The Lamb of God caught in a thicket

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” John the baptist shouts, as he sees Jesus coming toward him. Last week we heard John declare in Matthew’s Gospel, that he was surprised that Jesus wanted to be baptised by him. And yet he fulfilled Jesus’s request and in doing so, he got to see the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and heard the Father’s voice declare that Jesus was his beloved, with whom he was well pleased. And so John confirms again in John’s Gospel testimony, “this Jesus is the Chosen one,” the one chosen by God, that is.

John makes some pretty fantastic declarations of who Jesus is: “After me comes a man [Jesus] who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” What on earth does this mean! Well we know from our story so far, beginning in Advent when John says, “repent, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” that John the Baptist is sent as a prophet to proclaim to others what is coming: God’s kingdom is breaking into this world. The time is now, and it’s happening right here. And the kingdom is coming not in a series of events, but rather in a Person. A Person whose sandals John says he’s unworthy to tie. 

And yet, of all the curious/odd/ or confusing things to say, this Person who is coming ranks ahead of John the prophet why? Because he was actually before John. What does this have to do with anything? Birth order? Nah. Nope. John is making a much, much bigger claim than this. He is claiming not simply that Jesus comes before him; but that Jesus is before every single other human being: in fact he is the very root, the cause, the origin, of every single other human being who has ever or will ever exist. “In the beginning was the Word, Jesus. He was in the beginning with God. For he is eternally so. Without Jesus, not one thing came into being, for Jesus is God.” That’s the bigger, deeper claim that John is making here. And why is he making that claim? What evidence does he have for it? Not merely a dream, or Jesus’s own testimony. 

He has heard God the Father proclaim his affirmation of God the Son whom John baptises, while God the Holy Spirit descends upon him. What we would call in theological terms, a theophany. It is a clear fulfillment of God’s promise given throughout the Scriptures: that, “I will redeem my people, I will bind them up, I will heal and restore them.”

In the gospel of Luke, chapter 24:25, we hear that Jesus opened his followers’ minds to understand the Scriptures. They’ve been spending time following, listening, watching, being wholly attentive to this one upon whom God has revealed himself. And in John’s presence we are given front row seats to God breaking into the world not with divine power but in a body just like ours, that enables us to form a relationship with God himself. 

The divinely inspired Scriptures that speak of the majestic power of God who creates the most complex of universes, these are becoming physically real. They’re taking on the living, breathing, walking, talking form of a human being. They are being opened up and unfolded to draw into them, people hearing them not just in Jesus’s time, but for all times. Of course, being good Jews, including John the Baptist, the Scriptures Jesus is talking about are the OT Scriptures, for none of the NT Scriptures were formed until after his death, sometimes many years after. 

And God tells us this over and over and over: recall Abraham willing to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Isaac asks, “Father, where is the sacrifice for sin.” Abraham responds: God will provide. God does provide. He stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac and instead provides a ram caught in a thicket. We have the passover in Egypt where all the families were to take a passover without blemish and sacrifice it and put its blood on the doorpost so that the angel of death would pass over these folks rather than allow them to bear the consequences of evil and sin i.e. death. Or we have the lamb sacrificed every morning and evening in the temple in order to atone for sin. And most profoundly, the prophecy of Isaiah we hear every Good Friday, “But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray … He was oppressed and afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter.

My Lord and my God! John sees the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus and the Father affirm Jesus as his Son and now the Scriptures come alive in their proclamation that God is with us; that God has always been with us, that God will always be with us. In life, in death. In our failure to do good and in our struggle to do so. Jesus, lamb of God, Immanuel with us, take away our sins so that we might rest in your peace; so that, Lord, when we walk out that door into a world that still doesn’t know you, we might, with John, remember that we are bound to one who saves us from death, brings us into new life, and commissions us to go out with Abraham and Moses, with Peter and Andrew, to proclaim in both what we say and do, your forgiveness and love to those whom we encounter. AMEN