Epiphany 2

Epiphany 2 (John 1: 29-42) Behold the Lamb of God

Command and control is not the way of salvation.

The Messiah is the anointed of God. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for original sin.
This was not what anyone expected of the Messiah. Despite the long centuries of preparation from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the prophets, from the kings and priests- people heard the word of God clearly and explicitly declared. They heard the word, they ignored the word, and they rejected the word.

This is the experience of Moses and the prophets. And, this is the consistent observation of the Biblical writers. This was the experience of the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. This was the reason the Messiah had to be the one pure perfect and sacrifice for original sin.

The people expected God to send a Messiah who would save them from their enemies. They did not expect a Messiah who would save them from their sin. They did not accept the message of Moses and the prophets that actual sin is a consequence of a broken relationship. They did not accept the message that righteousness means right relationship.

It is all there in the Passover story. It is all there in the life and witness of the prophets.

The chosen are not chosen to rule but to serve. The Messiah is not anointed to conquer nations but to conquer sin and death.

The Lamb of God is the perfect sacrifice that seals the breach between humanity and God. It is the human race that creates and sustains the breach, the separation. It is God in Jesus Christ who seals the breach, offers healing and promises a total transformation of sin and death through eternal love and eternal life.

It is clear from the gospels that even those who followed Jesus ignored John’s prophetic witness that Jesus is the Messiah who conquers sin and death. This should not be a surprise. For if the Bible is correct in its assessment of the human condition, then humanity is of itself incapable of helping itself.

From the moment Jesus arose from the waters of his baptism he knew he was on the road to the cross. He knew this because of all people he knew the terrible spiritual pain that human beings live with. That terrible spiritual pain produces distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices.

Human beings in Jesus day understood there was a problem. They observed the world and concluded the problem was a lack of right knowledge, right behavior and right power. In Israel, the people believed that God would anoint a man with that right knowledge to impose the right religion on the world. They believed God would anoint a man to live according the standards of right behavior and then impose those standards on everyone else. They believed God would anoint a man with the office and authority of Kingship to lead the righteous into battle against the unrighteous and to impose God’ s rule over all the nations.

They believed these things despite the teaching of Moses and the prophets about the nature of sin.

John the Baptist testifies that he only recognized the Messiah by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah as He anointed Jesus visibly in his baptism. The Holy Spirit also revealed to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, that the Messiah is the Lamb of God who conquers sin by leading a perfect life and who conquers death by experiencing death and transforming it back into life.

Command and control is not the way of salvation. Command and control is not the way of abundant life.

The rightful ruler of Israel is the Messiah whom God sent into the world to seal the breach human beings created. The true Messiah, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit offered himself to the Father in his daily prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.

The Messiah is anointed for service. The Messiah is anointed to bring reconciliation and healing. He does this by fulfilling the plan and pattern and purpose of sacrificial worship God revealed to Abraham on Mt. Moriah and God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Jesus the Messiah is anointed as the sacrifice God revealed to Abraham and Moses. Jesus is the lamb whose sacrificial death completes and fulfills all of the sacrifices embedded in the Law. Jesus is the Lamb whose death transforms death back into life. And, because Jesus is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice, the life he gives us is eternal.

It is a new life. It is a new way of living. It is a way of living Moses and the prophets proclaimed but could not accomplish. It is a way of living characterized by love and holiness in sharp contrast to the way of command and control.

This is not a way that is self evident to anyone. It certainly was not self evident to the last of the prophets. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that the Messiah would be anointed for service not for command and control. It is also not self evident to us.

God reveals his nature to us in the person of His Son. That is why it is so important we read the Bible and receive the sacraments. It the Bible God tells us who he is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God holds a perfect mirror to our souls and reveals to us how we exist from the place of demand. In the sacrament of baptism God reunites our separated and lost human nature with his divine nature. In the sacrament of Holy Communion God infuses the eternal love and eternal life of Jesus Christ into our souls.

The principles of the new life in Christ and the new way of living in the Holy Spirit are contradictory to the principles of the old life of sin and death. The principles of the old life of sin and death are the principles of command and control. They are echoed every time we issue demands to impose our will and threats to retaliate if we do not get our will

Demand and threat killed Jesus as he knew they would. That is why he came as the Lamb of God and not the Warlord of God.

Demand and threat kill the soul that lives by the principles of command and control. This is what Jesus wants to save us from. He wants to save us from the corruption of the soul that distorts love into the will to dominate and corrupts life into the desire to possess.

Jesus as the lamb of God is himself the salvation from the old life of self will. It is self will that leads to sin and death. It is as we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies at the altar of sacrifice in union with the one pure perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our heavenly Father sets us free from the slavery of self will into the perfect love that produces free will. Free will is a will set free in love to bring forth love and to live from the place of eternal life.

The Holy Spirit lives within us to ask us where we still live from the place of self will. Where do we still reject the true Messiah anointed for service and seek a false Messiah who says: have it your way? Where do we still bring forth a demand to impose our will on others and a threat to retaliate if we others do not submit to our will? Where do we still harbor the desire for God to be on our side so we can dominate other people?

The Messiah is anointed by love, in love and through love for service. In that service the Messiah sacrifices self will to live life fully and completely free from sin and from the fear of death. This is the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. This is the revelation of God to the last of the prophets and to each of us when the Holy Spirit makes the Messiah known in Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice of perfect love- the Lamb of God.