Well, the
poinsettias are gone, the lights are down, the Christmas season is over. Now we
move on with the very beginning of Jesus’ public life, usually referred to as
his ministry. We come upon John the Baptist seeing Jesus and pointing to
him. This
is the Lamb of God, he says[1].
Lamb of God. We use that term so often
that it is easy for us to overlook the deep theology and the tremendous love of
our God contained in his sending his Son to be the Lamb.
The first place
we come upon the concept of the Lamb of God is in the Book of the Prophet
Isaiah[2]
and although this was written six hundred years before Jesus, it describes the
feelings of God’s people as they look at Jesus on the cross. It’s short, so let
me quote it:
Who would believe what we have heard? To
whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to
make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by men, a man
of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their
faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one
smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his
stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep, each
following his own way; but the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.
Though he was harshly treated, he
submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep
before the shearers; he was silent and opened not his mouth[3].
He is wounded
for our sins, bruised for our iniquities. He has taken upon himself the chastisement
that makes us whole. That is how John the Baptist views Jesus when he says, Look, there is the Lamb of God.
The question
comes: why? Why did the world need a
Savior? Why did God’s son become a man to suffer and die for us? Did the
Word have to become Flesh? Was Christmas necessary? Well, we can’t tell God
what he can and can’t do, or what is necessary or not necessary. But we can
consider this: From the very beginning of the world, all creation was entrusted
to human beings. But man, in his selfishness and self centeredness, perverted the
whole purpose for creation. Instead of glorifying God, creation was to be used
to satisfy man’s selfish needs. But even with this, God still did not take
the gift of creation away from man. A man would once more restore creation to
God’s original plan. Jesus Christ is
this man.
Perhaps this would
be clearer if I present it this way: Mankind’s sin was that he was so wrapped
up in himself that he had no room for God. He forced the good things of the
world to be an end for his selfishness rather than a means of glorifying God. This
is how man perverted God’s purpose for creation. As long as man lived like
this, true love could not exist in the world. People could not give themselves
to others or to another because their only concept of life was to take, not to
give. Life, therefore, was meaningless
and frustrating.
Jesus came to
live as the Father wants us all to live. He sacrificed himself completely for others so that we could
experience sacrificial love. He called us to use creation as the Father meant
creation to be used. God’s plan for mankind could once more be put into effect
since the Son of God became a man. Still entrusted with creation, a man
restores the world.
In the visions
of the fifth chapter of the Book of Revelation a book is brought out sealed
with seven seals. The book is God’s plan for mankind. But the plan is sealed. Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?[4]
A voice cries out. But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was
able to open the scroll or to examine it. The visionary sheds many tears
because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to examine it. But then
one of the elders said, Do not weep. The
lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed, enabling him to
open the scroll with its seven seals. Then the visionary saw standing in
the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and the elders, a Lamb
that seemed to have been slain. Only the lamb was worthy to once more restore
God’s plan for mankind.
And John the Baptist
saw Jesus and proclaimed, Look, there is
the Lamb of God. He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit[5]. Jesus’ disciples would be given the power of
God to transform the world. They would be given the power to create a new
world, a world with a new way of living, the way of sacrificial love.
When we say or
sing, Lamb of God we are remembering
what Jesus did for us and what he has empowered us to do for others. We are
remembering his sacrifice to make God’s love real on earth. We are reminding
ourselves that joining Jesus in sacrificial love is the only way we can be his
followers.
John the Baptist
found his reason for existence. He was to point
out the Lamb of God to the world. His mission is not different from the
mission of every single Christian. We are to
point out the Lamb of God to the world. There is nothing greater that any
of us can do in our lives than point Christ out to others. John the Baptist was
not a typical person of his time. He was extraordinary. When we consider his
life, we realize that it was not John’s dress or preaching that made him
extraordinary, it was the fact that he found the purpose for his life: his
vocation! He looked to Jesus and said, There
is the Lamb of God[6].
We have been called to do the same ■
