Spring Training
Every year in February, baseball players head to Arizona and Florida to prepare for the upcoming baseball season. They gather to stretch muscles, practice their skills, get in shape, and work on the fundamentals to help them play together as a team.
Pitchers will work on arm strength or some new pitch. Runners work on sliding and running the bases. Batters will practice hitting to the opposite field or bunting, or sacrificing.
The skill I want to talk about today is the sacrifice. It’s when the batter hits a ball that is caught or fielded in a way the batter is out, yet the runners already on base advance to the next base. The batter sacrifices his chance to maybe get on base safely. The batter is out, but the result was good for the team.
This morning I want to talk about another kind of sacrifice. This kind of sacrifice doesn’t contribute to winning a baseball game, but accomplishes much, much more – salvation to all of God’s children.
This sacrifice didn’t take place on a well-manicured field of green grass with pretty white foul lines, players hitting a round ball with a smooth, polished stick of wood. No, this sacrifice I’m talking about took place at a rock-strewn hill on 2 rough, splintered sticks of wood. This sacrifice took place on a cross.
The cross is at the center of all Christianity. It was while our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross that our sins were forgiven. He sacrificed Himself for the good of the team. This wasn’t an easy task for Him, but He did it willingly, because He loves us and it was the will of His Father. The Lamb of God, who knew no sin, had to take on all the sins of the world. And without this sacrifice, we couldn’t advance safely to the next base, which is heaven.
The timing of this sacrifice was during the Passover celebration. The Passover celebration comes from the final plague on the Pharaoh and Egypt that all firstborn males were to die. To paraphrase what the Lord told Moses in Exodus chap. 12, the Israelites were to sacrifice a lamb, a year old male lamb without defect at twilight on the 14th day of the month.
Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. They were given specific instructions on how to prepare the meat and to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. On that same night the Lord was going to pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, men and animals. But to the ones with blood on the doorframes, the Lord said, “I will pass over you.” It was the blood of the Passover lamb that saved the 1st born of the Israelites in Egypt. And the Passover celebration had been observed every year since that time.
Several years later Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey through the Eastern Gate at the same time the lambs for the Passover were entering Jerusalem through the sheep gate. It was 4 days before the Passover. During the preparation for Passover, the lambs had to be set apart for 4 days and inspected by the Priests to ensure that they were without blemish and perfect. Just as the lambs were examined for flaws, the Lamb of God was examined & interrogated to find some flaw in Him. Even Pilate had to admit "I find no fault in Him."
At three o’clock in the afternoon on the day of Passover, the priest lifted the heads of the sacrificial lambs and killed them. At the same time on Mount Calvary, Roman soldiers nailed the perfect Lamb of God to the cross to sacrifice him.
When the Priest sacrificed the lambs, they were not to break any bones of the lambs. When the Roman soldiers came to make sure the ones hanging on the cross were dead, they broke the legs of the two thieves, but since Jesus was already dead, none of His bones were broken. These two things were not coincidences. It was all part of God’s plan. God gave His only Son, as a sacrificial lamb for our sins.
People think Jesus was nailed to the cross, hung there for a few hours, and died without much pain or suffering. Not true. Jesus felt pain, and not just physically. He suffered emotionally, as well. Besides the extreme physical pain of having nails driven through his wrists and feet, He suffered when he took on all of our sins on himself (and I’m not just talking about yours and mine. I’m talking about all the sins of the world from the beginning till now and in the future).
Add to this the emotional pain of His Father looking away from Him hanging on the cross because a righteous God cannot look upon His Son filled with these sins. How would you feel if your Dad told you that He could not stand to look at you? It would hurt deeply. Jesus was hurt, too, and we need to remember that we were the cause.
Jesus cries out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
This had to be the greatest pain of all and we caused it with our sins.
Verse 18 says, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God.” Jesus didn’t die twice, three times, four times. He isn’t still hanging on the cross, dying again and again. It’s done! It’s over! He died ONCE for ALL! He died ONE time for ALL sin. To use His own words, “It is finished.” Jesus offering Himself as a sacrifice on the cross paid our debt. His blood covers our sin.
Now His death is both bad news and good news. It’s bad news in the sense that the only sinless person ever had to die for you and me and every other person who lived. But it’s good news because of what it means for us. Jesus suffered for us.
Now, in spring training, these ball players are running, stretching, exercising, sweating and punishing their bodies. And some of these guys have had to punish their bodies more, or suffer some because of the off-season. Maybe they’ve lived a little too large, not staying in shape, enjoying the high life too much. Now they’ve got to lose that extra weight and push to get muscles back into shape before the season starts. Pay the piper, you might say.
And so they suffer to prepare themselves for what is to come. To better understand this passage, we must look and relate it to what is before and comes after. In verse 17, Peter tells us, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.”
Sometimes it is God’s will to suffer for doing right and man, that’s tough to swallow. But we need to hear and know this. Peter explains that sometimes it is God’s will that we suffer for doing right. Vs. 18, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,……” God loved His Son. But He also loves us. So much so that, let me see, I think there’s a verse in the Bible that says something like, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son……”. “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all……”
You know if Jesus can suffer for us, I think we can surely suffer some for Him. Now look at what follows in Chap. 4, vs. 1. “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention……”. Suffer for doing right, just like Jesus. The point of 3:17 and 4:1 is to get ready to suffer for doing what is right.
Look at this season of Lent we are in as part of our spring training. Just like some of those ball players may have to suffer, we, too, may have to suffer. They may have to give up eating rich foods, drinking too much, lounging instead of working out, and other things that aren’t necessarily good for them. And they may suffer for doing what is right – getting in shape for the season that lies ahead.
We may have to suffer this Lenten season, too, by giving up things that aren’t good for us. We may have to give up our prejudices, our attitudes, our way of talking about others, or any number of things that aren’t good for us. Yes, it may be a sacrifice to give up certain things and, yes, we may seem to suffer for what doing what is right, but we need to get in shape for the season that lies ahead.
Jesus suffered for sins, once for all, for us. He performed the ultimate sacrifice for us. We need to take our spring training seriously. Life is our spring training where we suffer a little bit as we work on our sacrificing skills; our giving up those things that put Jesus on the cross. Life is our spring training that is preparing us for the season that lies ahead.
