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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. Last night, how many people shoved a knife blade or shot a bullet into the back of some defenseless passerby simply to get a few trivial dollars? Last night… How many 16-year-olds conceive babies that will soon fall victim to the knife and the vacuum cleaner of some abortionist? Last night, how many children finally fell asleep after listening to the screams and the pleadings of their bruised and battered mothers? Last night, how many wives tossed and turned in bed, angry and weeping, wondering in whose arms their absent husband lay? Last night, how many children finally fell asleep after listening to the screams and the pleadings of their bruised and battered mothers? Last night, how many families were ripped apart by greed and jealousy, pride or anger or deceit? Last night, how many people put a bottle to their head and pulled the trigger? And honestly now, how many of you really care? After all, you all have your own problems, and you probably get tired of hearing about the problems of others. You lose sleep over your dwindling bank account, or an upcoming examination, or whether the house is presentable enough if someone should drop by, but you merely yawn at news reports that hundreds were massacred somewhere on the other side of the globe, or that some kid died of a drug overdose on the other side of town. It’s true, isn’t it? We throw pity parties for ourselves at the slightest amount of our own suffering. We throw temper tantrums when things don’t go our way. We love to complain about how much better things would be if they were done according to our ideas. We want families without problems. We want jobs without stress. We want old age without arthritis. We want God and the church to be remade in our image and without all those pesky and bothersome sinners that we find here. We want roses without thorns. Behold the sin of the world that takes away the Lamb of God. Yes, you heard that right. Behold the cold nails of your lovelessness that pierce His wrists. See the thorns of your apathy as they punch through his scalp and scrape his skull. See the lashes of your earthly desires as they plow deep red ridges into the flesh of his back. Behold the sin of the world, your sin, my sin, that takes away the Lamb of God and hands him over to the butcher to be slaughtered. But don’t behold him as one who wants your pity. He doesn’t desire your sympathy either. He simply desires you. Your repentance. Your trust. That’s why He came. He came down from heaven for every person here on earth. For the thief and the murderer. For the abortionist and the adulterer. For all of the holier-than-thous and for all of us who wag our accusing fingers at them. No one is so bad that He didn’t die for them. No one is so good that they don’t need Him. For you and I have all sinned, not only falling short of the glory of God, but falling headlong into that gory, slimy, filthy, stench-filled pit of sin and death. So then, behold, to confront the sin of your world, here comes the Lamb of God to take it away. Let your eyes follow the pointing finger of John the Baptist as he singles out the one who comes as the sole sheep of the Father’s flock. The Son, and the Son alone is the only rightful sheep of that flock. Jesus is the only true Lamb of God. He is the sacrifice that God ordained from the beginning of the world. When our first human parents sinned, there stood the Lamb, interposing Himself between the wrathful judgment of the Father and those all too guilty sinners. He was prepared even then to take away the sin of the world. When Cain murdered Abel and when Noah got drunk, the Lamb was there. When Moses got mad, and when David took Bathsheba, there stood the Lamb, His fleece as white as snow, ready to be reddened with His own precious blood to take away the sin of the world. And in God’s own time, He came in the flesh. Mary had a little lamb. John the Baptist points this out to us as we heard read today. He is the Lamb upon whom the Holy Spirit lands like a dove. And why a dove, we might ask? Why not a sparrow? Or a cardinal? Or even an eagle? In the days of Noah, you might recall, the dove became a preacher. Returning to the ark with an olive branch in its beak, the dove preached the end of the outpouring of God’s divine wrath. The dove proclaimed an end to the punishment and the beginning of a new life. The sermon of the dove was a homily of peace, peace between God and men, peace in the midst of the waters. So, on the Lamb of God, the feathered spirit lands and remains. For when the Lamb stands in the waters of the Jordan River, a new flood has come. It’s like the one in Noah’s day, but it’s far greater in its implications. For Jesus is the stand-in for all of humanity. In Him is the murderer, the pervert, the liar, and the cheat. In Him is you and me. One Lamb, sacrificed for all, And when John pours the baptismal flood over his head, Jesus becomes a sponge, soaking up all of God’s wrath and anger and punishment for you. In Him is the end of punishment. In Him is the beginning of new life. He is the Lamb of God who takes up the place of the world in the Jordan flood. He takes your guilt, your shame, and your death. He takes it all away. He does all of this so that He might take you, cleansed and made alive, to His Father in heaven. So, the Spirit dove lands upon this lamb so that you might know the peace and the safety that are found only in Him. So that you might actually have that peace and that safety by being baptized into His flesh and blood. Amen. He is the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The Lamb that takes away your sin. And if He takes it away, it is no longer your sin, but His. Your sins, no matter what they might be, don’t belong to you any longer. They now belong to Jesus. Your apathy is now His. Your lies are now His. Your pettiness and your prostitution, your murdering and your murmuring are all made His. It doesn’t really matter what they are. They are no longer your property. They have transferred ownership. Jesus has owned up to them. He has taken them away. And into your empty hands, He has put peace and righteousness and goodness and mercy and grace. All the good that He has is now yours because all the bad that you had are His. He has done it. He really does care. He was ready and willing to be taken away by the sin of the world that He might take away your sin in the process. Behold the Lamb of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
