When Jesus appears as the Lamb of God, not everyone noticed. While John the Baptist was privy to direct revelation from God to learn who the Lamb of God was, that doesn’t mean you will get tapped on the shoulder too. I’m sure you’ve seen the stereotype of a man hopelessly lost who refuses to ask for directions because he’s too proud. Even with a GPS stuck to your hand, you still can’t find God on your own. Someone has to give you directions. This is what John did – twice in our text, the first time it seems to be for general public, then second was within earshot of two of his disciples – Look the Lamb of God!
How did you find the Lamb? First you didn’t come to him; he comes to you. The last chunk of our text details how Andrew – the first thing he did – Chances are he came to you when your parents brought you through the waters of Baptism. He comes in his body and blood given to us to eat and to drink the in the Lord’s Supper. He comes to us in every devotion and sermon, even the memory work that you haven’t forgotten after all of these years. We find the Lamb in the word of God.
Who is he? The easy answer is Jesus of Nazareth I suppose, but John didn’t call him the Lamb of God because he forgot his name was Jesus. Lamb of God was a very special name. To the Jew when you said the word lamb – a flood of pictures washed through their minds. Father Abraham trusted that God would supply a lamb to take the place of his son Isaac. The blood of the Passover lamb was spread across the doorposts as the Jews left Egypt. A family was supposed to redeem their firstborn from God with offering of a lamb. Lambs were used as sin and burnt offerings. In Isaiah God talks about the suffering servant being led as a lamb to the slaughter. This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ Jesus maybe looked like an average 30 year old man, but he was the eternal God. John doesn’t say look another lamb of God, this is THE one and only Lamb of God. When we look for the lamb, we find God himself.
Want to hear more? Including the story of the statue of the lamb watch this week’s message taken from John 1 – Jesus Appears as the Lamb of God.
Book(s): John
Series: Jesus Appears
Tag(s): Epiphany
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg