Neighborhood Ministries

Mirth-Sacrifice-Lamb The third gift they brought was Mirth in recognition that He would be the sacrificial lamb who would die for all men. Mirth was a burial spice used to embalm the body of the dead to preserve it. As High Priest, Christ would offer Himself willingly, the Lamb without spot or blemish for there was no sin in Him, to pay the price to redeem us from the power of sin and death. With His death and resurrection, there was no longer any use for the temple sacrifices because He was the ultimate and final sacrifice that paid for the sins of all mankind. At His death, the curtain of the temple that separated us from God, was torn in two, from top to bottom, opening the way for us to approach God.

Expectation-Angel-From the time of Adam, God had promised that He would send a deliverer. Before Judah fell to the Babylonians, the prophets reminded the Jews of the promise of a Messiah. When Judah fell to conquerors after the return from Babylon, the Jews again looked for the promised Messiah that would deliver them from their enemies. When the angel appeared to Mary, he told her that the time had come and she would conceive and bear a son. He would be the Messiah and His name would be Jesus (a form of Jeshua or Joshua)(meaning God is Salvation) He would be a leader like Joshua who would lead His people out of Egypt (the world) into the Promised land. Because of His name, the Jews did not realize that He must first come to be the Sacrificial Lamb before He would come as the conquering King. He could have been born in a palace but lowered Himself to come not only as a mere man, but as the lowest of men, born in a stable.