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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through the movie service Netflix, the movie “Mitt” will be released this week to the public, having debuted Friday to movie critics and others at the Sundance Film Festival. They say the documentary “reveals” another side of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor turned 2008 presidential candidate and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. But, the carefully‑crafted documentary does not reveal Romney the way a supermarket tabloid headline or gossipy TV show might scream of a scandalous revelation. In fact, one article I read recently wondered how much the documentary “Mitt” reveals Romney at all. Our Epiphany Season focuses on revelations of the glory of God in the flesh of the Man Jesus, and the Gospel Reading for this Second Sunday after the Epiphany reveals Jesus, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. This morning we reflect on that Gospel Reading for today, and we do so under the theme, “The Lamb of God Revealed”.
Last week’s Gospel Reading from St. Matthew’s account told of the Baptism of our Lord, something St. John’s account does not narrate, though it clearly reflects the event. Today’s Gospel Reading vividly tells what happened perhaps some 40 days after our Lord’s baptism and apparently the day after John the Baptizer was questioned by Jews from Jerusalem (John 1:19-28). As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, on two consecutive days, John the Baptizer bore witness to Jesus as the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. Two of John the Baptizer’s own disciples—Andrew and, presumably, John, the Apostle and human author of the Gospel account—they heard him and followed Jesus, and at least one of the two (but probably both) in turn found his own brother and brought him to Jesus.
The brothers doubtlessly did not know Jesus, just as John the Baptizer’s disciples did not know Jesus without John’s having revealed Jesus as the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. In the Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer twice says that he himself did not know Jesus without God’s having revealed Jesus to Him—and that from the man who had lept in his mother’s womb at the sound of a greeting from Jesus’s mother (Luke 1:41). John the Baptizer earlier had told the Jews from Jerusalem that they did not know Jesus (John 1:26), for, by nature, no one knows Jesus without Jesus’s being revealed to them. Even we who believe, to whom Jesus has been revealed, still sometimes act as if we do not know Him. We sin in thought, word, and deed, by what we do and by what we leave undone. We do not love God with our whole heart, and we do not love our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve God’s present and eternal punishment. “The Lamb of God Revealed” reveals the sin of the world, including your sin and my sin. No one is exempt from sin and its guilt.
As Jesus in the Gospel Reading turned and saw John the Baptizer’s two disciples following, so we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than keep on sinning. God reveals to us the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world, including your sin and my sin, and so God calls us to repent. When we so repent, then God forgives all our sin. He forgives our sin because Jesus, the Lamb of God, has taken our sin away.
In the Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer twice revealed Jesus as the Lamb of God, and that Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Multiple Old Testament passages anticipate John’s in this way revealing Jesus’s sacrificial work for us: the lamb substituted for Isaac (Genesis 22:7-8, 13); the Passover lambs without blemish, whose blood redeemed whole households (Exodus 12); Isaiah’s prophecy of God laying everyone’s sin on a silent lamb led to slaughter (Isaiah 53:6-7). Those and many others—all are perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Who had existed from eternity, became flesh in the Man Jesus, for us and for our salvation. John the Baptizer bore witness that Jesus was the Son of God, and the Jews so charged Jesus and put Him to death. In Jesus, there was no sin, but He appeared in order to take away our sin (1 John 3:5). In His baptism, He took on our sin. And, the Lamb without blemish or defect shed His precious blood on the cross and so ransoms us and all who believe (1 Peter 1:19). The initiative is all His: He came into the world, He came to John, He sent John to reveal Him to Israel so that they might believe and have life in Him. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the whole world, but only those individuals in the world who believe in His death and resurrection for them benefit from His death and resurrection. When we repent and believe, then God freely forgives our sin through faith in Jesus Christ. Either our sin lies on our backs, where God puts it by the law, and we are lost, or our sin is lying on the Lamb of God where God puts it by the Gospel, and we are saved.
Yet, we are not saved abstractly! As we heard in the Gospel Reading, John came baptizing with water so that Jesus might be revealed. John the Baptizer’s two disciples heard John and followed Jesus. Jesus asked them what they were seeking and bid them come to Him and see. They came to Jesus the Lamb of God and saw, and they stayed with Him, presumably being received by Him in the fellowship of His own table. We who want to be saved similarly seek and find that salvation where God puts it: in His Word and Sacraments. We can hardly claim to believe in the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world and at the same time not believe in the ways that that Lamb gives in order for us to receive His forgiveness.
Behold, in water and the word, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world! At the font, Jesus gives you and me the Holy Spirit Who descended on Him at His own baptism. Notably, Acts chapter 8 is one of the few other places that the New Testament uses the same word for “lamb” that John uses of Jesus as the “Lamb” of God; in that case, an Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah’s prophecy of a Lamb, and Philip explains it to him and baptizes him (Acts 8:26-40). Behold, in private confession and individual absolution, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world! Through the mouth of a pastor, the Lamb Himself effects the forgiveness of sins. Behold, in bread and wine, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world! (There is a reason we sing those words at that place in the liturgy!) Just as Jesus is and does not only signify the Lamb of God, so on this altar bread and wine are and do not only signify His body and blood. As the Passover lamb and other sin offerings were eaten, so here at this rail we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. In Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar, we behold the Lamb and receive from Him the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
In today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 49:1-7), we heard Jesus prophetically speak through Isaiah about God calling and naming Him in the womb of His mother. Jesus’s human life began and had purpose at the moment of His conception, and likewise all human life begins and has purpose from the moment of conception. From conception, a person’s unique genetic code similarly determines all of the person’s characteristics: gender, eye color, shoe size, and the like. With tomorrow’s marking 41 years since the landmark U-S Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade’s and its “legalizing” abortion, many churches are observing today as “Sanctity of Human Life Sunday”. We lament the more than 55 million human lives lost since that 19-73 ruling, and we affirm that all life is precious to God. Truly Jesus’s life and purpose was to redeem all people, forgiving them of their sin, including those sins related to life issues. Indeed, God wants us all to live in our respective vocations—as children and parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, students and teachers, employees and employers, and the like. And, as with Andrew and Simon Peter, so with us: God uses natural and normal associations to bring others to His Word that reveals Jesus as the Lamb of God. When we fail in our vocations, as we will fail, we find comfort and peace living in the forgiveness of sins. Even if we wake up in the middle of the night troubled by our sin, we know we are forgiven, for the Lamb of God has taken our sin away.
I mentioned earlier that the article I read recently about the Mitt Romney documentary wondered how much the documentary “Mitt” reveals Romney at all. We do not have to wonder at all when it comes to “The Lamb of God Revealed”. In His Word and Sacraments, God reveals to us all we need to know about His Lamb Who takes our sin away. That Lamb lovingly and gently invites us to come from our sin and its darkness, misery, and damnation, unto Him and His light, joy, and salvation. As we, like the Corinthians in our Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 1:1-9) wait for the final revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Last Day, we, like them, know that God, by Whom we were called into the fellowship of His Son, is faithful: He will sustain us to that end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +