[Broadcast as a ‘Midday Meditation’ on Radio Cayman, January 2016]
What’s the most admirable thing you can think of that anyone has ever done? When we hear stories of war heroes, most of them are dead because what made them heroes is that they risked or deliberately sacrificed their lives so that others could be alive. I was reading yesterday about a soldier who saved a truck full of guys by diving on top of a grenade just before it exploded, smothering the blast.
It should come as no surprise then that the God who became man – Jesus – is an example of that very highest quality of self-sacrifice. He was called the Lamb of God in reference to Old Testament practices of sacrificing lambs as symbols of the ultimate sacrifice for sin who would arrive one day – Jesus himself.
In the apostle John’s dream of heaven in the book of Revelation Jesus is described as the only one worthy to open one of God the Father’s scrolls – precisely because he was willing to be sacrificed.
Why is that a good thing? Because not only was Jesus the most admirable man who walked the face of the earth, but he sacrificed himself so that you and I can be made right with God.
Paul T Reynolds 