Grace Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: John 1: 29-42
January 19, 2020
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| The Holy Children with a Shell by Murillo c. 1670 (The infant Jesus offers his cousin John a sip of water.) Museo Nacional del Prado |
In this sermon, I expound on three things that jump off the page for me in this Gospel reading. First, there is the particular way that John the Baptist discovered Jesus using a test of sorts. Second, there is the curious designation of Jesus as the “Lamb of God.” And, third, there is the concept of “call” and the telling manner in which Jesus calls his disciples. It is only in accepting this invitation that Jesus will be revealed to us. It is in living the life to which we are called, that the life of God is made known...that Epiphany goes from being a story about Wise Men long ago finding Jesus under a star, a story about someone else in another time and place, to being a story about you and me, in our own time and place, actively practicing the presence of God.
Tests and exams tend to bring on anxiety and negative memories for students and for teachers too. But, my most positive experiences with tests come not from those made for school but from those that form critical moments in some of my favorite stories. These are not paper-and-pencil forms or computer screens, but they are trials nonetheless. Think of all of those knights and pages who tried to pull Excalibur from the stone, and none could except Arthur. Think of all of those maidens who tried to get a foot into a glass slipper left behind at the ball, and none could except Cinderella.
It looks like the Baptism of John was intended not only to prepare the way for the Messiah, but also as a kind of test that would reveal something to John. “The One who sent me to Baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain” is the One who will Baptize with the Holy Spirit. This is the One who is the light coming into the world, the One in Whom the Word became flesh dwelling among people, the One who gives the power to become children of God. So, the Spirit, the very life of God, which comes down from Heaven doesn’t just touch Jesus briefly and move on, but remains with him. It is the same word in Greek that the RSV translates as “abide.” And where does Jesus abide? It’s like a lesson in the Holy Trinity: the Son abides with the Father, the Spirit abides with the Son, all three abide as One. The Spirit descends from Heaven in Baptism, and only in the case of Jesus does the Spirit abide. Heaven has been found on Earth, so there the Spirit remains where the Spirit already was. John sees this and begins proclaiming to his own disciples that Jesus in the Lamb of God!
The Lamb of God language may have reminded John’s Jewish audience of the Passover meal. In preparation for the Passover, each family killed a Lamb to serve, and some of the Lamb’s blood was spread on the doorposts of their homes in order to protect from harm. John further joined the Lamb image with cleansing of sin by saying “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The Lamb was associated with the sacrificial system at the Temple, and this mention helps to foreshadow Jesus death as a sacrifice for sin. In the Gospel According to John, Jesus’ own body replaces the temple. Jesus own body becomes the place where the divine and the human meet. Jesus’ once-and-for-all sacrifice on the Cross supersedes the sacrificial system of the temple. It is by the power of Jesus blood that the wages of sin are paid and we are saved from death’s dark prison. “Destroy this temple,” says Jesus, “and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).
Finally, I wish to note the concept of call, so apropos of the Epiphany Season. We have already seen this in the way that John the Baptist reveals how God called him to identify the one on whom the Spirit remained. Then John identifies Jesus’ own calling as the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
The concept of “call” continues in the Gospel reading as Jesus is approached by two of John the Baptist’s disciples. They ask Jesus, “Where are you staying?” On one level this is superficial. Jesus, where do you sleep at night? But, the author of the Gospel According to John is skilled at using words with more than one meaning. There is a deeper, spiritual meaning to the question posed that could be easily missed the way this is translated. “Staying” is the same word used to describe the way the Spirit abides on Jesus. So the hopeful new disciples, unwittingly ask of Jesus a spiritual question: “Jesus, where do you abide.” In the Gospel According to John, of course, Jesus abides in the Father. This is not something that Jesus can simply tell. The only way to this revelation, the Epiphany of Jesus divine nature, is to begin the journey of discipleship. So, Jesus says “Come and See.”
So there it is. This “Come and See” is a very succinct way of describing our calling as Christians. It is all Jesus asks of ones who would follow him. Those first Christian disciples went with Jesus and remained with him. It was after staying with him that these two early disciples came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, so much so that Andrew went and convinced his brother, Cephas, also to Come and See. The other disciple, curiously, is never named but perhaps he is the one later described as “the beloved disciple.” This unnamed disciple may well be the author of the Gospel According to John who was wishing not to draw attention to himself...if so, by the words he has written, he has invited countless numbers of others to “Come and See” up to this day and including even those of us called here to be in this holy place! AMEN
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