2012 Midweek Lenten Series
Christ, Our Passover Lamb
3/28 Midweek Lenten #5 Sermon: “ Redeemed From Wrath! ”
( Texts: Jeremiah 25:15-16, 28-29; Revelation 14:17-20; Luke 22:14-15, 19-20, 39-44 )
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Tonight we continue my Lenten Sermon series titled “Christ, Our
Passover Lamb.”
We’ve been learning how the Passover lambs and
various elements of the Passover meal point to Jesus and His Saving
work for us.
With that said, I have a question for you.
Raise your hand if
you’ve ever heard of John Steinbeck’s novel titled The Grapes of
Wrath?
This book is about refugees from the Dust Bowl of the Great
Plains in the 1930s. But why does this book have the title The Grapes
of Wrath? What do grapes have to do with wrath?
Let me give you another example. In the song Battle Hymn of the
Republic by Julia Ward Howe we also find “grapes of wrath” imagery.
Remember these words of the song: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the
grapes of wrath are stored.”
Once again, what do vintage wine and
grapes have to with God’s vengeance and wrath?
Well, in both the book and the song the “grapes of wrath” imagery
comes from the Bible!
You see, in the Bible wine often symbolizes
blood. It is easy to see why. Dark wine looks like blood.
Now, since God requires the payment of blood for sin, the Bible
sometimes portrays God in His wrath as stamping out sinners just as
one would stamp on grapes in a winepress.
For instance, in our Old Testament reading we heard how the
unbelievers of this world will finally have to drink the cup of God’s
wrath. This cup would have been filled with wine made with the juice
pressed out from grapes. This is an image of the blood required for
sin.
In the same way, our reading from the Book of Revelation speaks
of God’s judgment upon unbelievers by using the image of a winepress.
Again, the juice of grapes becomes a symbol of the blood required for
sin.
This is terrifying imagery! But the Bible is clear. The price
for sin is death – the shedding of blood!
So, your huge problem is
that if you must pay for your sin yourself, then you’re dead! You’re
like a grape stamped dry and flat. There is no hope for you – unless
someone else could pay your debt for you. That’s right! If someone
else could shed his blood for your sin, then you could live. But is
such hope even possible?
My friends, this was the meaning of the Passover lambs – as well
as all the other sacrificial animals found throughout the history of
the Old Testament. Of course, the blood of those animals was only a
symbol and picture of the real, final and complete sacrifice of blood
– the Blood of God’s Son.
Now, when God’s people celebrated the Passover meal they drank
four cups of wine – dark, red wine which symbolized the warm blood of
a freshly sacrificed lamb.
The third of these four cups of wine was known as the “cup of
blessing” or the “cup of redemption” because it reminded God’s people
of how God freed their ancestors from the slavery of Egypt and how He
also promised to send a Savior who would free them from the slavery of
sin and death.
When Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples on
Thursday evening, He probably took the third cup of wine – the “cup of
redemption” – and after He blessed it, He gave it to His disciples and
said something that had never been said at any Passover before. Jesus
said: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out
for you.”
Did you hear that?
No longer did this cup of wine merely
symbolize the blood of sacrificial animal. Now it actually contained
the blood of the perfect sacrifice of redemption – the Blood of the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
In giving the
disciples the cup of redemption, Jesus was saying that God’s wrath
would crush Him as the payment for all who were enslaved by sin.
What a costly, painful price Jesus’ paid to save us! No wonder
Jesus prayed these words in the Garden: “Take this cup from Me.” But
then He also prayed: “…yet not My will, but Yours be done.” You see,
the cup that Jesus had to drink was the “cup of God’s wrath” against
our sin. All of God’s fury against the rebellion of every sinner who
had ever lived or would ever live was concentrated in the cup of
suffering that Jesus would drink to the last drop.
Jesus did that for you. He loves you that much. Every time you
receive the Lord’s Supper you get to drink the very Blood that Jesus
shed for you.
This is God’s sign that you do not have to fear His
wrath because Jesus suffered God’s wrath for you – and now you are
free to live as God’s dearly loved child and do all that you do to His
glory.
My friends, we must always remember that the price for sin is the
shedding of blood. God must pour out His wrath on sin.
If people cling to their sin and thereby reject Jesus’ sacrifice
for them, then they must face God’s wrath themselves.
But if we repent of our sin and trust in Jesus, then we have
nothing to fear.
Jesus shed His blood to save us from the wrath we
deserve, and through faith in Him we are redeemed from wrath.
In closing, listen carefully to these words of Paul from
1st Thessalonians chapter 5: “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath
but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for
us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with
him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as
in fact you are doing.”
Amen!