[Machine transcription]
John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, we go to the River Jordan again today to hear this preaching of John. Some of the last preaching that we’ll hear of John, but his most glorious preaching. Because he preaches with his finger as well as with his lips. He points to Jesus and he says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
This is the one who is before me because even though he comes after me, he existed a long time ago. Of him, I’m not worthy to untie his sandals. In fact, the next day Jesus comes walking by the river and John says the same thing, leaning into it, so that his disciples, John and Andrew, at least these two, that they would hear it, “Behold the Lamb of God.” In other words, what are you guys doing sticking around with me? You should go follow Jesus. So that John and Andrew leave John the Baptist and they go and they follow Jesus.
Now we want to think about this because this sermon, “Behold the Lamb of God,” is perhaps one of the most beautiful and glorious preachings of the gospel that we have. We sing it over and over in the church. We sang it already in the Gloria. “O Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” We’ll sing it, that is the hymn of the Agnus Dei, which is sung right after we say the words of institution and we pray to Jesus who’s there on the altar with his body and blood, “O Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us.” Three times we pray. What does this mean?
So let’s put the text in context and then think about this sermon. Now there’s a couple of things that are a little bit difficult to fit together when we compare Matthew, Mark, and Luke with John, so we want to be careful. Here’s I think the best, and some of the reasons why it’s difficult is so you’ll remember first that when John baptized Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke we have it that he immediately went up into the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted by the devil. It’s how do you fit in that 40 days with the sermon of John is a little bit tricky.
I’ll tell you how I think. But the other question is that in the text we just heard, John says, “I didn’t know who he was until the Holy Spirit descended upon him.” In Matthew, remember when Jesus, and this is true in Luke also, when Jesus comes to be baptized, John seems to know him because he says, “Wait, you’re coming to be baptized by me? I should be baptized by you.” And John says, “Let it be so now that we could fulfill all righteousness.”
Here’s I think what it is. Remember John and Jesus grew up together, they knew each other, and John must have been suspicious of Jesus. He must have known that something was quite different about him, such that when Jesus comes to be baptized, John has an inkling, but it was not for John to choose the Messiah; that was not his office. The Lord had given him the promise of a sign. He said the one whom you see the Holy Spirit descending on, that’s the one, so that there will be no question, no wondering, no thought, “Did I announce the right guy or not?” The Lord says, “I’m gonna confirm it with the sign.”
So John says in the gospel reading, “I didn’t know; it wasn’t me. God told me that I would know by the descent of the Holy Spirit.” So that when the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove from heaven, that’s the Lord confirming this promise to John, saying, “Preach Him, preach Christ.”
The other thing, to fit the chronology together, I think it works best like this: that Jesus comes to John to be baptized with the crowds, and he’s there in the crowd, and he’s baptized by John, and then immediately the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for this temptation by the devil, this relentless temptation for 40 days. He’s fasting, and then at the end of that 40 days, the angels come and they serve Him and they strengthen him and they bless him, and then Jesus comes back to the Jordan River, and that’s when what we have here happened. So 40, 41 days after Jesus’ baptism and he’s there by the Jordan River and John says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
What does that mean though? What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God? And why doesn’t John preach—this is maybe how, I don’t know, I would prefer it—if he picked another animal, “Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah.” That’s my kind of sermon, right? Look at him roaring there like Amos. The Lord roars from heaven. The Lord roars. Or “Behold the warhorse of the Lord.” Now that’d be all right. Haha, the war horse says, among the trumpets, thrashing over his enemies.
But that’s not what John preaches. That’s not who Jesus is for us, for you. He is the Lamb of God, and the Lamb’s role, the Lamb’s office is to bear sin and to suffer and die. This goes all the way back. I mean, this is really the preaching of the entirety of the Old Testament, is that the Lord is putting lambs to death instead of you and me.
Remember, the first time this happens is in the garden when there’s Adam and Eve and they realize that they’re naked and they run for the fig leaves; they’re hiding from God, and the Lord says, “This’ll never do,” and so he takes an animal—we don’t know if it was a lamb or not; that would be my guess—he takes an animal and he puts it to death and he skins it right there in front of them and he takes the hide and he wraps it around Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. And as that skin, can you imagine, as that warm skin sticks to their flesh, they say, “Well, is this what it takes to cover our shame and our sin?” And the Lord says, “No, it’s even more.”
Or remember the Passover, remember when the Lord was rescuing His people from slavery to the Pharaohs and his heart was hardened and hard and he wouldn’t let His people go, and so the Lord is gonna deliver the boom, and so now the firstborn of all of Egypt are gonna die, but the Lord says to his people, he says, “You go take a lamb and kill the lamb and put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, and when the angel sees that blood, he’ll think that he’s been there already.”
This is me adding on a little bit, but the angel will think that there’s already someone who died in that house, so he’ll pass over it, so that the Lord receives there also the death of the lamb instead of the death of His people. Or when the Lord puts this in place on Mount Sinai with Moses and he says, “Here’s a tabernacle and here’s the priesthood and here’s the temple and here’s the worship and here’s the altar,” and I want you to take a lamb, and if someone sins, they’re to take the lamb and carry the lamb to the altar, and there on this kind of big barbecue pit that the Lord instituted, the lamb is burned in our place.
And you know it. I mean, you just can’t imagine this. You know that you have sinned; I know that I have sinned, and that because of our sin and our breaking of the commandments and our failure to do what’s good and right, because of all of this, the Lord should—well, he should lower the boom on us; he should just destroy us—but here I carry a lamb to the altar and I see its blood spilled and I see the smoke rising up to heaven and I know that the Lord has accepted that death in place of me.
Maybe the clearest of this is in the Day of Atonement, if you read the instructions for that one day, that one feast of the Old Testament that the Lord instituted, it’s crazy. I mean, the priest is running around. I think he changes clothes like eight times during the day. He has to wear all these different outfits, and he has to bathe himself six times, and he’s running around and he’s got all this stuff going on, and he’s sacrificing a bull for himself and taking the blood into the Holy of Holies. He’s sacrificing a goat for the people, taking the blood into the Holy of Holies.
At one point, they have two goats, and they toss the coins to pick one and the other, and the one that’s chosen the priest lays his hands on the head of that ram or goat and he says all of his sins and all the sins of the people, and it goes on to this animal. The sins are being taken from the people and placed on this sacrifice, and it’s driven off into the wilderness and starved, or they run it over a cliff or whatever. In other words, this one is punished instead of the Lord’s people.
This tells you what God thinks of you. He does not want to hold your sin against you. He does not want to condemn you. He does not want to give you what you deserve. He will spend His wrath on another. The trouble is, what is a ram? And what is a lamb? And what is a bull? I mean, we’re people and those are animals, and we know in a way that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin, can never forgive sin, but the blood of all of the bulls and all of the goats and all of the lambs and all of the Passover lambs and all of it in the Old Testament—all of it was preaching the blood of the Lamb who was to come.
The one who could take away sin by His death. And all the people of the Old Testament were always waiting for this one to arrive, and now in the Jordan River, John says, “He’s here, right in front of you, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It’s on this one, Jesus, that all of your sins are placed. It’s on this one, Jesus, that all of your sorrows are placed. It’s on this one, Jesus, that all of your shame, all of your failure, all of your regret, all of the sin committed against you, all of the corruption of this world that you feel, taste and see—all of it, all of it is on Him so that He is led like a lamb to be slaughtered having done nothing wrong but carrying your sins.
This is stunning and wonderful and awesome and beautiful for us to behold because the Lord who should visit us with justice instead visits that justice on Christ, His Son. The Lord who should visit us with wrath visits that wrath on His only begotten beloved one. “Behold,” says John, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Behold the Lamb of God who takes away your sin and mine and wins for us the kindness of God.
Now, I don’t know if you—here’s a tendency that I have when I think of the church and I think of how we’re living in these gray and latter days, I’m tempted to think of the church as like a castle that’s being besieged, the first part of Psalm 46. The Lord has established a strong tower, and He’s put us in it, and He’s protecting us in it, and that’s good, and we have the promise of God that the castle will stand until the last day. But this week I was reminded by a friend, a pastor, who was pointing us to Matthew 18, and he said—and that’s the promise—that Jesus said, “I’ll build my church and the gates of hell won’t prevail against it.”
He says we get it all wrong. The church is not on defense. The church is on offense. It’s not hell that’s storming the church and the gates are gonna stand up. No, it says, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” that is, against the church.
Because Jesus—and this is so important when we read the Gospels—that Jesus is coming and advancing his kingdom and coming after sinners, that Jesus is on the march, that Jesus is on the move, and that Jesus through the Word and the Spirit is coming after us, and he’s coming after you with this kindness, with this mercy, with this love, with this patience. Behold not the war horse of God, behold not the lion of the tribe of Judah, behold, dear saints, the Lamb who comes to take away the sin of the world. And he has come for you. God be praised.
Amen.
In the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
