"Come and See"

My thanks to the writing of Richard Swanson, Kathryn Matthews Huey, the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton, and Paul J. Nuechterlein for their valuable insights into today's Scripture reading.

John 1:29-42

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I 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.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

This is the Word of the Lord.

When John calls Jesus the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” what is he saying? I think the most common interpretation is that Jesus is the sacrifice which atones for the sins of humankind. And that's true, yes, and it's fine, in and of itself, if that is what one takes away from the Gospels, it's enough.

But the interesting thing is that – remembering that Jesus and John and the disciples are all Jewish, and that their understanding of sacrifice would be based solely upon the Jewish Temple sacrificial system – lambs, in the Scriptures, are not sin sacrifices.

Bulls are sin offerings, as well as male and female goats. Where a lamb is mentioned it is specifically a female lamb.

Remember, though, that Jesus is crucified during Passover. That feast specifically calls for a male lamb, unblemished, sacrificed, roasted and consumed. The blood of that sacrificed lamb was to be splashed on the doorframe of the house, so that when the Angel of the Lord saw it, that house would be passed over, and another, unsplashed home would see its firstborn killed.

The sacrifice of that lamb protected the home, and ultimately freed the Hebrew people from slavery, and set them on the road to finding the Promised Land. The annual feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, remembered that mighty act of God. This, then, is what Jesus, as the Lamb of God, does: liberates the world from slavery to sin by bringing the world into new and fresh contact with the presence of God, so that human alienation from God can end.

Yes, Jesus Christ is our atoning sacrifice, Scripture is clear on that. But to say that Jesus simply died to please the bloodlust of an angry God, was One who wiped the slate clean so we could mess it up again – and let's be honest, for a sin-washed world, there is plentiful sin still to go around. People still kill people, people still rape and steal, hate and lust, disease and starvation and slavery...

Jesus is our Atonement, and so much more.

When John points out Jesus to his disciples, when they leave John to approach this Lamb of God, they approach one who is about reconciling the cosmos, all there was, is. And ever will be, to God, one who exists to break down the barriers which separate all of us from our loving Creator.

There is a word in Greek that shows up a lot in this reading: “meno,” which is most distinctively rendered “abide.” That word occurs five times in four verses here: “And John testified, 'I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abided on him. I 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 abide is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' Then: “When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you looking for?' They said to him, 'Rabbi' (which translated means Teacher), 'where are you abiding?' He said to them, 'Come and see.' They came and saw where he was abiding, and they abided with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.”

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus teaches us that he abides in the Father and the Father in him, and we as his disciples are then invited to abide in him and he in us. So when Jesus turns to ask the approaching disciples what they're looking for, and they ask where he lives, maybe they aren't asking for his address. Maybe they are really answering the question: “What are you looking for?” “We are looking to abide where you abide, to live where you live.”

Now, each of the Gospels is clear about how completely clueless the disciples are, so I don't know that these two completely understand what they are asking. What I do know is how they reacted to Jesus' answer to their question – they respond the same way John did, by telling what they had found.

Andrew finds Simon, and brings him to Jesus... and Simon is changed. He gets a new identity.

Evangelism is a scary word, I'll admit. We don't talk a whole lot about it in mainline denominations, and when we do, it's often within the context of a program or ministry of the church as a whole. The dirty little secret, though, is that even in evangelical denominations, the idea of sharing your faith is daunting. That is why there are shelves full of how-to books, warehouses full of tracts and step-by-step formulas for witnessing to others about Jesus Christ.

I've used them and taught them before, but I will be honest: when I was writing this sermon, I couldn't remember more than Bill Bright's “The Four Spiritual Laws” and “The Romans Road,” which walks a person through key verses in (you may guess it by the name) the Book of Romans.

So I Googled “witnessing tools.” What I found was nine hundred and two thousand results, including how-to websites, offers of brochures and tracts, a Christian multi-tool (one of those things with pliers, screwdrivers, knives, and all in a pocket tool), a Christian mini barrel spotlight, illustrations, instructions on witnessing with balloon animals, Christian tee shirts, Christian bumper stickers, Christian drumsticks and Christian guitar straps and Christian keychains and Christian bracelets and Christian iPhone cases and Christian purses and Christian wallets and Christian sunglasses and Christian hair accessories...

But is the best way to share our faith found in a lanyard or a bumper sticker? Has anyone's life been changed by a one hundred twenty five foot high cross on I-65 North or by a billboard or keychain or church marquee sign?

Jesus did his fair share of seeking out disciples – John and Andrew by the sea of Galilee, for example. But in this case, the disciples sought out Jesus. They were told about him by someone who had firsthand knowledge, and they went to find out for themselves. And Jesus said to those inquiring disciples, “Come and see.”

And they saw. That is to say, the disciples saw his life, saw where he abided, and from seeing his life, they came to know who he was – Andrew said to Simon, “We have found the Messiah.”

A multitool or t-shirt can't do that, nor can a billboard or bumper sticker or a huge metal cross. I submit that these are marketing campaigns, not evangelism. The most effective form of evangelism, the best way to share our faith, and by far the most frightening, is by living. By being who we are in Christ.

The disciples were seekers. They had connected with John the Baptist because he had a message, and he pointed out for them the way to transformation – “Behold, the Lamb of God.” To be sure, this is a world full of seekers. We have “the pursuit of happiness” written into our history and our cultural DNA. We seek for meaning to life, we scramble to fill what St. Augustine called the “God-shaped hole.” And through it all, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

To find and be found, we all need a John the Baptist, an Andrew, a preacher, a teacher, a parent, a friend, a brother or sister – maybe all of the above and more – to point us in the right direction and to keep us on the trail.

To be John the Baptist for someone else is not difficult, it is not something to worry about or shy away from. It doesn't require perfection or a flawless delivery of perfected points of doctrine. We don't have to be right all the time. Madeline L'Engle (“lingel”) said, “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

All that is required is a willingness to help others find what you have found. To help them find the place where they can sit and be still and wait for the Christ to come and say to them, as he has to each of us, “Come and see.”

Come and See!

I owe a debt of gratitude to René Girard and the folks at "Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary" for giving me much to think about concerning this week's Gospel passage. Also, a shout of appreciation goes to Peter Woods, whose words I used to close my sermon.

I don't know if I'm wallowing in heresy or not, but it's a fascinating way to view atonement...

Isaiah 49:1-7
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The LORD called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
and my reward with my God.”
And now the LORD says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength —
he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up, princes,
and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind — just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you — so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 1:29-42
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I 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.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

This is the Word of the Lord.

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard Jesus referred to as the “Lamb of God” more than once.

But have you ever wondered what that phrase, “the Lamb of God,” means? Well, come on, everyone knows what that phrase means, right? Jesus is the new Passover, a spotless sacrifice, removing the sins of the world and reconciling us to God.

The reason I ask the question is that I’ve come across some intriguing thoughts in my study resources this week. You see, I’ve always been under the impression that Jesus’ sacrifice was something God required in order to reconcile humankind to God’s self. The idea is that, in order for humankind to be worthy of relationship with God, blood must be shed. Our separation, by way of sin, is so great that a sacrifice must be offered. We are so depraved and dirty that, in order for God to look upon us with favor, someone has to die.

I mean, church folks usually say it in prettier ways, of course, but it comes down to the same thing.

In order to appease God, who was angry with the sins of humanity and poised, at any moment, to bring disease, famine, and conquest raining down on all of Creation, Jesus had to come to Earth and get nailed to the cross. God’s son was the only acceptable sacrifice for such corruption.

What if God is not like that, though?

I began to think about this a few years back, actually, during my training as a Commissioned Lay Pastor. You see, Reformed Theology, which defines the way Presbyterians struggle to understand God, has at its core John Calvin’s idea that man did nothing – can do nothing – to reconcile to God. God did everything necessary to reconcile humankind to God’s self.

Now, taking it a step further, we have to look at the Reformed understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We’ve talked before about how the Triune God is one God, a singular, and though our human interaction with our singular Creator understands three “persons,” we risk falling into pantheism if we do not understand that every act of any “person” of the Trinity is participated in by every part of the Trinity – all of God is directly involved with every act of the Father, every act of the Son, every act of the Holy Spirit. We can say with as much confidence as we can about any point of theological thought that God does not operate any other way.

As I began to understand these kinds of concepts, the idea of Jesus volunteering to sacrifice Himself in order to appease a wrathful Father, bent on annihilating everyone, began to make less and less sense.

Author and lecturer Gil Bailie suggests that the phrase “Lamb of God” means something wholly different than what I had become accustomed to. He says that if God had demanded the sacrifice of Jesus, then Jesus would have been the lamb of the human community given to God.

I’m almost certain I will get this wrong, but I’m going to do my best to explain what he suggests: Over the millennia, humankind developed a scapegoat mentality: quoting him here, “All archaic religions existed to take away the sins of the world. How did they do it? Every once in a while they dumped all these sins on someone and ran them out, or strung them up -- and felt righteous about it.”

Commenting on Gil Bailie’s words, Michael Hardin says, “We have [misunderstood what it means for Jesus to be the ‘Lamb of God’] largely by failing to attribute the demand for blood to the correct party, us. In the now-overused words of Pogo, ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us!’ Jesus’ sacrifice was designed to expose our bloodthirstiness, our enslavement to the sacrificial mechanism, not to satisfy a God who sits on the throne demanding yet another scapegoat. By making our sacrificial system and its falseness visible, Jesus takes away our ‘sin,’ our ‘missing-of-the-mark’ and leaves us without a viable victim.”

We are left, in other words, without someone to blame. We can no longer blame it on God. We can no longer say God wanted that sacrifice. What’s more, we can no longer look around and point at another, saying “your sin killed Christ,” because if we are human, we must realize that we are as responsible as any other human for the sacrifice. There are no more victims, there is no one left to blame. All of our excuses, our deflections, our justifications have been torn away by the violence of the Cross.

If you’ve spent more than fifteen minutes inside a church, you’ve heard the phrase “God is love.” If we dare to view Jesus as the Lamb of God, and understand it in a way that removes the responsibility for the sacrifice from God, do we not begin to glimpse the staggering, breathtaking breadth and depth of that love?

God loves you, personally and individually, without reservation, without hesitation, without limits! What’s more, if Jesus is the Lamb of God given to us, then it becomes glaringly obvious that God has always loved us! There truly is no depth we can sink to, no far country we can travel to, no philosophy we can hide behind, which will remove us from the love of God!

John says to his disciples, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And Jesus invites them to “Come and see.”

Despite the countless layers of encrusted doctrine, dogma and determined identities that the Church has put onto Jesus as well as the requirements so many communities put on prospective followers before they even begin, Jesus simply invites you and I to come and see. Come and see, come and experience a life where we don’t have to worry about being good enough, where we don’t have to make sure we’re always doing the right things at the right times. Come and experience a world where we sacrifice not because we are trying to gain God’s favor, but because someone else is in need. Come and experience a world where we don’t have to obsess over who is “in” and who is “out” when it comes to the love and grace of God.

No, we can be like Andrew, sharing the Good News with confidence bordering on abandon, because we know that, since the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, then by definition God loves everyone, and everyone deserves to know that love, to be welcomed into the family, into relationship with God!

Christ’s invitation to us, and to everyone, is simply to experience. Come and see.

It is an adventure where the disciple and the teacher are in real relationship.

It is the path to life.