1. Text: Revelation 5:5-6, et al
Steel and velvet – those are the qualities of a balanced man, says one writer. Like steel, he’s firm and well-tempered; he provides his family with security and raises the admiration of those around him. Still, like soft velvet, he has sensitivity and gentleness that is caring of others and protects those who need it.
According to Carl Sandberg, Abraham Lincoln was such a man. Speaking of his steel side he writes:
“He commanded the most powerful armies till then assembled in modern warfare; … he abolished the right of habeas corpus; he directed politically and spiritually the wild, massive, turbulent forces let loose in the civil war. …failing to get action, as chief executive having war powers, he issued the paper by which he declared the slaves to be free under ‘military necessity.’”
And at the same time, Lincoln is remembered for his gentleness:
“often with nothing to say, he said nothing, slept not at all and on occasions was seen to weep in a way that made weeping appropriate, decent, majestic. …a…man heard him say, ‘Voorhees, don’t it seem strange to you that I, who could never so much as cut off the head of a chicken, should be elected or selected, into the midst of all this blood?’”
Occasionally, we run across the stories of such people. Some of them have been real shapers of society – like Lincoln. All of them are showing the qualities of Jesus that we’re going to look at this morning – qualities of the Lion and the Lamb.
Both animals are used a lot in the Bible to symbolize certain qualities.
Take lions, for instance. Few animals were more respected and feared in Old Testament days. Lions symbolized power, especially the kind that makes us scared. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Amos all use a lion to symbolize God’s power at war.
"As a lion growls, a great lion over his prey-- and though a whole band of shepherds is called together against him, he is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor-- so the LORD Almighty will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.” Isaiah 31:4
“The lion has roared-- who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken-- who can but prophesy?” Amos 3:8
It shouldn’t surprise us too much for the OT to give us this snapshot of Jesus that looks strangely like a lion.
Each of the tribes of Israel had a standard – a picture-symbol, that stood for their tribe. We have them too – their called logos! They put it on some kind banner and raised it in the Israelite camp to mark where their tribe was. Judah took the lion as its standard, with the motto: “Rise up, Jehovah, and let Your enemies be scattered!”
It was fitting that Judah would use the King among the beasts as their symbol. They were the tribe of kings in Israel. It was from Judah that the earthly parents of Jesus would descend.
C.S. Lewis took this snapshot of Jesus and used it to create the principle character in his imaginative book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. In a memorable scene, the children are learning for the first time about Aslan, the character that depicts Jesus. (read, or show video):
“Is, is he a man?” Asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not, I tell you he is the King of the wood and he son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the lion, the great lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
The children do meet Aslan, and sure enough, His very presence is nothing to be taken lightly:
“As for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn’t know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him and went all trembly.”
But as we peer into this portrait of the Savior in the Bible something strange and wonderful happens…
Ill - I was at a collector’s store in the mall, and my kids were showing me a neat gadget: they were sports cards – ball players. But they were set on those plastic 3D cards where, if you turn it just a little, you see a different picture. It changes. These were put on little runners that made them rock, so, as they moved, you could actually watch the Babe swing his bat around and hit a homerun. They changed, depending on the angle you looked from .
In Rev 5:5, John is called to look at the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and, sure enough, a mysterious animal begins to make its entrance. But when John turns to see Him, he sees a lamb! In fact, the word suggests a little lamb, and it’s one that has been fatally wounded, like the lambs for sacrifice that the Jews offered. In fact, this lamb has symbolically born a fatality since the creation of the world (13:8).
One of the elders cried, ‘Behold, the lion!’ but John, from the earth side, answers, ‘Behold, a lamb.’ And their voices reveal to us the need of both descriptions for us to appreciate His full glory.
Jesus isn’t just a lion. He’s also the Lamb. From there on in Rev, the symbols of Jesus are oxymoronic. Jesus the Lion is mostly called the Lamb right up to the end. It makes for some interesting word-pictures:
6:16 the wrath of the Lamb (ever see an angry lamb? What will it do? Show it’s teeth? Make its wool stand up on the back of it’s neck? Bleat at you?)
17:14 a great war, and the Lamb overcomes, because the Lamb is Lord of Lords and King of Kings
But that’s how Jesus is. JB introduces Him by saying, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” The Lion of Judah is also the lamb of sacrifice.
His words show He was lion and lamb
• Jesus, who harshly rebukes the hypocrisy of the Jews of Jerusalem, weeps over the city of Jerusalem because they rejected Him
• Jesus, the One with authority over death, shouts for Lazarus to come out of the grave, but doesn’t open his mouth to defend His own life in front of Herod.
His actions show He was lion and lamb
• Jesus, the Master, also stoops to do the lowliest servant’s job of washing feet
• Jesus, whose presence makes the demons beg Him to go easy them, is also the Jesus who takes children in His arms and blesses them.
In fact, His whole purpose of coming to earth was full of both being lion and lamb
• Jesus, Who commanded the wind and waves to be still, didn’t threaten those who were crucifying Him; didn’t order His angels to the rescue
• Jesus, who was the light of life, endured the worst of darkness
• Jesus, Who is the Bread of Life, allowed Himself to go hungry
• Jesus, Who exists in the form of God, empties Himself to become a helpless human baby
• Jesus, Who is the King of Kings, took on the form of a servant
• Jesus, Who is the Good Shepherd, is led like a lamb to the slaughter
• Jesus, Who is the Lord of life, died the equivalent of eternal death for all people
• Jesus, the great physician who healed so many of their physical ills, is crushed for our iniquities, bruised for our transgressions
The perfect combination of steel and velvet – Lion and Lamb. This is Jesus.
Why? Because of you. Because of me.
You and I have a 2-fold problem because of sin: We’re guilty, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. That’s our first problem. We’re guilty.
We’re also stained. (Jer 17:9) “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Our lives are sin-sick. Not only do the legal books record that we’re guilty sinners, but we also think like sinners and act like sinners. That’s our 2nd problem. That problem can be remedied only by a powerful transformation taking place in our lives.
We’re in double trouble. Guilt. Sickness. And we need the double cure. We don’t need just a lion to be our strong champion. We don’t need just a lamb to be our sacrifice.
We need the Lion and the Lamb. Jesus not only accepts the punishment of our sin by being the sacrificial Lamb, He’s also the mighty Lion Who deals with the effects of sin on our whole lives.
That means today that we need to accept and appreciate that Jesus is both the Lion and the Lamb.
That means…
I. I Accept Jesus for Who and What He is
I accept that He came not only as the mighty lion of Judah, but also as the humble lamb of sacrifice. I accept that God’s plan for my salvation included a cross and humility, and suffering. I accept Jesus the way He is.
The Jews were disappointed. They read the OT lion passages, but not the lamb ones! They liked to think about liberation from Rome and freedom from worry. They liked to consider the great day that the Messiah would come and make everything better. Frankly, that’s what I would look for if I were “shopping for a savior” – but God’s ways are higher than our ways.
Many have tried to conform God to fit our ways. For example, there have been those who tried to remove all the blood language from the Bible, and from the songs we sing: “Oh victory in Jesus, My savior forever! He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood – oooops!” We like that victorious living, but let’s not get into that sacrificial lamb stuff. That’s messy. That sounds too much like something gone wrong. Let’s get back to that powerful lion-person: “There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood – oooops! There it is again!”
There is no bloodless Bible! Be glad for it, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9:22)
But understand this: it’s that same sacrifice of Jesus that guarantees God’s triumph in the world –
(Isaiah 53:10) “Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.”
What you have to decide is if you’ll be numbered among those who accept Jesus and His work as the Lamb for you. (we’ll have a chance for you to do that in a while)
(1 Corinthians 1:18;22-24) For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . .
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
This 2-fold character of Jesus also means that when I do accept Him, I don’t just accept Him as my Savior. I also accept Him as my Lord. I don’t just accept His offer to pay the debt I owe. I also accept His rule in my life and I invite Him there to do a work on me.
I accept Jesus for Who and what He is.
When I accept Jesus the Lion and the Lamb, I not only accept Him, but…
II. I Accept whatever is associated with belonging to Him
-There was lesson for the 1st cent. Christians in Revelation 5:9-10 – a powerful lesson as John described for them a Lamb who is both King and Conqueror – a lesson in triumph through suffering, victory through death. There wasn’t a lot of glamour to being a Christian. Jesus had won salvation by suffering and dying for them, and many of them would win their greatest victory by suffering or by dying for Him.
-That lesson doesn’t end with 1st century Christians. You were afraid I was going to point that out, weren’t you? But when you accept Jesus, the Lion and Lamb, it means you also accept without shame whatever goes along with belonging to Him.
That’s why Peter said, (1 Peter 4:16) “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
(1 Peter 3:14) “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened."
(Romans 1:16) I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
(2 Tim 1:12) That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
-Go ahead and idolize the hollow heroes of celebrity. The bottom line is that you and I and history look up the most to those who were put through the wringer and endured it gracefully. The real heroes are those who were able to stand up under adversity and threat.
And Jesus said, (Matthew 11:6) “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”
Face it, when you accept Someone Whose ministry and character and actions are composed of 2 totally different elements, you accept along with Him the insults of those who think you’re silly for doing it.
(Matthew 5:11-12) "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
But, you know what else? I also accept the association of being people who love each other, who are free from the love of money, who care for their families, who are honest and real. I gladly accept whatever is comes with belonging to Him.
Finally, when I accept Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb,
III. I Accept the Challenge to Be Like Him
Jesus’ primary reason for coming was to die, not to be an example. We can’t be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Still, we can make it our goal to serve and not to be served, to seek and save that which was lost, and to testify to the truth, just like He did.
-Part of being like Jesus means having this double character of lion and lamb in the way we live.
You can hear Jesus saying this when He tells His disciples,
(Matthew 10:16) “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
You can hear it in the words of Paul as he writes about suffering for being a Christian:
(Romans 8:35-37) “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
The same Paul who wrote:
(2 Corinthians 4:10-11) We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.”
Also wrote:
(2 Timothy 1:7) For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
We carry about in our bodies the death of Jesus, and we are more than conquerors?
Lion & Lamb. Steel and velvet. Accepting Jesus means I accept the challenge to be a person like Him.
Conclusion:
I accept Jesus for Who He is.
I accept whatever is associated with belonging to Him.
I accept the challenge to be like Him.
There’s a key here: you have to accept it. No one can be forced into accepting Jesus. There’s a story that Constantine tried to force his army to become Christians by marching them through the river and “baptizing” them. Nice try, but God never forces anyone to accept the free gift of life in Jesus!
So, after you’ve seen Jesus from these different angles, what would you do?
Would you accept Him for the first time as your Lord?
Would you finally accept the challenge to be more like Him in some particular way this morning?
