“Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” In response, Abraham prophesied, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together”. Genesis 22:7-8

I’ve waited so very long for God to answer some prayers. So have you. We wait, sometimes for years, sometimes for generations, and the waiting tests us till it hurts. We grow tired. We question His attention. We wonder if His love has thinned in the silence of perceived inactivity.

From Abraham’s question on Mt. Moriah to the hour the true Lamb was offered, centuries passed. Heaven seemed to take its time. So today, I don’t believe we should travel first to the stable. Let’s go to the hill where the Lamb was crucified.

The long ache of Scripture was finally answered ~ not with a cradle, but with a cross. Good Friday gave its terrible, beautiful reply. to the question, “Where is the lamb?” There He was. He was not wrapped in swaddling cloths, but was stripped and wounded. He was not cradled in His mother’s arms, but lifted up on rough wood.

Abraham waited for Him. Israel longed for Him. And every restless, guilty, tormented heart has been starving for Him too. Sin has hollowed us out, leaving us shallow in our souls, We are ashamed, agitated, and unable to quiet the incessant self-condemnation. I faced an onslaught only yesterday. And most every culture across the world has conceived some ritual to try to rid themselves of their guilt in order to please the gods. We ache to be guiltless.

Good Friday was where bitterness and beauty met. The darkest hour became the holy ground. The cross stood in the shadow of every promise God ever made, and there, in blood and grief, the promise was kept. Forgiveness of sin. Peace with God.

Let the blood of My Lamb speak more loudly than my guilt, my waiting, and my fear. Amen