The Jesse Tree: Day 9

Grocery stores are a wonder. In one building, so many items from so many places. Pink lady apples shipped from the orchards of Washington, pineapples whose homes were groves in Costa Rica, and roasted coffee beans tended in Ethiopia, wrapped up in nice shiny plastic. Grocery stores are incredible.

Not just because they pull together the wonders of the world, organizing them under a single roof, neatly stacking them into clean, bright aisles.

But also because of how easy they make the process of securing food.

For example, in a grocery store, you don’t have to know the cow’s name. You don’t have to feed it or clean it. You don’t have to schedule its death. And you sure don’t have to play any part in the butchering of its body. In many ways, the origins of that 1 lb. package of lean ground beef are a mystery. And for the most part, we’d prefer it that way.

Because death is ugly.

In the Passover, every year, the Israelites took a lamb into their homes. For several days, they fed and cared for it. Until twilight of the fifth day, when all the lambs were slaughtered. There was no outsourcing, no local butcher—every family undertook this for themselves. And in doing so, annually, they were exposed to the gruesomeness of death.

There was intentionality in this holiday, this grim exposure. It was to make unavoidably clear the gravity of sin, and what was required for its forgiveness. Nothing less than death. Which is why they smeared the blood of these lambs over their doorposts, as evidence that another died in their place. As God said concerning this ritual:

The angel of death, whose sole task was the administration of judgment, passed over their homes because of the blood of the lambs. And in the same way, judgment passes over us as well, because Jesus Christ, our spotless lamb, was slain in our place and for our sin. Because he entered into death, we have life.

Our tendency towards the removal of death sometimes hinders our full understanding of this. In some ways, we even ornamentalize the cross, wearing it as jewelry and hanging it as a decoration on our trees. But it’s important to remember that Jesus didn’t perform a neat and sanitary act for us. He stepped into the fullness of death, allowing himself to be slaughtered on the cross. It was bloody, painful, and anything but clean.

And yet, there truly is beauty there. Because the cross displays the reality that Jesus underwent the horrors of death so that we could taste the joys of eternal life. So that we could experience life and life abundantly. So that we could sing and celebrate the victory of our risen king, who in allowing himself to die, defeated death itself.