Editor’s Note: Pastor Scott Peterson is sharing daily devotions written by some of his favorite authors. The author’s biography and any notes by Pastor Scott are listed at the end of the devotion.
Behold, the Lamb
by Gerhard Frost
And he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!
–John 1:36
I was teaching a confirmation class of 16 young Navajo Christians, and we were discussing the subject of time as God’s gift of opportunity. We talked about our own mortality, and then discussed why we measure time. I stepped to the blackboard and wrote May 2, 1977 A.D.
I stood there for a few moments as we considered how we have divided the centuries into B.C. and A.D. Then I asked the class, “What’s so special about Jesus that we measure our time from the years when he lived as a man on earth?”
During the thoughtful pause that followed, 16 pairs of dark eyes looked inquiringly at me and then at one another. Finally, one boy spoke. He formed his answer as a question: “No more lambs killed?”
The Navajo people are shepherds. All of the youths in my class had early recollections of tending sheep and goats with their mothers and older brothers and sisters. The death of a lamb held deep meaning for them, and this young boy had beheld the Lamb of God from his shepherd’s perspective.
No more lambs killed. Jesus is the Lamb. To behold him and his mercy is to see universality and intimacy at once. It is to see the red trail of thousands of sheep and goats slain in sacrifice, with no power to atone, leading up to the cross-the saving event.
Jesus was the last lamb; there will be no more sacrifices, no more lambs killed I am grateful for that shepherd’s eye as I seek anew to “behold the Lamb of God.”
Gerhard Frost (1909 – 1988) was a Lutheran Pastor, a college and seminary professor, and a poet. A student and friend of his described him this way, “…beloved by all who knew him. He had a Lincolnesque combination of strength and quietness about him.” That is an apt description of Gerhard Frost when I met him in 1978. As a guest speaker, he read his poetry at my internship congregation, Immanuel Lutheran Church, in Wadena, MN.