God's Lamb

     I was singing in church Sunday, yes, with the rest of the congregation thank you, and we were singing about the Lamb of God. In fact the song is called "Blessed Be The Lamb".  It has a line in the first verse that goes "Blessed be the Lamb of God slain for me". While singing that line it dawned on me how important the genitive case is. The genitive case can have a lot of applications especially in Greek, so I watch for its uses.  The genitive in this case shows possession, "the Lamb of God."

FFA Rule # 1

    There are a lot of animals like lambs, cows, chickens and the like where I grew up. I didn't grow up on a farm but I grew up in the South which is very agricultural. The advertisements on television are for Roundup, International Harvesters and the like. When you pass through a town the first thing beyond the town sign, the list of rotary clubs and the cop hiding behind the Holiday Inn sign is the farm equipment on display at the local dealer. Yep, it may be a city but its in the country! So it may not seem that strange to you if I tell you that Laurie and I raised two steers behind our house, while we lived in Memphis . They were good corn fed cattle. And did that meat taste good! It was when our oldest boy, David, was about 5 or 6. We fed those steers, talked to them, moved them from lot to lot, and lived right along side of them, literally. But one thing we never did was name them. Old FFA rule, "never name the animal you are going to have slaughtered." Black cow, Brown cow, that was as far as the naming went. Best meat I think I ever 'et.' We got enough meat to last us a long time. But we never named those cows. Those may have been Doug and Laurie's cattle or cattle of Doug and Laurie, but that was as far as it went. The anguish for us and especially for little David would have been too much if we would have named them. Imagne David having to eat his Blackie and Brownie. It would have been too much. It was a real growing experience for David as it was, who later joined FFA in Southern California and raised a pig. That's right SoCal does have farms and farmers. I think David did name that pig though, Edgar Allen Pig.
      Anyway, I was thinking about the "Lamb of God slain for me." This was not just a no named Lamb that God had butchered. This was God's Lamb. A Lamb He not only named but raised as His son. How personal was this for God? How could he get so close to something so a part of Himself and then have it slaughtered? Some theologians, like Karl Barth (God's Word In Action, 375) say that God suffered that day too. How could He have not? Maybe one of the reasons He could not look at His Son on the cross, was that the pain was too much. Remember there is no separation between the Father and the Son. God's Lamb, was Jesus His Son.
      We have such a loving Father, who gave up His son. He did not stay the butcher's hand like he did with Abraham, but completed the sacrifice. It was a sacrifice, His sacrifice, His Lamb, for us, for me.
Blessed be the Lamb of God slain for me. And Blessed be the Father who gave up His Lamb for me. In a real way, this makes communion and Jesus' body mean even more to me. "This is my body", (the body of me) personal to Jesus, and to God and that makes it personal to us.
     During this season of Tabernacles, the Father's atoning love for me is real. Saying it another way, He gave up His possession to possess me. I am now a Son of God, God's son. Now that's a great genitive!

 By the way the term genitive is from the Latin, genitivus, gignere, to beget, like Begotten of God.