^{JN 1:29} The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I meant when I said, `A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' ³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

The Lamb

Andrew and John turned gave each other a look, speechless as Jesus walked away. They had been disciples of John the Baptizer for some time and they had heard him say some incredible things. That was what was so exciting about being around him. He preached that something was coming. At night around the fire he would tell his disciples of the Messiah who was coming. At those times he wasn’t ruthless or abrasive, rather clothed in vulnerability he would impart to them his passion for the one who comes.

This was what John and Andrew were thinking about as they watched Jesus walk away. Could this really be the one that the Baptizer had been telling them about so long? That night around the fire they talked about it.

“What does he mean the Lamb of God?” Andrew asked John. Andrew was a man of action; John was a thinker and a dreamer.

“Think about the Passover Lamb sacrificed so that death would pass over. Or think about the lamb Isaiah talked, the servant of God about being led before the slaughter with calm, Or think about the conquering lamb who will one day lie down with the lion.”

“That’s what I mean, which one?”

“All of them I think, rolled in to one,” John replied.

“Did you see him? The man our Baptizer spoke of?” Andrew asked.

“yes”

“Did he look greater than our teacher? Did he look like the long awaited messiah? Did he seem to you to be a man of miracles, a man who has seen the presence of God?”

John remembered this man, he remembered seeing him baptized by John a few days earlier. Then today as he watched him walk away, the man turned and glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met. And he saw him.

Have you seen him? Have you seen the Lamb who can take a way the sins of the world? Cast the eyes of your heart upon him. Look to that secret place in your heart where the spirit communes with God and you will see him looking back at you as well. He is powerful, he is amazing, he is God’s Son, Chosen, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World to take your sins away. He is looking at you? Do you see him?

As they were staring into the fire, thinking, The Baptizer came up behind them and spoke.

^{JN 1:32} Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³ I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' ³⁴ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

Themes:

John points Jesus out to his disciples:

Look the lamb who takes away the sins of the world - The lamb of sacrifice. I came baptizing in order to find him. He will baptize with the Spirit. The work of God is proclaimed the rest of the story is the disciples work of response. “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” - D. Willard.

The disciples follow Jesus:

Where are you staying - that question will take a while to answer.
Come and see - Come have dinner with me. Come to my table, I will feed you. Spend the night. Are we willing to go after him or are we content to look with our eyes only.

The disciples point Jesus out:

They run to find their brothers, Andrew finds Simon - we have found the messiah!

Justified

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It was as though a thousand layers
Of fraud and murder and affairs,
Each wrapped around his shrinking heart,
And hard as steel, had come apart.
He hung there silent, numb and hoarse
From screaming at the pain. The coarse
And filthy language of his soul
Dried scarlet on the splintered pole.
No strength remained to comprehend
How these few, quiet words could rend
The wicked wineskins of his life
Where every other moral knife
Had snapped like twigs against the rock.

The man had heard the soldiers mock
The Lord, and joined them at the first.
He saw him keep his peace, and thirst,
And with this tongue he whipped and sliced
The folly of a feeble Christ.
And then by some strange providence
Of grace, above his impudence
He heard the word of Life—not preached,
But whispered low; and that it reached
His ear above the blasphemy
Of his own lips was gift, as free
As gifts could ever be. He heard
Above the mockery the word:
"O Father, please, I beg of you,
Forgive, they know not what they do."
A curse, half-formed beneath his teeth,
Fell silent to the ground beneath,
Like slaving ropes and prison chains,
Like fears and rage and guilt and pains.
But then the lurid memories
Like waves from demon-laden seas
Broke savagely against the light
Of hope.

The lad had learned to fight
For garbage just to stay alive
Before he reached the age of five.
When he was nine he stabbed a man,
A beggar, just to have his pan,
Then threw up in the alley where
He ran to count the coins. He'd wear
A holy garment like a priest
When he was grown and rob the feast
And desecrate the holy meals.
And set the stage for his appeals
To lonely women in their grief,
Until they learned he was a thief,
And he escaped to Jericho.
He formed a group called Ganavo
And worked the wealthy routes until
The roads to Jericho were still,
And Roman legions searched the woods
And found him drunk among his goods.

The prosecutor's case was built
With ease. He bragged about his guilt,
And cursed his way from court to cross
Without remorse, as if the loss
Of his own soul to endless woe
Were sealed, and he would have it so.

But now his vicious mouth was still,
And something deep within his will,
Begotten by the quiet prayer
Of this reputed King, was there
As new and strange to wickedness
As orchards in the wilderness.
And from his lips there came a word
That none from him had ever heard.
He turned his head so he could see:
"Jesus, is there a hope for me?"

At first he feared the Lord was dead.
But then he lifted up his head
To see the fruit of his travail,
And softly spoke around the nail,
"Today with me in Paradise
You'll reign beside the feeble Christ."
And when he heard the Savior die,
He gave his agonizing cry:
"My God! My God! How can this be!
Why hast thou not forsaken me?"

And do we not this time of year
Repeat these words with godly fear,
And stand in awe of sovereign grace
That put a God in sinners' place,
And turned his head to hear our plea!
Who is a pardoning God like thee!

The awesome truth of candle three:
A sinner justified and free!

© Desiring God

Lectionary Blog: Christ the King C
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Christ the King: 25 November Luke 23:33-43: "Luke presents Jesus from the beginning as one who is addressing Israel’s hopes of liberation. The songs of the birth narratives are full of it. Jesus marches into the synagogue to link his mission to Isaiah 61 in 4:16-20. He announces good news to the poor, hungry, those who wept. He asserts and expresses the value of those considered valueless. He gathers people and announces change. He is not beginning a school of meditation for personal enrichment (though that will have its place); nor is he promising a utopia at another time and another place. Rather he is announcing change and embodying it already in himself and in his community. Dangerous? Certainly not harmless for those with a vested interest in the status quo. Is he one with Barabbas and the brigands? Certainly not; yet we need to see that in some sense there would have been shared goals. He would have more in common with them than with Christian quietists. To affirm that Jesus is king is to affirm a different kind of kingship. But it is not a kingship which abdicates into an inner or other world. Powerlessness is simply passivity if no power is taken up. Jesus was enormously powerful and assertive. He did not come to create a set of doormats, but to spread a revolution of love and grace, which entailed identifying and embodying a new kind of power and priority. The feast of Christ the king is something very assertive. The paradox and irony of the passion is not to be dissolved by dislocation, by saying Christ’s concerns lie elsewhere. It is rather to be entered as representative of a fundamental conflict in the here and now: about God, about Christ, and about being Christian."

The Lord, The Blues, and the Art of Being Smooth: Is there sex in heaven?: "Janis Joplin was once asked what it was like being a rock star. She replied: “It’s pretty hard sometimes. You go on stage, make love to fifteen thousand people, then you go home and sleep alone.” Jesus was once asked, as a test: If a woman marries seven times and all her husbands die before she dies, whose wife will she be after the resurrection? He answered that, after the resurrection, we will no longer marry or be given in marriage. These two answers Janis Joplin’s and Jesus’, are not unconnected. Each, in its own way, says something about the all embracing intent of our sexuality."

Journal Article 4 « Geribee’s Hive: "What the article is all about: The article used a form of redaction-composition criticism to accurately identify the literary form of the Zacchaeus story. Several literary forms have been proposed for Luke 19:1-10. D. Hamm viewed it as a conversion story. R. Bultmann classified it as a biographical apophthegm. M. Dibelius said it is a genuine personal legend where the deeds and experiences of an individual was rewarded and honored by God. V. Taylor considered it to be a story about Jesus “because the interest appears to lie in the incident itself rather than in the words of Jesus and because more detail is supplied than is usual in pronouncement stories” (pp.107-108). R. White said it is a vindication story. C.H. Talbert sees it as a conflict story similar to the narrative of Levi in Luke 5:27-32. Finally, R.C. Tannehill regards the Zacchaeus narrative as a quest story, which is a type of a pronouncement story. But some of the literary forms suggested do not simply apply, and some are similar with the others. The author in his article argues for Tannehill’s claim that the Zacchaeus story is a quest story, a type of pronouncement story. To prove this, he first delves into the proposed structures of the passage. E.E. Ellis sees the structure as “brief and pointed”. E. LaVerdiere sees another structure in the passa"