Look and Listen to the Lamb

Jesu Juva
John 1:29ff
January 19, 2020
Epiphany 2A

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

The musical score on the front of the bulletin is from the hand of Johann Sebastian Bach—the great Lutheran kantor. The prelude

pictured there is based on the hymn we know as Lamb of God, Pure and Holy. (We will sing it as the first distribution hymn today.)

Bach’s prelude preaches a powerful, musical sermon; although it’s unlikely many of you have heard it before. It doesn’t have any of the flash and flair of Bach’s better-known organ works. Instead, this piece intimately reflects its subject: the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The hymn declares that this Lamb was slaughtered on the tree of the cross—even though this Lamb is innocent, patient, and uncomplaining.

Bach’s musical sermon has four voices: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. The soprano and tenor lines work together to form the main motif, or theme. This motif is the main thing your ears would hear—slurred seconds which suggest sadness, mourning, and lamentation. But buried beneath all that, the melody of the hymn begins in the second measure, played by the pedal, or bass, line. But that melody is so quietly buried beneath the motif that you can barely follow it with your ear. And then, two beats later, the melody of the hymn begins to be played again—this time in the alto line, only one fifth higher than it’s being played in the bass.

It’s complicated and complex. I could play it for you; but you wouldn’t be able to hear that hymn melody being played in canon. It gets swallowed up by the mournful motif. Bach’s detractors were quick to criticize compositions like this. They called it augenmusik, or eye music because, they said, it appealed more to the eye than to the ear. Even as an organist, even with my eyes on the music and my fingers on the keys and my feet on the pedals, I can’t hear the hymn melody when it comes in with the alto voice, two beats behind the melody in the bass. When I complained to my organ teacher about my inability to hear the very melody my fingers were playing, he replied, “Yes, but God hears it.”

Somehow I suspect that answer would have pleased Bach very much. Bach’s prelude hides, disguises and downplays the hymn melody—even as that melody is plainly played by two different voices, separated by two beats and an interval of one fifth. It almost defies the laws of sound and hearing.

But remember that this hymn and Bach’s hymn prelude are all about the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. And God’s Lamb did His sin-bearing work with no flash and no flair. From most people, His true identity as God’s Lamb was hidden and disguised. Plenty of people saw Him. Plenty of people heard Him. Plenty of people touched Him. And plenty of those same people concluded that this Jesus was nothing special. They downplayed His significance, doubted His promises, and decided to turn their backs on Him. He had no halo above His head. No angels accompanied Him. No trumpets announced Him. He was just an ordinary thirty-something from up north in Nazareth—the Fond du Lac of Israel, from where nothing good or spectacular ever came.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He needs to be pointed out to us. He needs to be singled out to us. Otherwise, you and I would miss Him entirely—like the hymn melody in Bach’s prelude. It’s why the angel had to tell the shepherds that the baby in the manger was “a Savior who is Christ, the Lord.” It’s why at His baptism His Father had to declare from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” It’s why the Spirit had to descend from heaven like a dove and land on Him. It’s why John had to point his wet, prophetic finger at Jesus and confess what we would never have guessed on our own: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

This is also why God has called me to be your pastor—that in the midst of this world’s loud celebrations and lamentations—that you might never lose track of God’s Lamb—that you might hear His voice clearly, and trust Him, and learn to love this Lamb.

Today we think of lambs as cute little wooly white animals bounding around the barnyard or the petting zoo. But in the Bible, “lamb” meant but one thing: sacrifice. That’s what lambs were good for. Their throats were slit. Their blood was poured out on the altar. Their bodies were roasted and consumed. Remember when Abraham was taking his little boy, Isaac, to sacrifice him at God’s command? Remember little Isaac’s question as they walked along: Where’s the lamb? Where’s the lamb for the sacrifice? And remember Abraham’s response: The Lord Himself will provide the lamb. Jesus is the Lamb of the Lord’s providing. He is the Passover Lamb whose blood now marks our door.

The idea of blood sacrifice sounds a little “over the top” to modern ears. The notion that an animal had to be bled to death for a person to be right with God sounds downright offensive to many people. You certainly cannot say that no animals were harmed in the making of the Old Testament. But the real objection to blood sacrifice is that it shows our sin—just how deeply flawed we are—how by nature we are so bad that only the shedding of blood can make things right between us and God. The practice doesn’t continue today only because of Jesus, the Lamb of God, whose blood cleanses us from all sin.

Notice that this Lamb dies for the sin of the world. It’s “sin” in the singular; not plural. In the church we tend to focus a lot on our sins—all the thoughts, words and deeds of ours that are contrary to the Law of God. We Christians often focus on symptom management—trying to overcome specific besetting sins that really trouble us. But the bigger problem is the underlying condition—the original sin in which our mothers conceived us.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Not sins. Sin. Jesus deals with the underlying condition. He goes for the source of the problem. Jesus doesn’t simply take up our sins; He Himself becomes the Sinner. Jesus becomes sin for us. This innocent, spotless, sinless Lamb of God takes up our sin. And He bears it all away.

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Not only our sin, but the sin of the world. Not potentially, not theoretically, but actually. Not just for some, but for all. Christ didn’t come as God’s Lamb only to save the religious few, but to save the world. He is God’s Lamb for the whole world. Every person you meet has been died for by Jesus. There’s no room for talk of how Christ died for you if you do this or that. No, Christ died for you. Period. It is finished. Believe it. Receive it.

God’s Lamb is for the world. God wants the world to know about His Lamb—to trust in Him. For in this Lamb exclusively is forgiveness and resurrection life. You have all that in Jesus. And what Jesus does for you, He wants to do for all. We are called to be like John the Baptizer, pointing and proclaiming to the world that Jesus is the Lamb of God. We are called to be like Bach, using our talents, within our vocations, to sound out the hope that we have. That’s our purpose here at Our Savior—to tell the good news about Jesus just like Andrew did for Simon, like John did for his disciples. The world needs to hear it—is literally dying to hear it. The world needs to know that there’s no person so bad that the Lamb of God did not die for them. And there’s no one so good that they can do without the Lamb of God. Who do you know who needs to hear that? Who has God placed in your path so that you can invite them here—so that they can look and listen to the Lamb—and live?

You can get no closer to the Lamb of God than when you come to this altar for the Lord’s Supper. The liturgy teaches us to recognize the body and the blood of the Lamb. For centuries, Christians have sung to the Lamb of God (the Agnus Dei) right before the distribution. Why then and there? Because the Lamb of God is here in bread and wine to take away your sin—to have mercy on you—to grant you peace. The altar recalls Christ’s sacrifice—when He gave His life for yours—when He took your sin and made it His. The body of the Lamb and the blood of the Lamb are here for you.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away your sin. And if He takes it away, it’s no longer yours, but His. In the Lamb, your sin is no longer your sin. Jesus has owned up to all of it. He has taken that sin away. You won’t hear that good news anywhere else. Here you hear in clearest strains what is hidden to the rest of the world. This is where you look and listen to God’s Lamb. His bearing of your sins is a mystery—submerged in the water of your baptism, hidden in the bread and wine, deposited into your ears and heart by the preaching of your pastor. Listen and look. Taste and see. Behold the Lamb of God.

You belong to Him. No matter how faint your voice may be—no matter how drowned out you feel by the loud dissonance of this dying world—God hears it. Whether the cry of your heart is one of sadness or joy, hope or fear, delight or despair—God hears it. Your prayers and pleadings, your tears and your trials—God hears them all, clearly and distinctly. A bruised reed He will not break. A smoldering wick He will not snuff out. Just look. Just listen to God’s Lamb.

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