What sin?

We’ve come back around to that time of the year again where multitudes of people will make one of their two life pilgrimages into the confines of church to acknowledge the Easter season (the other being Christmas). Bunnies, chicks, plastic eggs filled with tooth and gum disease, frilly bonnets and dresses, all leading up to bountiful table of ham, greens and biscuits galore are what earmark the western venture into the thankfulness of Jesus taking our sins away.

I have previously written about the mystery of this season and all the questions which it holds for us to find answers for. But I’m going to go one further in this posting and ask the ultimate question: What sin? Allow me to offer to you two cherry-picked verses to back up my question.

Eph 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

1Jn 3:9 Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

Step away for moment from what western religion has thrust upon the meaning of this season and let me take a moment to open a thought which many have never entertained simply because their doctrine constrains them from doing so. First let’s all agree on one thing: The entire panorama of this pageant takes place 2,000 years ago in a foreign land occupied by an invading army. Anything we bring to the table with an explanation has to take all of this into context. So, if I may?

Jesus died on the cross, a state-sanctioned torture device, because the religious hierarchy demanded him to be killed for allegedly violating one of their tenets but lacked the authority to fulfill this act without the assistance of the governing Roman army. A mob, roused by these same religious zealots, demanded this action be undertaken even though the Roman governor found Jesus to be innocent of any charges which demanded such harsh punishment. Ultimately, the entire process was conducted to prevent any form of uprising of the population which had poured into the city to celebrate the first of three of the commanded religious festivals Israel annually participated in. Herein lays my side of the Easter narrative which many will gloss over.

The fourth gospel tells us how John the Baptist claimed that Jesus was the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. First off, according to this statement you are going to find a problem. Lambs, according to the book of Leviticus, are not the proper sacrifice for sins, goats are. This is Law folks. Sin offerings are made on Yom Kippur, a fall event occurring after the Jewish New Year. Two goats are offered to the High Priest, one is sacrificed on the altar, while the sins of the nation are confessed over the second goat who is subsequently released into the wilderness, taking the sins with it. So, if Jesus is fulfilling the requirements of the Law as a sin offering, he is not the correct type, or doing it in the prescribed manner at the appropriate time. Apparently, he therefore is not fulfilling the Law, which Jesus professed he was here to do.

The fourth gospel goes out its way to tell us that Jesus died at precisely the time when the Passover lamb was slain by the High Priest making Jesus the Passover lamb for the world. Regrettably, western religiosity completely ignores the meaning of this fundamental Hebraic belief in the Passover.

The term “Passover” recalls the story of the last plague Israel witnessed Egypt endure at the hands of Jehovah. Moses had instructed all the children of Israel how they were on a certain night to sacrifice a lamb, take the blood from this lamb and apply it to the lintels and doorposts of their dwelling, which would act as a sign preventing the angel of death from entering their dwelling and taking the first born child. All who were within these dwellings, Jew or foreigner alike, with this prescribed marking, were safe from this fateful outcome. Moses also instructed the children of Israel that they were to eat the lamb and prepare for their departure from the bounds of slavery which Jehovah was going to break and the land of Egypt which Jehovah was going to lead them from on the following morning.

This is the meaning of being a Passover lamb. No sin involved.

Jesus professed that he came to give us life, and that life more abundantly. He spoke about how belief in him would lead to eternal life, something he described as knowing the Father, and his son whom he sent. The entire corpus of Jesus’s message was overwhelmingly about living life than about sin. Even the capstone to his message was being resurrected!

Jesus as our Passover lamb, ushers us into eternal life, his blood as the sign protecting us from the death and slavery which confronts us in this world. We are blameless in the Father’s love and cannot sin because we are born of God and his seed remains in us.

If you have to look for some sin, according to these scriptures, you are not going to find it. So let’s take that thought off the Easter table this year and finally celebrate the works of a divine life.