Who is worthy to open the scroll? cried the angel. Well, none were found worthy but the Lion of Judah. And what made Jesus worthy? We see in the hymns sung by the four beings and the twenty-four elders, “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth.” (verses 9 & 10).
Jesus' worthiness to open the scroll stems from His sacrifice for all of humanity, which made them like priests and able to go directly to God and be in relationship with the Lord. By taking on our sin, Jesus made us clean, while he became a vessel for all our sin.
When we consider this act, and what it means, we too will find Jesus worthy. We know that sin causes separation from God and in our state of sin, we cannot be in direct relationship with God. In the Old Testament, the priesthood was established to develop a relationship between God and the nation of Israel. The priest went through many rituals and ceremonies to become clean in order to interact with God. It was only once a year that the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies and be in the presence of God and this was only after a great deal of purifying and cleansing rituals.
Through Jesus' sacrifice. all those who accept the gift he offers are considered clean and able to interact with God on a daily basis. For a moment, consider what it would be like to not be able to talk to God the way we do and hear from the Lord without going through an intermediary. If I were to remove that relationship from my life, it would never be the same. I would feel an emptiness and a great deal of sadness. Now granted, I would not have experienced it ever without Jesus' sacrifice, but imagine always having a place in you that was never whole and was always crying out for something that it could never have. Would you want to live that way?
Maybe we experienced that before we developed a relationship with God or maybe we only understood we were that way after we developed a relationship with God, but I would never want to go back there. Since I developed a relationship with God, things have never been the same. Not always easy, but always better.
And for that, Jesus IS worthy!
P.S. I apologize for the the lack of reflection yesterday, I was without Internet until late in the day, and I must confess that by that point, I let the business of my life distract me from going back and sharing my reflection on the Word. Please forgive me.
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