The Lamb
I noticed a number of people in the choir wiping tears as they sang "When I See the Risen Lamb" today. I'm sure some of it is the powerful musical qualities of the song. But how the musical qualities of the song, and more importantly, the truth of its lyrics to forgiven sinners, cause us to reflect on and ponder the greatness of our Savior. It's a song that moves one into great happiness and thankfulness.
When I See the Risen Lamb:
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However, pondering the imagery of the next song broke me.
Following "When I See the Risen Lamb" today was "Behold the Lamb." In this order, I suspect that our music minister, Tom Clay, was intending to paint the picture of the resurrection and the glorified, risen Christ. However, for some reason, my mind went "backwards" to the Old Testament, instead of forwards into the New Testament church.
I could attempt to describe this in the powerful way that it broke me, but almost undoubtedly my words would hinder, and not help, you experience this same brokenness. So I'll try to keep my words to a minimum, in hopes that you'll ponder the truth of them:
God is angry and wrathful against the evilness of humanity.
Lambs are baby sheep, less than a year old - the imagery of innocence.
Showing the magnitude of his righteous anger, God ordered his people, from time to time, to slaughter lambs, ripping their bodies apart and spreading their blood on an alter.
Jesus is called the Son of God. God the Father loves his Son. Jesus is also called the lamb of God.
Jesus was slain just as the lamb was slaughtered - innocent and blameless - and because of God's intolerance for sin, his righteous wrath compelled him to be pleased in the death of his own son.
His wrath was carried out against the Lamb, his son, so that he could love me and adopt me as a son - even though I am the sinner who deserved only the wrath and anger.
What mercy. What love.
Behold the Lamb:
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You can see the service with these songs being sung, as well as the message that was preached, at Grace Life Church's website here. Look for the 9/20/2009 AM service.
Twitter Updates for 2009-09-20
- Posted on CNN today: Computers Won't Need Plugs (video) http://tr.im/yAW7 - The sad thing, no mention of Nikola Tesla anywhere. #
- Looking forward to tonight's sermon from Hosea 2:14. The service is live now at http://tr.im/yBUo [fixed url] Sermon follows the singing. #
- Now has iPhone MMS working without any IMEI trickery. AT&T fails a *little* less now. http://twitpic.com/hnt8h #
- I should have known my tweet about iPhoneMMS would get more replies than the Hosea 2:14 ones. :) Give me a min 2 squeeze the reply into 140. #
- For those asking about how to turn on MMS early: http://tr.im/yCfp *warnings* Back up your iPhone first. Read THEN act. Tweaking required. #
- If wondering about the 5th dock icon, the customized look, and Google Voice: Jailbreak, Five Icon Dock, Winterboard, & Illumine (src ModMyi) #
- .@walter25 The latter part of those instructions (tricking AT&T) no longer applies. Thus the "no IMEI trickery" part from my original tweet. #
- For the really curious: the MMS I sent myself is a screen shot from SimCity iPhone: a city holding steady at ~50K people and +$100 / month. #
- @klmanchester It's a problem w/ Visual Voicemail (AT&T's data network) in general that AT&T refuses to admit. #Shoals in reply to klmanchester #
- This proves it: cell phone companies are evil. Verizon refuses to help police find dying man unless they pay his $20 bill: http://tr.im/yG5u #
- Thanks for all the retweets. The news story is actually 4 months old, but I'm just now finding out about it. Apparently I'm not the only one #
- Am I the only one just noticing that the Zoom button on iTunes 9 *finally* works like every other OS X window? Mini mode is now in View menu #
- @cmpalmer Tell your friend cmd+shift+m and make him happy. in reply to cmpalmer #
- Confession: I couldn't name one @TaylorSwift13 song before today. However, now I've wikipedia'd her and am impressed by her writing/music. #
- @echofon What if I don't ever want the push notifications to "sleep?" Setting both sleep and wake to the same time appears to always sleep. #
- RT @brotom: Check out my latest blog called "Is It OK If I'm Not Always Engaged In Worship While Leading The Music?" http://bit.ly/2dDYDI #
- @TheDaleJackson I have the audio from your segment incase you want it and don't have easy access to it. in reply to TheDaleJackson #
- Whoa. Mike Griffin is a professor at UAH? Since when? #
- @JohnLBurger Thanks. I'll have to check out the schedule some time to see what he's teaching. in reply to JohnLBurger #
- Exclusive pictures and videos from the SUV almost completely submerged coming up. Everyone OK. SUV - not so much. #Shoals #
- Photos/video of submerged SUV @ Chisholm / Cox Creek. http://tr.im/yVo3 All occupants OK. Driven by UNA student. EMA boat on scene. #Shoals #
- Credit to @anothertomorrow for some of the news gathering, including that the driver was a 19y/o UNA student. #
- @nsstcweather You must be out of town or busy. I'm surprised you're not tweeting about the rain and flooding. Have a great day. #
- Do cell kiosks actually make any money for their companies? Isn't mobile penetration at >90% of people who go to malls? What % switch? #
- @srussell705 Interesting point. I bet that's 90% of their business. Sad, too, that their business is trapping customers into 2 year terms. in reply to srussell705 #
- Cool time-lapse footage. (clouds, water, planes, fog, sun, etc.) http://bit.ly/aZnsg via @grahamhancock #
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