Surely that must be the question of the ages! Father, where is the lamb?"
Reading this passage again, my heart was quickened that these words from Scripture must be the most effective answer we could ever give to a seeker of the Truth. Someone who just doesn't buy the whole "Gospel story," or someone who is so broken and crushed by their own past sins, they cannot find any way forward. They are crushed by a price they know they owe - but could not pay.
The fire is here - and the wood. Even the knife is here. There has to be a sacrifice, somebody has to pay to atone for all this mess of evil and sin. But where is the lamb?
Abraham responds, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb..." (vs. 8)
Passover, you see, is the answer to the ancient question. At that very first Passover, the children of Israel took the blood of the lambs they had slaughtered, and smeared it across their door posts. "For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; I AM the LORD (YHVH). Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."
Through the blood, God's people are marked as His own. Through the blood, God's own are spared from death.
And so, on another Passover Eve in the future, God answered the question of the ages. "Where is the lamb?" At that hour, the Lamb of God was provided. Placed upon the wood, He took on my sin and your sin and the sin of the whole world and willingly shed His blood - the blood that covers our lives and marks us as God's own, the blood that keeps us from eternal death. Don't be frightened, Isaac. You will not have to die. God will provide for Himself the lamb.
Have an anointed, blessed Passover, filling your heart with gratitude for The Lamb.
