Saturday after Ash Wednesday (February 17). Behold the Lamb of God

Prepare to Listen.  Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
 
Prayerfully Read John 1:29-34
29The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  30This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”  31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’  32And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.  33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”  34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
What was familiar and/or surprising for you in these verses?.
 
“Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world,” the choir sings in Handel’s Messiah.  The word behold invites us to pause and take a long thoughtful look.  Who is this “Lamb of God” and why should we behold him?  What did John and those around him see?
 
The writer doesn’t tell us, giving little detail.  An unknown Galilean man walked towards John who identified him, not with the familiar title of Messiah, nor as the one to save the nation, but as the Lamb of God.  It’s not an attractive image and Jesus said and did nothing to draw people to him.
 
But this is the Jesus we’re invited to behold and follow, a lamb, not a lion, but lamb who “takes away the sin of the world.”  In Jewish thought the lamb of God was the Passover Lamb sacrificed, not for sin, “but to commemorate Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt,”[1] setting God’s people free.  This Lamb takes away the sin (singular) of the world, not merely individuals or of one nation (not Israel, not the U.S.), but the world.   Collectively, the world is alienated from the Creator God and Jesus’ sacrifice liberates the world, making possible a relationship with God.  John believed this and thus could claim, “I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
 
Behold Jesus, not the Jesus who supports our patriotic ideologies to make our nation great again.  But the Lamb of God who welcomes the world.  This truth gives me hope.  All human attempts to make Jesus the Savior of a nation will come to naught.  What do you think?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Jesus, Lamb of God, you came for the world.  Broaden my mind and heart to welcome the world, not just those like myself.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Behold the Lamb of God.
[1] O’Day, Gail and Hylen, Susan.  John.  Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006, p. 30.