Near the beginning of the history of humanity, in the second generation of the human race, there were two brothers. Unlike their parents, neither brother had had the opportunity to know God personally by talking with him face-to-face. Yet both brothers had the desire to please God, and so each one prepared a gift for God. One brother worked hard in his field and brought a basket filled with a variety of fruits to present to God as a gift. His younger brother brought a lamb as a sacrifice to God.

For some reason, God liked the gift of the younger brother, but God didn’t accept the fruit basket from the older one.

Yet we might ask ourselves today: why would an all-powerful God care about one particular gift and yet disregard another? Could he not create anything that he wants at any time that he wants?

Well, it was not the actual gifts that counted, but, rather, the attitudes of the hearts of the brothers that mattered to God. The older one said to himself as he put his basket of fruits together: “Look at what I’ve done for God. I’ve worked hard for many months, from sunrise to sunset each day, to grow these pieces of fruit for God. Surely God will recognize all of the hard work that I’ve done for him and accept my gift with great pleasure. With this gift, God will also grant me a favored place in the sight of my family.” The younger one, on the other hand, said something like this to himself as prepared his lamb as a gift for God: “You know, there is really nothing that I could give to God that he couldn’t provide for himself if he really wanted to do that. I also see that my parents had once had a much closer relationship with God, even to the point of speaking with him face-to-face on a daily basis. That opportunity is now closed off to me and my brother because my parents stepped outside of the spiritual boundaries that God had carefully set up for them. I have no power in and of myself to repair that breach of trust and relationship with God. Yet, I truly desire to show God that I love him. I love him because I can see that, since God did not destroy my parents even though they had disobeyed him, God must still have a plan for my family. The one way that I know how to demonstrate love is to make a sacrifice. If I let go of something that is very meaningful to me while expecting nothing in return, that’s the best that I can think of to show my love. After all, God made everything anyway, including all of the animals that I watch over. By giving one of them to God, I honor him and show that I’m not interested in hoarding what he has given to me for myself. By shedding its blood, there is no way back: It’s life will be poured out and I can never recover my loss. Yet, I’ll show God that I love him the most, by giving up one of my finest lambs to him. Its very life will demonstrate the love that I have for him.”

The older brother approached God by an attitude of exchange and barter: I do something for God; now God should do something for me. The younger brother came to God with an attitude of love and sacrifice: I give up something special to him, one of my lambs in the prime of its life, simply because I love him.

This way of the lamb is the way of love.