Look to the Lamb

Jesu Juva

St. John 1:29-42a                                           

January 18, 2025

Epiphany 2A                 

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Epiphany is a season of wonder and witness.  Each week of Epiphany we learn something more wonderful about Jesus.  Each Sunday the Word of witness goes forth:  Jesus is the King of Jews and Gentiles, who is both God and man, who is the Father’s beloved Son, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who is the long-awaited Messiah.

        Today we hear the unique witness of two men: St. John the Baptizer, and St. Andrew the Apostle.  We hear how these two men lived as witnesses to Jesus, so that we might consider how we live as witnesses to Jesus, our Savior.

        Jesus had no better witness than John the Baptizer.  Witnessing was why he came.  He came as a witness to the Light.  He prepared the way for Jesus, filling the valleys and leveling the mountains with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And once Jesus arrived and began His public ministry, John’s witness soared to new levels of greatness.  Today we hear John as he points his prophetic finger at Jesus and declares the glorious gospel in one simple sentence:  Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

        Consider the wonder of John’s witness.  John points the world to Jesus.  To “behold” someone is to look—to see.  You can’t behold a myth or a legend or a fictional character.  John invites us to feast our eyes on a real man who left real footprints in the dust of history—whose death and resurrection is the pivot point of all human history.

        John calls Jesus the lamb—and not just any lamb, but “God’s lamb.”  In the Bible, “lamb” means but one thing—sacrifice.  Remember when Abraham was taking his little boy, Isaac, to sacrifice him?  Remember little Isaac’s question as they were walking along: Where’s the lamb for sacrifice?  And remember Abraham’s response?  God will provide the lamb for sacrifice. And now we know, thanks to John’s spectacular witness, Jesus is that Lamb—the Lamb of the Lord’s providing.  Jesus is the Passover Lamb whose blood marks our door—our substitute who gives His life in exchange for you.  (But not only for you!)

        John’s witness specifies how God’s Lamb takes away the sin of the world.  Notice how John says “sin” (singular), and not “sins” (plural).  In the church we talk a lot about sins (plural)—all the thoughts, words, and deeds of ours that are contrary to the Law of God.  We confess those sins.  But those many sins are really only symptoms of the original sin that has infected us to the core and runs death deep.

        Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the SIN of the world.  God’s Lamb deals with the underlying condition.  He aims at the root cause of our broken condition.  He does this by becoming sin for us.  This innocent, spotless Lamb takes up our sin and bears it all away.

        And John’s witness reminds us that God’s Lamb is for the whole world.  He takes away the sin of the world.  John makes it perfectly clear:  There’s no person so bad that the Lamb of God didn’t die for them.  And there’s no one so good and holy that they can do without the Lamb of God. 

        Who do you know who needs to hear that?  Who needs your witness?  Who do you know who needs the Lamb of God?  Who has God placed in your path so that you can bear witness like John, and point them to Jesus—so that they too can look to the Lamb in faith and be saved?

        John’s witness is so absolutely wonderful that it almost overshadows the witness given by St. Andrew just a few verses later.  Andrew was one of John’s disciples.  Andrew followed Jesus after he heard John’s witness about Jesus.  Andrew spent the day with Jesus.  After that, Andrew found his brother, Simon Peter, and said: We have found the Messiah!  And then Andrew brought his brother to Jesus.

        The witness Andrew gives is simple—bare bones, no frills.  And after claiming to have found the Messiah, and after introducing his brother to Jesus, St. Andrew basically schleps off into obscurity.  Sure, he pipes up again at the feeding of the five thousand.  But otherwise, the New Testament shows little interest in Andrew.

        But the New Testament is very, very interested in Andrew’s brother, Simon Peter—the same brother Andrew brought to Jesus—the brother who was on the receiving end of Andrew’s unspectacular witness.  Who can even count all the great (and not-so-great) episodes where Peter speaks up or stands up or sounds off?  Oh, that’s just Peter walking on the water.  That’s just Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  That’s just Peter slicing off someone’s ear in the Garden of Gethsemane.  That’s just Peter preaching to thousands on the Day of Pentecost.  Andrew seems to pale in comparison to his brother, Peter.

        And yet, it was Andrew who first witnessed to Peter.  It was Andrew who first brought Peter into the presence of Jesus.  Here’s a little thought experiment:  What if Andrew had kept the good news about Jesus all to himself?  What if Andrew had kept his famous brother in the dark concerning the Light of the World?  Could Jesus have called Peter to be a “fisher of men” even without Andrew’s witness?  Of course.  But here’s the astounding, astonishing truth: Jesus chose to use Andrew’s simple witness as a means to reel in Simon Peter—and save him, and send him to the ends of the earth.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

        If you cannot witness like John the Baptizer—preaching and proclaiming Jesus to be the Lamb of God—well then, you are invited to be like faithful Andrew.  Will you witness with Andrew?  Andrew shows how witnessing doesn’t require a PhD in theology.  Andrew likely had no idea what it really meant that Jesus was the Messiah.  But that didn’t stop Him from bringing his brother to that Messiah.

        Will you witness with Andrew?  If so, to whom will you witness?  Think and pray about that.  Andrew went to a family member—a brother and business partner.  Who do you know and care for who has distanced themselves from Jesus by unbelief?  For each one of us there’s no shortage of contacts who are not receiving what God’s Lamb wants to give them.  What might you say to them?  I have found the Messiah?  Probably not.  But you might say that Jesus has found you, and loved you (despite your sin) and that He’s given your life meaning and direction and hope and comfort and joy . . . or whatever seems right to you.  And then you do what Andrew did.  You bring them to Jesus.  You invite them to come here with you.  And maybe you extend that invitation many times.

        You see, whatever your witness looks like, the results don’t depend on you.  God gets the results!  What are you afraid of?  What’s stopping you?  What do you have to lose?  Whose life might you transform for all eternity with a simple invitation to church?  You never know. 

        You have found the Messiah, the Lamb of God.  Or, more accurately, He has found you—named you and claimed you in the splash of your baptism.  By His sacrifice on the cross we know that our sin has been answered for.  And by His glorious resurrection we know that our present sufferings don’t even begin to compare with the glory that will one day be revealed.  Sharing the hope that you have—witnessing the wonders of God’s love with Andrew and John—you just don’t know the results God may get.  And you won’t know those results—not until you’re standing with all the redeemed around the throne of the Lamb—together with Peter and Andrew and John and all the other saints of God—singing heaven’s eternal song:  Worthy is the Lamb.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.