P. Pilgrim
There is a story often told of a man who was working high up on a wall during the construction of a tall church tower. When he was moving along the wall on scaffold his safety rope snapped. He suddenly lost his balance and fell from a great height, and there was nothing he could do to stop himself. His terrified co-workers rushed downstairs, entirely expecting to find him dead. Instead, they found him alive and only slightly injured.
A flock of sheep had been grazing in the churchyard directly below the scaffolding. The man happened to land squarely on top of a young lamb. While the lamb took the full force of the impact and was crushed to death, amazingly, the man survived. The lamb had taken the man’s weight. The lamb suffered the consequence of the man’s fall, and the man’s life was spared. To commemorate his miraculous survival and to honour the animal that took his place, the builder carved a stone statue of a lamb into the side of the church tower. The stone lamb was placed at the exact height from which the workman originally fell.
Imagine that man looking down at the lifeless lamb. He might have thought, “That lamb died because I fell. I deserved to suffer the consequences of my fall, but the lamb took my place.” This is only an illustration, but it gives us a picture of a much greater truth found in the Bible. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” in the gospel of John 1:29. John the Baptist did not call Jesus merely a lamb. He called Him the Lamb of God. Throughout the Old Testament, lambs were sacrificed because of sin. God taught His people that sin deserved death and that a substitute could die in the sinner’s place. But those animals could never actually take away sin permanently. They pointed forward to the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:18, 19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Jesus was the perfect Lamb. He was without sin. The falling man in the story could not save himself. He was falling, and he needed someone—or something—to bear the consequences for him. In the same way, mankind has fallen into sin. The Bible says in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We cannot save ourselves through good works, religion, money, morality, or human effort. Sin has a consequence “For the wages of sin is death…” says Romans 6:23. However, God provided a substitute. Jesus Christ came into this world and took the punishment that sinners deserved. Isaiah prophesied about Christ hundreds of years before His death in Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities… and with his stripes we are healed.” Then Isaiah gives us this beautiful picture, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”, Isaiah 53:6. That is the heart of the gospel. We went astray, but the sins of those who believed were laid upon Christ. We deserved judgment, but Christ bore our judgment. We deserved death, but Christ died in our place. The man who fell from the wall could not save himself. His only hope was that something else would bear his weight. And spiritually, our only hope is Jesus Christ. The question is not simply, “Do you know about Jesus?” The question is “Have you trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour? ” (pilgrimway101@yahoo.com)
