Too Light
Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

January 20, 2008


We can’t escape John the Baptist. Here we are down by the River Jordan again, but this week John has something different to say. Last week, Jesus sort of sneaked up on John, undistinguished in the long line waiting at the river until there he was in front of John. Knowing who he was, John protested vigorously, but finally relented to Jesus’ request and baptized him, though no one else appeared to see that anything unusual was going on.

This week, standing around with a couple of his disciples, John points out Jesus openly, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” If you and I haven’t participated in so many communion services and heard this refrain so many times, would we know what he was talking about? Lamb of God is John’s eccentric handle on Jesus that is not majestic, but deeply moving and powerful. Eugene Patterson makes it “God’s Passover Lamb,” the most likely metaphor referring to the blood of the sacrificial lamb painted over the doors of the enslaved Israelites in Egypt to protect them from the angel of death, Passing Over the Israelites, and leading them to freedom.

Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, was entitled the Conquering Lion of Judah, which certainly endowed him with a mighty image. John Dominic Crossan, tongue firmly in cheek, observes that despite what a lot of people claim, there are very few Biblical literalists. When we talk about Jesus as the Lamb of God, we don’t mean Mary had a little lamb!

John keeps talking, “This is the guy I was telling you about, the One who comes after me but is really before me.” Although John was pointing Jesus out, he admits he didn’t recognize Jesus until after baptizing him and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove. That’s a different take from Matthew’s more familiar version of the events.

The passage is a little odd because if you read it carefully, John does not actually baptize Jesus in real time. He just recalls what apparently had happened in the Jordan, yet ends up by declaring solemnly that Jesus is the Son of God. No voices from heaven, just the voice of the prophet John who speaks God’s Word.

Maybe it was because Jesus was assigned this unusual title that the two decided to check this Jesus out up close and personal. What do you say to the Queen when she greets you in a receiving line at Government House? Do you ask some perceptive and clever question or natter on about something trivial in a state of brain disconnect? Jesus senses he is being followed for the first time and turns around and asks this dynamic duo, “What do you want?” They start well, “Rabboni,” or teacher, but “Where are you staying?” is a little lame. Or is it? “Come and see,” Jesus simply answered. It was late in the afternoon so they stayed the rest of the day.

I have heard some people say that they don’t particularly care for traveling to another country and taking all the quick tours of the famous sights. What they want to do is live in that country or city for and get to know how life moves there and what the people are like, become immersed in that new place.

That’s sort of what those two fellows did, one of them being Andrew, the other’s name God only knows: they wanted to feel what it would be like to live with him, to be immersed in his way of life. Anyone who is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world is intriguingly different and has something to offer nobody else can. Andrew stays where Jesus is staying and as soon as he can finds his brother, Simon, and drags him off to meet the person he declares is the Messiah. Jesus is the one now who recognizes a new face. So you’re Simon? You shall be called Cephas or Peter, or the Rock. God knows how many puns have been laid on this name!

Tomorrow is the official U.S. holiday known as Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. It is a controversial holiday, since many people do not want to be reminded about what King struggled for because the kind of freedom he advocated is not one they want to accept. It is hard for us to comprehend that love and justice and freedom and equality of all human beings is an intensely controversial issue.

We cannot be saved just by ourselves. The salvation that preaches “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is about the whole world, not just about you and me. Martin Luther King knew about this need for a different understanding of salvation. The year before he was gunned down, he warned that we are “conditioned to expect success and personal fulfillment; our preachers like to preach ‘nice little soothing sermons on how to relax and how to be happy’ or ‘go ye into all the world and keep your blood pressure down and I will make you a well-adjusted personality.’ But ‘my Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter,’ and the cross is not a piece of jewelry you wear but something you die on.”

The word ‘world’ is literally the ‘cosmos’ and is better understood as the human order of things. So this Lamb of God is taking away not just your sins, not just the nation’s sins, but the sin of the entire cosmos. The ‘it is all about me’ approach evolves into a Burger King theology - “Have It Your Way®.” The Gospel is about living it God’s way.

Jesus does not summon us to become part of a local club, but to immerse ourselves in his life, to stay where he is staying, to travel where he is traveling, to love all those kinds of people we prefer to call “those kinds of people.” The Lamb of God lives for the sake of people who are regarded as sin by others. Isaiah proclaims the Word of the Lord that “it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” In other words, it isn’t enough to be concerned with your local church or city or province or nation and believe you are doing all you are required to do. This parochialism simply builds barriers between us and all those other thems, and nurtures injustice in the long run. Martin Luther King, Jr., also said, “The presence of injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Here is a closing story, a parable of great pathos and paradox. See if you can hear the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world.

John Dos Passos’ book on the rise of the Third Reich, describes a day when a group of Nazi Brown Shirts captured a rabbi in his study as he was preparing his sabbath sermon. They mocked and humiliated him; they stripped him and they flogged him. As they did they laughed and said, “This lash is for Abraham; this one is for Jacob; this one is for Isaac.” When he was numbed with the whipping, they took out scissors and they sheared his locks and his beard and mocked him, “Say something to us; say something in Hebrew; yes, say something in Hebrew.” Standing there shivering the rabbi said in Hebrew, “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart and mind and soul.” But he didn’t even finish before they interrupted him with more mocking, “You were preparing your sermon, weren’t you? Preach us your sermon. ...Weren’t you preparing your sermon?”

“Yes,” said the rabbi. “Well then preach it to us; you won’t preach it in your synagogue; we burned your synagogue, preach it to us now.” “Give me my hat,” said the rabbi. “You can’t preach without your hat,” they howled with laughter. “Give him his hat.” They gave him his hat; he put it on and they laughed all the harder…the sight of a naked man wearing a rabbi’s hat. “God created us in the image of God,” said the rabbi, “In the image of God we are created. That is the text for my sermon this Sabbath.”

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, no matter whether we are wearing a burka, a turban, a fez, a 10 gallon hat, a green beret or a brown shirt. Not too light a thing for those who go and see where Jesus is staying.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan