Last Week: Jesus the Son of God, Beloved, Chosen of God. Week Before the King of the Jews

Sermon

Epiphany II Yr C

15/1/17

Eltham

Readings

Isaiah 49:1-7

Psalm 29

John 1:29-29

+FSHS

Last week: Jesus the Son of God, Beloved, Chosen of God. Week before the King of the Jews, the Messiah, Anointed one.

This week: lamb of God. It’s not Matthew, it’s from John, but it continues the theme—and the mystery—of the titles of Jesus. It’s another hint at how the people who continued to be Jesus’ followers were wrestling with trying to understand who this man had been, and was to them.

Lamb of God: at first we think we know what that means, because we say it every week: “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world: have mercy on us.” And it’s partly thanks to John’s declaration which we heard in the gospel reading: “Behold the Lamb of God”, that we make that statement of faith or belief. It’s also because of John’s declaration that we append: “who takes away the sin of the world” to that identification. What would John’s hearers have made of this? What would the hearers of John’s gospel have made of this? And what are we to make of this?

Lamb of God. Image of a lamb: innocent, mild, defenseless, a bit silly (if you’ve ever seen a baby lamb cavorting on wobbly legs). We attach the idea of innocence to the image of the lamb, at least partly because of what Isaiah prophesied about the Servant of God. There are four so-called “songs” in Isaiah about the chosen Servant of God. We heard one last week, and we’ve heard one this morning. There’s another one in which it describes the suffering servant of God as “a lamb, led to the slaughter” who doesn’t cry out. That connotes ideas of sacrifice too… which we’ll return to in a moment. But what we may not be so familiar with, is that the Lamb, like the Messiah, the King descended from David, is an apocalyptic figure. This Lamb, like the other apocalyptic characters, will appear at the end of the world to finally crush evil and destroy it utterly. Hear that: the completely defenseless one would crush evil and its works simply by lifting one hoof. That was the power of the Lamb.

I mentioned sacrifice – which is where our minds go automatically, especially when we combine Lamb of God with “takes away the sin of the world”. One of the unfortunate things which happened in theology is that, in the process of the early Christians seeing Jesus as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, and his death on the cross as the embodiment and fulfillment of all the sacrifices the Jewish people were supposed to make in temple. One of the consequences of this, is that we lost the distinctions and subtleties of the temple system. There was only one lamb which was sacrificed each year, and it wasn’t a sin offering. It was slaughtered, and its lifeblood was scattered in the most holy place on the Day of Atonement. On the other hand, the high priest would take a kid or a lamb, would lay his hands on its head, and lay on the lamb all the sins the people of Israel had supposedly committed in the past year. And then the kid or goat would be driven into the wilderness. It was not sacrificed. It was the scapegoat.

Then there was the Passover lamb, a specimen which was firstborn, without blemish, a year old. Its blood was spread on the lintels of the Israelites’ doors when they were fleeing from Egypt, and the Angel of Death spared those who had the lamb’s blood on their doors. In other words, salvation came to those who were “covered by the blood of the lamb” – a deliverance, defense, a life given to save other lives. Each year Jews still celebrate Passover by eating a lamb (along with bitter herbs and so on), not by sacrificing it.

So when we think about “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” it’s a far more nuanced thing: this one, this Jesus whom John proclaims to be the Lamb of God, is the one who will destroy sin, who will give his life to prevent the death of others, whose life delivers the people of God, and whose innocence should not be mistaken for impotence.

We also need to ask: does John mean the Lamb of God, as in, the Lamb belonging to God? The lamb supplied by God? The lamb who is god-like or godly? Or is he the Lamb FOR God? Thinking back to last week, remember we were talking about Jesus being the Son of God, not in some majestic, untouchable, kingly sense. But that Jesus as Son of God is the one who will not break bruised reeds, who will lift up the fallen, humble the mighty and exalt the humble and meek. He’s the one who will deliver God’s justice, who will see God’s justice done. And he’ll do that by being identified with God and with God’s mission. That’s what we contemplated last week. When we think of the Lamb of God this week, it needs to be seen in a similar sense: the Lamb, in some ways, for God, the lamb who is God to us, the lamb who, as God’s self embodied, will destroy evil once and for all in a final reckoning, and at the same time is completely approachable and even cuddleable and even funny and endearing. The lamb whose innocence beguiles and attracts, and yet whose strength and identity is one of self-giving, and whose orientation is to bring life and salvation to others.

In the second half of the reading, John points out Jesus, the Lamb of God, to two of his learners. And they decide to stalk him, clearly switching allegiance from John to Jesus. He catches them and asks, “What are you seeking?” It’s not the first question we’d think to ask if people were following us. But it’s an incisive question, one which invites the relationship of teacher and learners/disciples. Their response reads weirdly to us: “Where are you staying?” The verb in Greek is about “abiding”, resting… And in John’s gospel we hear Jesus talking about abiding a great deal, especially in chapter 14: “Abide in me and I will abide in you, as the father abides in me.” Just as the Spirit descended as a dove and hovered, abided, over Jesus at his baptism, so the disciples’ question is much more about who Jesus is, and a request to stay, abide with him. Not just in the sense of sleeping under the same roof, but in the sense of tangible connection and living in Jesus’ teaching, and letting it form and shape who they are becoming. Jesus’ response: “Come and see” is an invitation. Note, he doesn’t give an address: “If you turn left onto Main Street, and then right at the roundabout on Fitzsimmons Lane, and it’s the third house on the right. Ask for Bonzo.” He doesn’t give them an address and leave them to it. Instead he invites them to come and see for themselves. Nor is that an invitation for a particular period of time, nor of place… The coming and seeing is about a life lived, about experience, about relationship and connection.

What happens next, is that before they “come and see” they run off to gather others to come and see… Note what they say: “We have found the Messiah”. They give Jesus an identity (albeit one with expectations), and a name. When Andrew drags his brother Simon along, Jesus gives him a name too: “Peter”, Cephas, rock. The giving of names is always significant, because a name embodies an identity. It also suggests some mutual naming going on, mutual recognition. The Lamb of God is making friends, who are trying even in this early stage, to get to know him and make sense of what John said about him. Invitation breeds invitation; expectation increases expectation. John’s statement “Behold the Lamb of God” has led to enlightenment, a moment of epiphany and knowing and light and a new way forward for Andrew, the “other disciple”, and Peter. And also for Jesus himself.

John wasn’t just pointing to Jesus when he said: “Behold the Lamb of God” as though he were pointing to a painting on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. His point was that this apocalyptic Lamb, his identity would crush evil forever, his life would save lives (in many different ways), he himself was the token and emblem of salvation which God would achieve in and through him, and yet he was also approachable, someone John’s disciples could get to know, could abide with, and so find their lives transformed, the brokenness in their lives mended and gently healed, and hope of light and the knowledge of God’s intimate presence breathing through them.

Our invitation today is the same: Behold Jesus, the Lamb of God. It’s in getting to know him, abiding in his light and his truth that we find God’s salvation, healing and wholeness, and hope. We get to know him in prayer, in scripture and talking about it, in communion, in action undertaken in the world as part of serving God, and in the faces of those around us. May his light shine in us this Epiphany season.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

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