Sunday, December 2, 2012

Innocent

Innocent
December 3, 2012
Numbers 6:14  "There they are to present their offerings to the LORD . . . a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering . . . "

When you think of a baby, you cannot help but think of its innocence.  A baby is precious and delicate, helpless and completely dependent.  It is pure and sinless.  Jesus was born a baby with this same spotless record, completely and utterly innocent.  But unlike our babies who grow into sinful adults, Jesus grew in His innocence.  He was not tainted by the world; He did not indulge in sin.  He remained holy, never falling from perfection or succumbing to the ways of this earth and the path the rest of us have walked.  It is because of His maintained innocence that He became the perfect sacrifice for our own sins.  Irony rests in this statement though, as Jesus, the most perfect of people, innocent as a newborn baby, was murdered because of His innocence.

Before being sentenced to death, Jesus stood before Pilate and Herod who both declared His innocence, stating He had done nothing wrong deserving of death.  The Pharisees contended, however, saying Jesus was guilty of claiming to be the Son of God.  That was the one thing Jesus was actually guilty of: being the Son of God.  Irony abounds in the guilt of Jesus being the Son of God.  It was foretold that the Son of God would come to be the perfect and innocent sacrifice for our sins.  This innocence of sin combined with the guilt of being the Son of God was ultimately what killed Jesus.  Thankfully, He overcame this death by rising from the dead, but the travesty of killing such innocence should weigh heavily upon us as we enter this Christmas season celebrating His birth, the birth of innocence.

Christmas is a time to reflect upon the arrival of Jesus, the birth of an innocent baby.  None of us would ever think of killing an innocent baby and would rightfully condemn anyone who did.  But our own sins required just that: the killing of innocence.  It gives fullness to the thought of what our deliberate sins did to our Savior on that cross; He had to die in order that we might be free from sin.  Someday we will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and be declared innocent of our sins by the one who died for them, by the one who was innocent of them.

Our innocence, though lost since we were babies, can be obtained again by the work of the Savior who entered this world as a baby.  It is good to reflect on Jesus as a baby, since a baby epitomizes the essence of innocence.  It took innocence to make us innocent again.  As we comprehend what the Lord did for us in sending His Son, think upon Him in a new light: the light of knowing His pureness, His spotlessness, His innocence was required to cover over all the dirty rotten filth we have allowed into our lives through sin since the time we were babies.  Be thankful He came as a baby because that's what it took for you and me to have forgiveness and eternal life.
 
Don't take my word for it; look it up:   Lev 4 & 5, Is 7:14-15, Matt 27:11-19, Luke 23:1-15, John 8:45-46, Heb 10:10, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10

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