Leviticus 1:2, 3 – Lord Spoke to the people of Israel through Moses saying, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the cattle from the herd or from the flock. You shall offer a male without blemish at the door of the tent of meeting that you may be accepted before the Lord’.

When the sinner brought a goat or a sheep to offer it as a burnt offering to the Lord for the forgiveness of his sins, the job of the priest was to inspect the animal to ensure that it did not have any blemish. The sinner was never inspected but the lamb. Over a period of time the job of the priests became so routine that they would hardly look at the sinner but carefully inspect only the sheep. The attitude of the sinner as well as the priest had become so blasé that there was no more pricking of the conscience towards sin because of the sacrifice. Jesus cleansed the temple in the beginning and the end of His ministry because there were only sacrifices and trade in the temple without any conviction of sin.

When Jesus was made the sacrificial lamb, he was interrogated and scrutinized by the family of Annas and Caiphas (High priests) but the real sinner Barrabas was allowed to escape the cross and go scot-free. Even when Jesus was hanging on the cross, God only looked at Him as the scape-goat as well as the sacrificial goat to justify all sinners.

As a matter of fact, the world today dissects, probes, slanders, mocks, persecutes and closely observes the followers of Jesus Christ more than any other group in society because of the high standard of righteousness set by Him. No wonder Jesus said that, “If the world hated you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you”. (John 15:18)

Thought for the day: Christians are always under the lights of the cold glare of criticism of the world because of the purity of its founder.