Artwork on one of our walls in our home expresses that the ram caught in the thicket is a picture of Jesus. Like the ram, that will take Isaac’s place upon the altar, Jesus will offer himself as our substitute and be sacrificed in our place (Gen. 22). The ram will die. Isaac will live. The Lord has provided, but not just for Isaac, but as John described,

“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

(Revelation 5:8-10 ESV)

Jesus died not just for Jews, his own kinsmen, but for people from every ethnicity upon the earth – hence, the various crosses that have historical roots in world history with regard to their artistry. Not that Jesus died over and over, but that his one-time-death in real space and matter is the most significant event that the world must reckon with.

For today:

1. Believe that Christ died for your sins according the scriptures.
2. Believe that what Christ did is bigger than your troubles. After watching one atrocity after another during the Nazi holocaust, Corrie Ten Boom told her sister Betsy, “This place is the pit of hell!” Betsy replied, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper.”
3. Take courage today that the ethnic strife upon the earth will one day be settled around Christ’s return. Even now, there are Muslims around the world turning to Christ and paying a high cost from their own kinsmen.
4. If Jesus was able to tie a 2,200 year old true story of a ram caught in a thicket to his own work on the cross, then he is able to keep your life-story from becoming futile. Just as all stories that preceded Christ pointed to him and found their fulfillment in Christ, so also all stories that flow from Calvary into the future, including yours, will one day further illuminate the grace and glory of the cross.
5. Finally, if you love Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then there is no more wrath left in the Father to punish you. Christ has “propitiated” – absorbed and exhausted the wrath of God upon the cross. God the Father will never punish the same sins twice. Either Christ has appeased his Father’s holy justice for you, or you will in hell. Either Jesus’ death on the cross is good news for you, or it will be bad news for you one day. Today – while it is today, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.