By: Rev. Gerry Weesner, Maples United Methodist Church
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.’” John 1:29-31 (NIV).
“Look” said John, pointing to Jesus as Jesus draws near to him and his disciples. “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John is referring to the Passover Lamb, the lamb that every household in Israel slaughtered each year and whose blood was then painted on the doorposts of their homes as a way of remembering the first Passover. The Passover Lamb whose blood signified that those who sheltered behind it were to be spared death and given new life.
But when John points at Jesus and says “behold the lamb of God”, he says something more about Jesus than the images of the Passover Lamb might suggest to us. He says that this person, this Lamb of God, provided by God’s own hands, does more than simply spare the lives of his chosen people and help to bring them to the Promised Land.
What John is indicating when he points to Jesus and says “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is that this man, this Jesus is the one promised by Isaiah and so many of the other prophets: That he is the one who is sent by God to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. That he is the one who will enable all people to be free from slavery to sin and reconnect them to the perfect and holy God who created and sustains us.
John is saying that Jesus will free all people from the sentence of death, not just those people God chose at the beginning to be his people and he is giving to those who hear him, to his own disciples, an indication of how that would come about; by the offering of his own body and blood.
The Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the World will offer his body and his blood for us once and for all, the final sacrifice. Here is one who was unblemished, one who was without sin, an innocent person taking upon himself the punishment that should be ours; giving his life that we may have life.
As all the saints and the angels in heaven say in Revelation 5:12b, “Worthy is the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
