Behold the Lamb

What are you really looking for? In this Epiphany message from John 1, we behold Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and discover where true happiness is found.

Transcript

John Chapter one, the Gospel According to John, Chapter one. Now, for those of you who have marched with us through a liturgical year, let's say a calendar year in the Church, you'll know that we're in epiphany now. And yes, when you found John 1, go ahead and stand with me. And epiphany is one of those terms again, we kind of know it and we're using it really in a theological way when we're talking, talking about the Church. It's the epiphany, ultimately of the Lord.

Okay? Now, baptism of the Lord, yes, you remember, but also when the wise men come to see Christ, this is an epiphany. And some of you, when I did my little experiment up here, remember, of walking in silence, some of you are like, what is this crazy man doing? But some of you all of a sudden got an epiphany. Holy herald, no more squeaking, right?

The stage is fixed, you know, Glory of glories, right? So that's the kind of epiphany that we're looking for today, is one from the Lord of the Lord. You see, it's not just a revelation about more knowledge. We are looking for the Lord to be seen. That's who we want to see.

So notice these words. And again it's, oh, goodness. Okay, here we go again. Here we go with John the Baptist. Just can't get away from this guy.

Notice these words here as found in John 1. The gospel of John 1, verse 29 is where we'll start here. This is the word of God. John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.

I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason that he might be revealed to Israel. And John testified, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and. And it remained on him. I myself did not know him. But 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 baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. Now, the next day, John again was standing with two of his disciples, and he watched Jesus walk by. He exclaimed, look, here is the Lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, what are you Looking for.

They said to Him, Rabbi, which when translated means teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, come and see. They came and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew Simon, Peter's brother.

He first found his brother Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which is translated anointed. He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, you are Simon, son of John. You are to be called Cephas. Which when translated, Peter. Father, we thank youk for your Word.

And you'd word is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing all the way to the center of who we are. Would you do that with your Word today as a good physician does, Lord, to implode. Plant your Word in us, to give us your Holy Spirit, to remain with us as we abide in you. We pray in your name. Amen.

And you can be seated.

Well, wow, what a text. What a reading. Lots of things are going on, as you know, in the Gospel of John, chapter one. This is one of those, I mean, just pillars of our faith, to be honest with you. You remember how John begins his Gospel?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning and then drop down some more and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John's reaching all the way back to Genesis, of course. And now this is John the Gospel of John, John the Beloved. This is John the Beloved's story of Jesus.

Baptism, you say, Pastor, I don't remember water and all that. Right, Because John's already. He already knows that Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke are out there and they all have the baptism of Jesus by John, John the Beloved. Gospel of John. His rendering of this story, however, is much more theological.

And you would guess that his entire book is much more theological, much more mystical and focused on the Holy Spirit. So really, in the season of epiphany, we're looking at the light shining, in other words, all of a sudden, an understanding, an epiphany of who God is. This is John's notice, this is John's epiphany, John the Baptist's epiphany, and John the Beloved is showing. This is troublesome, right? All the Johns here, I get it, but everybody with me so far.

So this is his story of the baptism of Jesus without ever saying the baptism of Jesus explicitly. The physical event okay, so now, one thing here that is absolutely unique and loaded with theological import for us is what John says here. At the beginning, John saw Jesus coming toward him. What does he say? Behold the Lamb of God.

And he says it twice, Behold the Lamb of God. Two different days. Both times when he sees him, behold the Lamb of God. Notice who takes away the sin of the world. Now, of course, John could have identified Jesus in many different ways.

Could have said, behold the teacher. You know, rabbi, behold the prophet. Because he is, behold the king of kings. Could have said all those. But instead he chooses to say twice, behold the Lamb of God.

Now, when we reach back to the Old Testament, we get some understanding of why, because it's a little bizarre, isn't it? Like, Lamb of God. That doesn't sound very like a king of kings. Doesn't sound like necessarily a prophet. Now when we get to the priest part.

Yeah, now we're cooking with gas, as we say right now. All of a sudden, when we start thinking about the priesthood, we know that the primary job of the priests were to offer sacrifices, notice for themselves first. First you had to become clean and forgiven before you could ever deal with the people of God. But then once that was done, then you offered sacrifices on behalf of the people. How?

Animal sacrifices. Animal and the lamb becomes almost a generalization of all of that. You know, for those careful readers in Genesis, the very first sacrifice, blood sacrifice, happens in Genesis 3, perhaps the very same day that we, as humanity, Adam and Eve, fail, fall, sin, and are in need of God. Remember, we tried to cover ourselves with leaves, fig leaves, in fact, to cover the shame.

But that's not how God covers us. You remember what God does? He doesn't go get more leaves, but instead it says he put animal skin on them. Now, I don't know if you've been around animals much, but you can't really put animal skin on there if the animal's living.

I was watching football the other day and some lady showed up, I think it was football. And some lady showed up, like to interview one of these coaches. Maybe this was something else, I don't know. That's Jessica later, but she was in like a bear coat. I was like, is that a woolly mammoth?

I don't know. Like all this fur, I guess, furs back in, you know. And I was just, what in the world if that was really. You try to wear a bear, that's not going to work out well for you, right? Try to put a squirrel on your head, it's not going to work.

Out it's got to be dead in order to stay, which means then God had to sacrifice one of his precious animals that he had created for us in our place. Blood was shed. An innocent animal was taken on my behalf for my sin. And what we sort of miss sometimes is that there's an object lesson all throughout the Old Testament, year after year, particularly on the day of atonement, which, by the way, was the day Jesus died for our sins. And that object lesson dealt with bringing an innocent animal that.

You know, I've said this before. This is just a summary, and it's my summary. So it's a little off, probably, but you had to take the lamb into your home for, like, two or three weeks before the sacrifice. Now, just think about it. You take a little lamb in, right?

I mean, that's what it's doing, right? Everybody's like, oh, we're going to name it, because that's just what we do when we have animals in our house. Apparently Timmy, you know, and here's Timmy. And you actually had to lock him at the front door, okay? And so here's Timmy every day, you know, you go to school.

All right, Timmy, see you later, buddy. Okay, see you later. But meh, meh. You know, he's doing his thing, right? Then it's like, okay, guys, let's load up.

Let's go to the temple. Why? Well, we're going to worship God. Let's bring Timmy with us. Great.

You bring Timmy with you, right? And everybody's here. Kids are all there. And the father of the house has to put his hands on Timmy on the head and transfer the guilt of the family, the sin of the family, to that innocent animal who has no idea what's going on, is just happy to be there with his little family, you know, doing all that, I'm sure. And then the priest takes out a knife and slits the throat and bleeds the animal out, and it dies before everybody.

And, you know, today, we don't really watch many things die. We take it to a vet, we take them to the hospital. Most of us have never seen something die in person right before us while our hands are on it. It's shocking. This beautiful, perfect.

Remember that just had to be a perfect lamb, right? Which just simply meant it had all its limbs, all its eyes. It was just what a lamb should be. Must die. And then you look at everybody and say, it's because of you.

It's because of you. That's why Timmy had to die, because of you. Now, that's a Shocking. You talk about, like, having to go to a therapist afterward, perhaps, maybe, but this is God's object lesson. All throughout the Old Testament.

In other words, family worship had to do with blood sacrifice. It's shocking, I know, but if we read our Bibles carefully, that was the name of the game. Now, thanks be to God, my job as a pastor. Emily, as we're not slaughtering animals anymore, why? Because the perfect lamb of God was identified.

And once he was sacrificed and his blood spilt, it fulfilled all of those animal sacrifices in one human person.

If we were to offer a sacrifice now, it's a slap in God's face. We dare not. We must not. Instead, we continue to look at his blood spilled. We continue to drink the blood of that sacrifice.

All this coalescing, it's interesting. Isn't our faith sometimes you discover things about our faith that are shocking, and they should be. Because here's the point. Sin must be paid for.

Bad things don't just happen. And God says, yeah, that's okay. Don't worry about it. I'm a softie. No, no, he deals with it himself.

He takes it upon himself. Just like those lambs. Thousands of them, hundreds and thousands of them were a scapegoat for our sin. Remember? Of course, the famous story of Abraham, right?

Where God says, go sacrifice your son, Abraham. I gave you him. Now I want him back. What does Abraham do? Does he delay?

Does he say, hey, Verizon's not working? Actually, I didn't get that message. No, actually, what the scripture says is this. He woke up early and obeyed God. He went to the mountain.

He raised the knife. In fact, before they went up there, you remember, Isaac asked, says, dad got the wood, we got the fire with us. Where's the sacrifice? Worry, son. You'll come back down with me.

That was faith. Abraham knew what he was going to do. Kill his son. Why would he say, you're going to come back down with me? Because he believed in resurrection, just like Job did.

How in the world is that? Some of the same ways we believe in resurrection, it must be that way. That's the only way God could ever make things right.

You know, there's something that just doesn't sit with us. Well, when someone dies, especially innocently, it's like, what is God going to do about that? Oh, yeah, he's going to do something. Resurrection is coming. The best is still yet to come.

Even in the midst, even in the face of standing over a coffin, I mean, one of those little coffins, our hope remains. Because of resurrection. And even for Abraham, it hadn't happened yet in real time. But for us, it has happened in real time. He got back up, which means we're all going to get back up and he's going to make all things that are wrong right.

That's what we believe fundamentally as Christians. All things that are wrong will be made right. Which is why he doesn't just forgive our sin. He doesn't just redeem us in our sin or cover our sin. But what.

He's the Lamb of God who does what? Takes away the sin of the world.

Maybe there should be another parenthetical statement here to say, don't get swept away in sin then, because he's going to do away with it. The sin of the world is not going to remain forever. So when we find it in ourself, we need to cry out to our Lord to remove it. Because if we cling to it, we'll be swept away with it to the second death, to the final death. The scripture would say, okay, so God trains Israel to wait for Messiah, for the Lamb of God.

Not a Lamb of God, the Lamb of God. The perfect Lamb of God who is Jesus Christ. And so today that has been fulfilled. So I want to say to you all, brothers and sisters in this room in 2026, behold the lamb. He's done it.

He's done his work. And he can do his work in us. Now, the other curious thing I found, as some of us even in this room, read through this with me this week. John says, twice, I myself did not know him, but when this happened, I saw him. You say, John, you've known him since the womb, bro.

Remember, you remember this? He leaps in the womb when Sanctity of human life. Sunday. It's a good Sunday to remember that, isn't it, John? When he enters the room where Mary is with Jesus in utero, boom, he leaps.

Well, what does he mean? Here we know their cousins, we know their family. Surely, of course he knows Jesus, okay, in that way. What he doesn't know is he's waiting for a sign. We're told this.

He's waiting for a sign. What is that sign? That when he's baptized, the Holy Spirit will descend on him and remain.

There's a couple things going on here, one of which is this. John identifies Jesus, says, listen, he's the Lamb of God. And here's the thing. Notice his language here. He says, I told you this before.

After me comes a man. So I'm going to start preaching and. And then somebody's going to come along because of my preaching. In other words, I'm going to start something and then Jesus is going to show up.

The Messiah is going to show up. The Savior. Remember, Jesus means Savior. He says, after me comes one who ranks ahead of me because he was before me. What does John say?

He's speaking to the divinity of Christ. He believes that Jesus is the son of God, the living word, who was in the beginning, who. The scripture says all things were created through him and by him and for him. In other words, everything that's created is aimed at God, at specifically the living word, who now has become flesh and is identified in this very moment here as the Lamb of God. He ranks ahead of me, which is why John's ministry is going to be one of I must decrease so that he can increase.

When we start following Jesus, you know what? That becomes our ministry too. I must decrease so that he can increase in my life.

The more full of self you are, the less of Jesus there is in your life, the less room he has. Let's say the more we empty ourself of our ego and of the self, the more room that's made for a mansion for him. I must decrease so that he can increase by the power of the spirit.

So there's a lesson here for us, and it's one I think needed to hear again. And it's this revelation. Epiphany comes while we're obeying, like in the obedience. In other words, somebody would say, I don't know, man. I think I just need to step out.

But I don't feel like. I don't know. I don't have full confirmation. Just do it. You know, the old Nike thing, right?

Just do it like you know it's right. We just heard it out of the mouth of the babe. Some of you have stopped doing it because you failed before. Well, try again. He's still working on me, right?

To make me what I really ought to be. And just because we failed once or we got hurt once or didn't work once, doesn't give us an excuse to stop doing good works. No. John says, look, I was given a revelation, and here's what it said. Once I start doing something, he'll show up.

I wonder if we just start, like, let's just ask the Lord. Like, lord, I know I'm supposed to be reading my Bible, Know I'm supposed to be in a group. I know I'm supposed to be coming to worship. I know I'm supposed to be serving others. Gather scattermatter Right.

I know I'm supposed to be doing these things. Lord, they're biblical. When I've done them before. I felt your pressure. Okay, start doing it and see if he doesn't show up.

See if all of a sudden there's not an epiphany. See if all of a sudden we don't find in us the gift of faith, you know, because it is a gift from God. It's not something we work up. It's not something we deduce. It's not something we logically come to.

And I think that's John's point here. I myself didn't know. In other words, he's not relying on his familiarity with God, Jesus, like that. We're family. So therefore, that's what you should base this on.

No, no, no. It's based on something objective. A sign from God that the Spirit would descend and rest on him. You know, we can be in the midst. We can be very familiar with the things of God and still not know God, still not have faith.

You can be around the holy things. You can even be the priest doing the holy things and not know God, not trust him. Just because you're close to them doesn't mean you believe. Faith is a gift from him. Sometimes we got to start doing things.

Some of us are waiting to have faith by doing nothing. That's not how faith works.

In order to trust somebody, think about your relationships in your life. In order to trust somebody, you got to start trusting him. You can't just be like, yeah, I'm just going to wait around for them to do the right thing. Well, good luck. Good luck.

No, no. You just got to start trusting. And with God, we're never going to know enough to get started, are we?

We're never going to have enough evidence. You know, some people got to have the evidence. Once I have the evidence, then I'll believe. That sounds like your way. That sounds like your demands.

No, Christ breaks into our life and it's an epiphany. It really. That term is right. I mean, wasn't even looking for it. You know, I've had people and it kind of gets annoying sometimes, but now that I'm older, it really doesn't matter to me.

But people used to say, you know, oh, so you're a minister? Yeah. And they say, oh, because your dad's a minister. So, like, you're a minister because your dad is. I get it.

Okay. Yeah. No, no. In fact, I didn't want to be that because my dad was, you Know, not anything he did wrong, but I just was like, I don't need to do the same thing he does. You know, everybody will think that I did it because of him.

And then guess what? God broke into my life and I couldn't do anything but that. So whether you think that or you don't, doesn't matter to me. I know in my heart. Just like Jeremiah knew.

He's Jeremiah, like a household name. Everybody made fun of him. He always had bad news and, oh, here's a guy who come with bad news. Great. You know, he said, lord, I don't want to keep saying this bad news, but it's locked up in me like a fire.

If I don't say it, I'm going to blow up. Yeah, that's how you know it's God.

And that's what John's doing here. He said this is not my doing. No, no, this is objective to me. I didn't know that he, like, I know who he is, but I didn't know who he is in that way. Not until I saw the sign.

Have you seen the sign? Has God given you that kind of epiphanic sign? It's a made up word. I'm.

Okay. Good. Now, one other thing I want to look at real quick. Is this Jesus, when they start following him, remember, you know, two of John's disciples now have left and start following Jesus. Jesus notices they're following him and says, what does he say?

Oh, good, glad you're here. That's what I would say. You know, like if somebody starts coming on a trip, like, hey, glad you're here, like, I'd love for you to keep coming. Jesus doesn't say that oftentimes. It's almost like he tries to knock them out before they start, start the race, doesn't he?

You know, it's like, why are you here? Uh, that's one of these questions, isn't it? What are you looking for?

You ever had somebody to ask you a question all of a sudden and you're just like shocked by it? Like, oh, I really got to think about this one. You know, maybe you're in class and somebody's like, you. And it's like, what? Oh, yeah, let me think about this.

You know, this is one of those moments that, like, this is Jesus. And he turns around like, what are you looking for? They just made a good decision, leaving John for Jesus. Hey, good, that's the right move. What are you looking for, though?

What is Jesus doing here? What's happening here? He's Asking a searching question, much like he does in Genesis. Remember with Adam and Eve, where are you? Does God know where they are?

Of course. It's like a little kid playing hide and seek. We know where they are. They need to know where they are. Oh, shoot.

I'm hiding. And now I'm mad at Eve and I'm actually mad at God and blaming God. What am I doing? Yeah, sometimes we need to really hear, where are you? Now, Jesus has a different question.

I think this should echo through the New Testament. That's the big one in the Old Testament. Where are you? This one echoes through the New Testament. What are you looking for?

Like you. What are you looking for in following me? Am I a means to an end? Am I just not one more thing that you're tacking onto your life? You got a therapist, you've got a doctor, you've got co workers, you got a partner, you got friends.

And then you add Jesus in there. Am I just a means to an end? Is that what you're looking for? Just a little bit better life? Like, I got a pretty good life.

But, you know, add Jesus in there, sprinkle him in there. It's gonna make it taste a lot better.

I think this question actually has to do with happiness.

Now bear with me for just a moment. Happiness is one of these things that we all desire. Everybody in this room, now, you can call it whatever you want, but let's just call it happiness. Because that's easy. You want to be happy.

Like, nobody would actually say, like, you know, my aim in life is not to be happy, to be unhappy. No, that's ridiculous. Okay? In fact, you do most of what you do actually for happiness. Now, we can also say happiness is like human flourishing, the good life, etc.

Same thing. We're just kind of rolling all that up into happy. And notice is like, why do you go to school? Well, to get smart. Why do you want to be smart?

Well, you know, to get a good job. Why do you want a good job? Well, you know, like, get some money and stuff like that. Just have it easy. Why do you want it to be easy?

Well, we can keep going, but I'm going to stop there and just move to the end and that you want to be happy and you think having an easy life would make you happy. Now, nobody says, I want to be happy so that. No, no, you want to be happy to be happy. Because when you're happy, it doesn't matter what you're doing, what you have, you're happy, right? You Got to look like when you were a kid, you know, you probably were in like a much smaller house maybe than what you were in, but you were happy as a lark.

Had no idea that having a bigger house and then once you actually get that bigger house, guess what, you're unhappy. Once you get more money, you're like, that's going to fix it, man. If I could just get that thousand dollars extra or whatever it is you get that thousand dollar extra a year from now. We say, hey, that make you happy? No.

Okay. Would you put this in your life? No. We're all seeking for happiness. And here's what the Bible says about it.

That's the blessed life. The term that the Bible uses for happy is blessed. Blessed. You know, you want to be country right or Southern blessed right. The Beatitudes are how we get the blessed life, the happy life.

And guess what? It ain't by getting rich. It ain't by getting all the pleasure that we want. It's not by getting all the honor. Great job.

You did so well. Some of us live our life for that. And let me tell you, it's empty.

There's actually four classic substitutes for happiness. They're idols. At the end of the day, they're not bad in themselves. But when we make them the end of all things, like the final destination, the terminal where we're all headed, you'll realize they're false. They're false gods.

And here they are. Wealth. If I just had more pleasure, if I could just feel this or that power, if I were in control, if I could just do what I wanted. Honor. If I could just get recognized.

Nobody ever recognizes what I do.

No, none of these will bring you happiness. They've been tried over. Every generation tries them again with new technology. Yeah, we try them again. Scrolling away.

There were ways you scrolled back in the 50s. You know, it was newspapers. Everybody's just scrolling through the newspaper. You know, you always go back and watch shows and they're always watching, you know, read the newspaper. Now we just read our phones.

It never makes us happy. And there's nastier ways. I mean, the pleasure route is one that really deceives a lot of people. If I could just get this experience. No, no, I promise you, when you've got that experience, it's on to the next thing because it doesn't bring eternal happiness.

You know what brings eternal blessedness? Eternal Beatitude. Eternal happiness is the eternal one. He's the only thing stable in life because he's ground zero.

And that stabilizes Everything else, when you have an unstable bit of gravity, everything gets flung into all kinds of things. Everything goes awry, goes off the tracks, goes off the rails, as we say. Yeah, you put one of those things at the end, that's what you're really seeking. But your life is going to be off the rails. But communion with God, that's the end.

Christ, the good one, that's the end. That's our highest good. It's really what we're all restless for. And we just keep identifying these other things, distracting ourselves with these other things. Lock in on Him.

Lock in on the One who is the end of all things, because it all came from him, and it's going to return to Him. Our desire itself is from Him. So redirect that. That's what repentance is, Lord. Redirect my desire.

I've gotten hooked on pleasure. I've gotten hooked on wealth. I've gotten hooked on this or that. Redirect me. That's what a real epiphany would do.

You say, Pastor, how? Come and see. That's what Jesus says, isn't it? Come and see. Come and see.

They came and saw and they remained. That's what we must do. Come and see and then remain in Him. And then here's the last thing. We're wrapping up.

Then go out and share that. That's what happens here, isn't it? Jesus doesn't do all the sharing in this text. Instead, the brother goes and talks to the brother, remember, brings. Guess who.

Guess who gets brought to Jesus. Simon Peter. Big Dog himself. Right? The rock.

And Jesus says, there you are, Simon. Been waiting for you, buddy. Because here's the thing. Simon thought he found Jesus, but when he got there, he realized that God had found him. That's what we all need to see.

We need an epiphany of who God really is. We need to be found in Him. We need to remain in him. Because he is what we're looking for. The blessed life, the good life, the happy life, the life flourishing with good fruit.

Only the one grounded. I mean, at the foundational level in Christ. He's the bedrock. Is he yours? If not, today is a day where he can redirect us, transform us, give us His Holy Spirit.

May it be so. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN!