“Sin is a matter of life and death. We cannot toss God a little bribe to forget the whole thing. When a Hebrew brought an offering, he put his hands on that perfect, innocent lamb’s head, and said over and over, ‘My sin costs a life, an innocent, spotless life.’

Across the centuries, how much innocent blood has cascaded down that altar onto the temple pavement! Morning and evening on normal days, and ever so much more on feast days, it poured down. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that in Roman times up to 250,000 lambs were slain on Passover Day! There had to be special gutters to carry the blood away into the Kidron Brook. Jesus waded through that bloody stream on His way to Gethsemane. And through the pre-Christian years, as sensitive Jews viewed the endless parade of doomed animals, some of them must have cried out, ‘How can an animal carry my sins? Oh, what can wash away my sins?’ And the voice of God whispered across eternity, ‘He is coming!’” (Oswalt, John. Where are You, God? 53-54)

Jesus has Come!