[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 preaching 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 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
And 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
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 him 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, he’s 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
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 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
This 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
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 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
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.
