January 19, 2020

 January 19, 2019               John 1:29-42       Isaiah 49:1-7       1 Corinthians 1:1-9

                Every Gospel writer takes a different way of introducing Jesus.  Matthew starts with the genealogy to show us where Jesus has come from and who he is related to.  Luke starts with the birth of John the Baptist foretold, followed by the angel’s visit to Mary.  Mark also begins with John the Baptist, but it’s after he’s all grown up.  And now we have John, the Gospel written last of the four.  John begins in the beginning, which are the verses leading up to this.  In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.  John tells us that Christ, the word, the promise, the logos, the order, has always been and always will be.  It is a very poetic introduction with phrases like: “As many as received him, he gave power to become children of God,” and “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness and has not overcome it.”

                Then John the Gospel writer introduces John the Baptist.  Everyone is trying to figure out who John the Baptist is.  He denies being a prophet or Elijah, only that he is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.”  And then we come to today’s Gospel.

                This is our first glimpse of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  Immediately John calls him the Lamb of God.  It is a very strange introduction and nickname.  John the Baptist had said in the other Gospels that the one who came after him would baptize with Holy Spirit and fire and that his winnowing fork was in his hand to clear his threshing floor.  That sounds like a very fiery character, strong and angry.  But today he calls him a lamb.  John’s Gospel is the only one to refer to him as a lamb.  The lamb imagery is all over the Bible, but the only places Jesus or the Messiah is called the lamb is in the Gospel of John and in Revelation, which some people say is written by the same writer as this Gospel. 

                Lambs are all over the scriptures.  Immediately I think of the 23^rd Psalm.  The Lord is my shepherd.  A lamb comes up when King David was being rebuked for taking Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and having her husband sent to the front lines to be killed.  Nathan, a prophet, tells him a story about a man who had plenty of lambs but who saw one belonging to his neighbor and went and took it.  When David declares this man who took the lamb is in the wrong, Nathan says, “You are the man!”  The lamb here represents Bathsheba, another man’s property as she would have been considered, and innocent, as she was.  Other lambs in the Old Testament are the lambs that are sacrificed for the Passover and their blood placed over the doors.  Joseph in Egypt was reported to have quite a flock of sheep and lambs that added to his prosperity. Lambs were part of the ritual animal sacrifices of the Israelites to God. And of course there is the idea of the scapegoat, an animal that a priest would symbolically place the sins of the people upon, and the animal would be driven from the community to supposedly take away the sins. 

                As I mentioned last week, Herod has an Eagle, Caesar has a Hawk, and Jesus has a dove, an innocent, gentle creature.  Here his nickname is Lamb of God, another gentle creature.  When you give someone a nickname or name a sports team, you have the Seahawks—what other animal names do we have for sports teams?  Any lambs?  The Port Orchard Lambs!  You know they aren’t going to win any games.  What do we do with lambs?  We eat them for supper!  They are victims.

                The lambs will come up again in John’s Gospel, too.  The other three Gospels have a different timeline.  For the Gospel of John, Jesus is hanging on the cross as the lambs are being slaughtered for the Passover meal.  He makes a very close connection between Jesus, the lamb of God, and the sacrificial lambs that lead to the passing over of the angel of death and the rescue of the Israelites.

                What does this Lamb of God do?  He takes away the sin of the world.  Wow!  At the introduction of Jesus, sin is removed, taken away.  Here is someone who redefines what it is to be human.  We have been defined by sin since Adam and Eve.  Our failures haunt us.  But Jesus is introduced here as taking that sin away.  We start our service with confession and forgiveness for a reason.  We are leaving that sin behind.  Jesus is taking it away.  Now we can proceed with boldness.  We can come before God and worship without that burden. 

                John the Baptist’s testimony gets some of John’s disciples interested in Jesus.  Jesus suddenly realizes he is being followed and he speaks his first words in this Gospel, “What are you looking for?”  “What’s up, guys?”  “What do you want?”  I love that Jesus asks so many questions.  We’ve been talking about this at adult forum.  Some people see the Bible as a book with all the answers, but often we find questions in the Bible that lead us on our path toward relationship with God and other people.  Jesus could have sat right down and started teaching them, but instead he invited them on a journey to discover for themselves what they were really seeking, and what would really satisfy their need.  Sometimes we want quick fixes or easy answers, but these never satisfy.  The world promises if we have this or that possession people will like us and we’ll have all kinds of confidence and success, but that is a lie.  It is a lie we cling to.  I don’t want to let go of my comforts.  Somehow, I still treasure them even though I know they don’t satisfy me.  But Jesus offers us something that does satisfy: Ever evolving relationship with him and the body of Christ, in which we ask questions, rediscover ourselves, tell the truth, find forgiveness and love, die to sin and brokenness, and are transformed to live truly free and abundantly.

                The disciples respond with another question, “Where are you staying?”  They ask this because they want to spend time with him.  Jesus says, “Come and see.”  This simple introduction is so beautiful.  I can picture myself there.  Can you?  I can see myself tiptoeing behind Jesus, curious, watching, wondering what he’d do next, not wanting to bother him.  I can picture him looking back and asking me, “What do you want?”  And I would probably not really know what I wanted, but that I was curious and interested.  So maybe I’d ask another question, “Wanna hang out?  Get coffee or tea sometime, you know at your convenience.”  And he’d say, “Come on!” 

                Whatever we know or think we know about Jesus or God or the Bible or Lutheranism, I hope we will always stay curious.  I hope we will wonder where Jesus is staying—it’s probably somewhere unexpected.  I hope we will follow him there and all the places he keeps inviting us.  If not, there is another invitation, and another.  Even until 4 o’clock or later, which was the time that the last of the vineyard workers were called to work in the parable of the vineyard where the ones who came late got paid the same as those who worked all day.  God loves the ones who come to work late, as much as God loves the ones who have born the burden of the day.  We don’t get rewarded more or less depending on how much we’ve done or how soon we got it.  It is simply a journey of discovery that we’re invited on.  To go on a journey or enter into a relationship, you have to leave something behind.  Sometimes you leave your home and comforts.  Sometimes you leave ideas of who you thought you were.  You put yourself in a vulnerable position, kind of like a lamb or a dove.  You risk not knowing the answers.  You risk making a mistake, taking a wrong turn, embarrassing yourself or failing on your quest.  But if you never leave, all you’ll have is the unsatisfying life you already have. 

                God had been begging the people and making covenants with the people and trying to keep up a relationship and finally, God said, “I’m coming down there myself.”  God came and saw so that we would have faith that coming and seeing was a good response to God’s invitation to us into relationship and transformation.  God showed us that fear of embarrassment, that fear of failure was not a good excuse to stay put.  God was vulnerable at every turn, risked everything to show us God’s love.  God was born in nakedness and poverty.   God touched people who were sick and dying.  God talked to people who were shamed by their culture to think that their sin had caused their child to be blind.  God talked to people who committed adultery, who were shacking up, who were blamed for not having a job or having enough to eat.  God fed refugees, illegal aliens, unbelievers, thieves, murderers.  God showed that no past is so sinful that it can keep you from relationship with God.  No human state is so embarrassing or shameful that you can’t live through it or that God can’t reach you through it.  His actions were so offensive to those who wanted to draw the line and say that God couldn’t possibly love this or that person, so offensive that they stripped off all his clothes, and publicly tortured him until he died, mocking him, while his friends abandoned him in fear. 

                When we come and see, we will see that God is in relationship with real people who are hurting and different, and afraid.  When we are curious about where Jesus is staying, we will make an effort to step out of our comforts and talk to people who are suffering.  And we will let the parts of us that are hurting, that we are ashamed of, and when we quit hiding those undesirable parts of ourselves, we will find that we are loved.  We are human, we are forgiven, we are freed to live in abundant life. 

                Now that John has introduced Jesus, let’s let Jesus introduce us, rename us as he does Peter in the Gospel.  Let him redefine our lives based on love and abundance and curiosity and hope and relationship, as God’s precious children.