Behold the Lamb of God

Scripture — John 1:29-42 (NRSV)

John 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).

Devotion

Yesterday we spent a little time with a passage from Isaiah and a chorus from Handel’s Messiah which emphasized one of the important emphases of the Season after the Epiphany: the manifestation of Christ’s glory to the Gentiles and to all the world. Today, I want to do the same thing with this passage from the Gospel of John. Many of the Scripture readings you’ll hear during Epiphany speak of the manifestation of Christ’s glory through miracles and through stories of the spreading of the kingdom news. But right here at the beginning of the story, as Jesus begins to collect his disciples around him, we hear another note that will be sounded over and over again in the Scriptural witness: Christ’s glory is manifest in part through suffering.

John the Baptist sounds this note for us here. First, he simply announces that Jesus is the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world to anyone who is listening—and as evidence he reminds his audience of what happened at Jesus’s baptism, when the Spirit descended. The next day, Jesus comes back; now John the Baptist is clearly standing with two of his disciples, and he makes his speech again about Jesus being the Lamb of God. When he does, the disciples leave John and follow Jesus (somehow I don’t think John minded) and eventually one of them, Andrew, brings his brother Simon to follow Jesus as well.

Does John explicitly say the Lamb will suffer to take away sin? He doesn’t have to. His listeners would have known that when a lamb was offered in the Temple, suffering happened and sin was atoned for. And yet at least some of them—even armed with that knowledge of coming suffering—decided that this Lamb was the Messiah they were awaiting.

Unlike the chorus from Messiah I talked about yesterday, you have probably heard “Behold the Lamb of God.” (If not, just scroll down and you’ll find it at the end of the devotional). Sometimes just the Christmas parts of Messiah are sung at this season, of course, but when the whole oratorio is performed no one ever leaves out this solemn statement which opens Part II of the work, which Handel and his librettist Charles Jennens took from right here and right from John, speaking of the coming suffering and death of Christ.

The question this Scripture puts to us, the question this season puts to us, the question which contemplating Messiah puts to us, is the same one put implicitly to the disciples. It’s common to speak of all the ways the disciples didn’t always get Jesus’s message or understand what he was about. But here in this moment, they did. They knew the path would involve suffering. And they walked it anyway. Will we—who know so much more of both its terror and its joy—do the same?

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Jesus Drank the Cup for You and Me.