Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Text:
John 1:29 |
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Come and see!
“Look!
There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
This is what John the Baptist said when he caught
sight of Jesus. He went on to say,
“I can tell you Jesus is the Son
of God.” (John 1:34).
The next day John sees Jesus
again and states for all to hear, “Look!
There is the Lamb of God!”
What are we to
make of John the Baptist calling Jesus a lamb?
I know we use that sentence in our service order almost every Sunday, and
many of us are very familiar with this language but have you ever really thought
about what John was really saying about Jesus.
We can’t
dismiss what John the Baptist says here as just the ramblings of a weirdo from
the wilderness. To call Jesus
“The Lamb of God” must have been
important otherwise the Gospel writer wouldn’t have bothered to include this
description of Jesus. And believe
me, when the John the gospel writer includes a statement like this, we ought to
sit up and listen.
Let’s talk
about lambs for a minute.
They are cute and cuddly.
They are vulnerable and helpless.
They are an easy meal for foxes and dingoes.
They have a mob mentality that makes it difficult to get them to go where you
want them to go. Try and get a mob
of sheep to go through a gate is a very challenging job and they will refuse to
go through no matter how much you whoop and holler.
But when one goes through and the rest follow.
Their
stubbornness and lack of understanding of danger is well known.
None of this is a good reason to call Jesus a lamb.
Why doesn’t
John the Baptist say,
“Look! There is the Lion of God!” or
“There is the Eagle of God” or
“There is the Serpent of God” (thinking of the serpent that Moses put on a pole
that saved the people of Israel).
These are all powerful images and immediately would have fitted with the kind of
messiah everyone was expecting – a mighty and powerful ruler.
But a lamb?
The Gospel
writer includes this statement of John the Baptist because he is very keen on
making sure everyone gets it right about who Jesus is.
Jesus is God; the same God who loved and cared for the people of Israel
centuries before. Just as God
loved, cared and rescued his people in the past, he will do so again, this time
through Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.
Let’s look at
some reasons why John the Baptist uses the image of a lamb.
Recall the time God rescued his people from slavery and death in Egypt.
A lamb was killed and its blood painted on the doorposts and the people
were saved and given a new hope for the future.
Through the blood of the lamb, God rescued his people.
This became known as the Passover Lamb.
Then there were
ritual sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem.
Even though the temple had been destroyed by the time John wrote his
Gospel, and lambs were no longer a part of the ritual sacrifices, John the
Baptist’s statement about Jesus being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world would have raised a few eyebrows.
Was John suggesting here that Jesus is the new sacrificial lamb for the
sin of all people?
This thought is
backed up by the familiar Old Testament passage,
“He was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and
by his bruises we are healed ... like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and
like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth”
(53:7).
This person who will bear the punishment we deserve and die in our place will
suffer like a lamb to be slaughtered.
So, with all
this background information about the Passover Lamb, the lambs sacrificed in the
temple, and the prophesy that there is one coming who will suffer for the sins
of all people and be slaughtered like a lamb, we are beginning to understand why
John said, “Look! There is the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world!” This image of the lamb tells us a
lot about Jesus.
The Lamb of God
is the one who rescues us, releases us from the power of everything that holds
us back, frees us from the sentence of death.
He gives us life, eternal life, because all our sin has been wiped away
and we are able to inherit a place in heaven.
Because of the blood of the Lamb we are made clean and white.
We are forgiven and free.
Without a doubt, we are God’s precious dearly loved treasures and the Lamb will
even give his life for us.
Having said all
this about John the Baptist’s proclamation,
“Look! There is the Lamb of God”, I’m
not sure we have yet discovered the complete reason why the gospel writer has
included this in his book. Yes,
it’s a valuable piece of information but there’s more.
An important
question that I like to ask myself as I read the Bible is, “So what?”
It’s great to know all these nice things about Jesus – how he is the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world but these are just facts. Interesting
facts,
important facts,
thought provoking facts,
fascinating facts,
and for some, yes, they might seem irrelevant facts because they have gone right
over their heads.
What is
important in the reading today is what happened after John the Baptist’s
pronouncement, “Look! There is the Lamb
of God!” Two men who had been following John, looked Jesus up and we are
told they remained with him the rest of the day.
The word used
here is the same used later by John in chapter 15 and has been translated as
‘abide’ or ‘remain’ or ‘stay’ meaning a very close relationship is created
between Jesus and those who ‘abide’ in him. Jesus talked about his relationship
with us, “I am the vine; you are the
branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from
me you can do nothing.”
The point I want to make is that when these two disciples, Andrew and probably
John, met with Jesus, they remained with him, they formed a close relationship
with Jesus, and something happened that changed them.
The details are
sketchy but it’s the way John uses this word ‘abide’ here that indicates
something more than a casual meeting.
They get up close and personal with Jesus like they had never done with
anyone else before. Jesus was not
just ‘The Lamb of God’ as John the
Baptist had said, but he was very real, very personal, and very relevant for
them. Jesus was the one who knew
about their own personal troubles, and weaknesses, and fears, and inevitable
death. Jesus not only understood their
inner soul you might say, but Jesus is God and there is no-one better to deal
with what bothered them.
Jesus was the
real deal for Andrew and he went and found his brother Simon and told him,
“We have found the Messiah – one who
really can deal with the things that matter in our lives.
Come and check him out”. The
next day Philip did the same and invited Nathanael to
“Come and see”.
They were excited; this was extremely good news.
What the Baptist said was not some boring old fact about the messiah that
they had learnt at synagogue school but he was talking about a connection, a
relationship, the amazing and extraordinary love that God has for each one of
us.
It’s easy for us to put Jesus in a box,
over there separate from everything else,
keep him with our Sunday best,
bring him out on special occasions,
keep him with our other quaint treasures
and believe that we know who Jesus is.
On the other hand, some of us have a sense
that we are called by God and because we live in a society that looks at
results, we get busy. We get so
busy that there is no time for anything or anyone else.
My friends, that’s not abiding in Jesus;
that’s not remaining in him,
that’s not walking with him every day,
that’s not really knowing him as the Lamb of God who loves you – every nasty
little bit of you and died on a cross for you because of that love.
When Jesus says, “Follow me”, he is
calling us first to himself – to a personal intimacy, to sharing life with him,
to spending quality time with him.
We are simply asked to get to know God
and Jesus better.
It’s a call to listen,
to seek him first,
to know him better
and to move toward making that relationship the central focus of our lives.
It’s time to listen to what the Lord God is saying.
We need that first.
We need that most.
It was only after this remaining/abiding with Jesus that he gave them things to
do.
Today this reading invites us to
“Come and see” what John the Baptist
and Andrew and Simon and Nathanael and John saw.
Come and see and remain – abide, get close, get to know, through his Word in the
Bible and through others, that Jesus is the one and only who can give you a real
future – now and forever.
Jesus invites you to abide, remain, dwell with him.
He invites you into a relationship with him.
He calls each of us to “come and see”
and “follow”.
Come and see who truly loves you.
© Pastor Vince
Gerhardy
E-mail:
sermonsonthenet@outlook.com
15th January 2017