, John’s tears of anguish begin to be dried by a proclamation at the throne of God in heaven. “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.’” (Rev. 5:5) And following, the voices of heaven sing out, “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) And the kings and kingdoms of the earth will tremble in fear. “Hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Rev. 6:16-17) Further in John’s vision he says, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of kings and LORD of lords.” (Rev. 19:11, 16)
The Lamb and the Lion have become one.
Q. Where does my faith place me between the Lamb and the Lion?
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