O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the
world, have mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of
the world, have mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of
the world, grant us your peace. Amen.
Generally,
when someone calls you an animal name, it isn’t a compliment. Bird-brain, dog,
pig, scaredy-cat, mousy – these are not names we want. For every positive one,
like “stallion,” there are many more with a negative connotation. It seems,
then, that perhaps John the Baptist did not consult with a public relations
firm before deciding to give Jesus the moniker “Lamb of God.”
Lambs,
we know, are a valuable agricultural commodity. Wool, milk, and meat all come
from lambs and the larger category of sheep. But when it comes to thinking in
terms of salvation, power, and might, John is probably the first person to
connect those ideas to a lamb. The thing that lambs are best known for in the
Bible is being killed as a sacrifice. So to say “Here is the Lamb of God,” is
to say “Here is a victim, here is a loser, here is a dead man walking.” Lambs
are not ferocious, they aren’t known for their strength, but rather for their
meekness. But yet, somehow this understanding of Jesus as the Lamb of God
really has stuck. You can find the Lamb of God in hymns, in stained glass
windows, in church logos. Isn’t it interesting that other metaphors didn’t rise
to the top – there’s plenty of Biblical imagery that could have made us see Jesus
in terms of being an eagle or a lion, but somehow in the Christian imagination
it’s been the Lamb of God at the center of our understanding of Jesus.
While
we tend to think about lambs in terms of what they give us – wool, milk, and
meat – for John and his Jewish audience, the lamb was also a deeply religious
symbol. In Genesis, when Abraham had been told to sacrifice his son, he says to
Isaac, “God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Ever since
that incident, lambs have been central in the Temple sacrifices in Israel. Lambs,
along with goats, rams, bulls, and pigeons, came to symbolize offerings of
thanksgiving, forgiveness, and atonement. It is the lamb though that is most
often mentioned in the Old Testament. When it comes time for the Passover meal
at the Exodus, it is the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of homes that saves
the Hebrew people from the plague of death. And lamb is at the center of
Passover meals even today. The Suffering Servant who will redeem Israel is seen
as a sacrificial lamb. In Isaiah, we find a passage often read on Good Friday
that reads, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his
mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before
its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
Throughout
the rest of the Old Testament, kings of Israel, like David, are seen as
shepherding figures, further cementing this image of sheep and lambs into the
national identity of the people. When we hear that the “The Lord is my
shepherd,” we see ourselves as those who offer sacrifices of praise and
thanksgiving. When it comes to the New Testament, as St. Paul writes about the
Eucharist in 1 Corinthians, he gives us “For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been
sacrificed; therefore, let us celebrate the festival.” 1 Peter tells us that we
are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb. And when we
read the apocalyptic visions in Revelation, we see that it is the Lamb who is
sitting on the throne of God. The least has become the greatest. The lamb has
gone from being a sacrifice in Genesis to the King of the Universe in
Revelation and when we call Jesus the Lamb of God, all of these connotations of
sacrifice, shepherd, and king are at play.
And
while a Biblical word study on lambs might be interesting, having the Lamb of
God at the center of our faith is saving. It’s not only that John the Baptist
calls Jesus the Lamb of God, but it is that he notes that this Lamb “takes away
the sin of the world.” Now, how that works out on a theological level isn’t my
focus this morning. Rather, what changes our lives and stirs our souls is the
fact that, in Jesus Christ, the sin of the world has been taken away.
It’s
been done, whatever “it” is. Too often religion is a series of dos and don’ts.
And it’s not surprising that this turns people off – who wants to be given
another list of seemingly arbitrary rules? And yet, we spend so much of our
lives chasing the idol of “enoughness.” Have I been good enough? Do I have
enough friends? Do I have enough money? Is my reputation good enough? Am I
attractive enough? Do I read enough books? Do I exercise enough? Are my grades
high enough? Are my sermons good enough? Do I pray enough? Do I recycle enough?
It gets exhausting.
But
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes enoughness and nails it to Cross. He is the
unblemished Lamb who is more than enough – he lived up to the standards that we
cannot. And just as lambs were seen as sacrifices for forgiveness and
thanksgiving to save us from sin and death, Jesus is the Lamb who sets us free.
As I said last Sunday about Baptism, Jesus erases the word “enough” from our
vocabulary. Jesus’ loving sacrifice and glorious Resurrection makes us enough,
period.
As
this Gospel began, we heard that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and
just a few verses later we come to see that this Word has become a Lamb to take
away the sin of the world. The invitation is exactly what we need – “come and
see.” Come to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Take part in
the banquet of the Lamb in the Eucharist and receive the mercy and grace of God.
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. See that you are forgiven and
experience the grace of being set free. See the abundant life that God desires
for you when you can rest in his enoughness instead of striving for your own.
Notice
that the invitation is not “come and do.” Jesus didn’t come to make us better
people or to show us the standard that we need to live up to – he came to
demolish that standard so that we can find peace. Jesus tells us that his “Yoke
is easy and his burden is light.” There is nothing to do because the Lamb has
done it all. It’s something like being a seed – we’ve been given the soil of
Baptism, the sunlight of the Holy Spirit, and water of the Father’s love, and
so all that is left to do is flourish and grow in what we have been given. We
don’t have to worry about proving ourselves or falling short because the Lamb
of God has already taken away the sin of the world. Whatever sins you’ve committed
– you’re forgiven. Whatever mistakes you’ve made – they can’t hold you back
from being loved. Whatever flaws you have – they don’t define you. The Lamb of
God has taken away the sin of the world.
I
know that can sound like a very churchy sort of thing to believe – that the
sins of the world have been taken away. Maybe you’re not even sure what sin
really is and what it means that it’s been taken away. To put it simply, it
means that all those things that stand in the way of love have been defeated.
It means that we can give our lives trusting that love is the most important thing
in the world. It means that we don’t have to be afraid of death because the
love of God is always with us. It means that you can put down the burden of
making meaning for your life. It means that no matter what the world calls you,
no matter what doubts you have, no matter your regrets: you are loved and you
are forgiven. Life is not supposed to be an ordeal or a struggle; life is a gift
from God in which we are intended to flourish in love. So come and see the gift
of God’s love for us in the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
At
each liturgy, I have a set of prayers that I say to myself as the altar is
being prepared for the Eucharist, and one of them is the Agnus dei:
O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, have
mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, have
mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, grant us
your peace.
I say it because
this Lamb is what we come and see at the altar as we receive his mercy and
peace. It helps to remind me what the grace of the Eucharist is all about. You
might try it yourself – as the altar is being prepared or as you are coming forward
to receive, you might say that prayer to prepare your heart to come and see the
Lamb of God. Or you might try it throughout your day – say it as a prayer to
greet the morning or to close the day, use it before meals, or in moments of
stress. Plant it in your soul that you might flourish in God’s grace.
O Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.
O Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world, grant us your peace. Amen.
