epiphany 2 year A
January 14, 2008
Isaiah 49: 1-7 NRSV text
Psalm 40: 1-11 NRSV text
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 NRSV text
John 1:29-42 NRSV text
Agnus Dei - Francisco de Zurburán (1598-1664)
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That is what John wants to tell us. Twice in this week’s gospel passage, John the Baptist “sees” (and “watches”) Jesus walking by, and says to his disciples, “Look – the Lamb of God!” It’s difficult to miss the importance of it, isn’t it – particularly as v 29 marks Jesus’ first appearance on John’s stage. We’ve been waiting ever since 1:14 to meet “the Word made flesh” in the flesh – and he appears here in 1:29 (and again in 1:35) at a distance. We observe him through the eyes of the Baptist: John is looking at him, and directs the attention of his hearers to Jesus with, “Look – over there – it’s the Lamb of God!”
Critical distance: Jesus and John the Baptist
Notice how John maintains the distance between Jesus and the Baptist. It’s glaring after Matthew’s account of the Baptism last week. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus and the Baptist are up close and personal. They share the same space. They converse. Matthew has Jesus close the distance that the Baptist opens up (“This is the wrong way round: it’s you who ought to be baptising me”). And Matthew, as you will remember, puts Jesus’ own words on the Baptist’s lips: “Repent, for the
John does completely the opposite. Imagine trying to stage John’s gospel as a play. The challenge would be to find enough stage space to maintain the distance between the two figures. The Baptist would be right at the front of the stage with his disciples, almost in the audience; in the background would be the scene at the
Note how John does not record Jesus’ baptism. When Jesus appears in 1:29, he has already been baptised. We (the audience) hear about the baptism second hand from John as he tells his disciples what happened. And note, too, in 1:37, how John’s two disciples physically leave John and cross the stage in order to follow Jesus. Jesus and the Baptist never occupy the same space in the narrative.
What is going on here? Scholars have long been aware of a possible conflict between the followers of John and the followers of Jesus, and to the two communities that sprang up around each of them. It is likely that there was sharp disagreement about who was the more important. All the gospels bear witness both to the similarities and discontinuities between the two: Jesus and the Baptist were clearly related in people’s minds as two extraordinary men of God. Equally, all the gospel writers are at pains to point out that the Baptist plays second fiddle to Jesus: he is the warm-up act for the Messiah – despite the fact that the widespread reaction to John was clearly, “Can this be the one whom we are expecting?”
But John, perhaps more so than any of the synoptic writers, takes great care to make his point with all the subtlety of a runaway train: “Jesus is the important one. Follow him!” Look at 1:27 and 1:30: in two verses that follow closely on one another, John has the Baptist declare that he ranks a very low second to Jesus! He emphasises this by never having them in the same place together. John’s role is to announce Jesus – to point to him, and say, “Look! There he is! Go, follow him.” And so, as the first two disciples do precisely that, the stage lights dim and John fades into darkness, leaving the spotlight where it belongs: on Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Jesus the Passover Lamb
Jesus is on stage for the first time. We’ve been primed by the Prologue: he is the Word who was with God in the beginning, and through whom all things were made (1: 1-3). He is the true Light, bringing Life to the whole world (1:9) (and note, in passing, that John states equivocally in 1:8 that we ought not to confuse Jesus the Light with the Baptist whose job was to point to the Light!). He is the one who will make people the children of God (1:12). And then we have 1:14:
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
What sort of “glory” will Jesus manifest? How is God going to do all that God is in Jesus – and what is it that Jesus is going to do? John’s answer is that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
This is John’s summary of Jesus’ mission. It is his announcement. In making that announcement, the Baptist has fulfilled his mission. His work is finished as Jesus’ own work begins. Jesus’ work will be to “bring Life in all its abundance” (10:10); he will accomplish this by being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
John is already pointing us towards the cross. Jesus is to be God’s sacrifice for sin. Jesus will bring Life ultimately through his own death and spilled blood. And this is precisely the story that John tells us through his own, distinctive Passion Narrative.
John’s Passion Narrative is the epicentre of a historical-critical storm. The Last Supper in John extends over a massive two chapters (16-17). It is the occasion for Jesus’ final discourse to his disciples. But what often goes unnoticed as we read it (but not unnoticed by the scholars!) is that this is indeed a last supper and not a Passover! There is no Passover meal in John’s gospel. John has the Last Supper on Wednesday night. There is no New Covenant, but rather a New Commandment. Jesus is crucified, not on Friday, but on Thursday. This fact has spawned an industry in books and papers as scholars wrestle with the question of historicity in John’s gospel. After all, it is clear that Jesus was actually crucified on the Friday before Passover. So what is happening? Were there two very different Passion traditions circulating? And if Jesus were actually crucified on the Thursday (as John has it), what of the whole business of the announcement of the New Covenant that Jesus makes at the Passover meal?
The answer is actually devastatingly simple. John is not concerned so much to report what actually happened as he is to hammer home its meaning. As Jesus appears for the first time, he has John point to him and say, “Look! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And he constructs his whole Passion Narrative so that Jesus dies at the precise moment when the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the
Difficult to miss, isn’t it? In John’s gospel, there is no Passover because Jesus is the Passover. Jesus is God’s own Passover. Jesus’ death is the means by which God is accomplishing the New (final) Exodus: we look at the cross and see the means by which God is taking away the sin of the world and giving the Life by which we become children of God.
Jesus the victorious Lamb (cf Revelation 5: 6-12)
The “Lamb of God” carried with it not only associations with Passover and sacrifice, but with Messiahship and victory over God’s enemies. Whether or not the Seer in the book of Revelation is the same John who wrote the gospel (and personally, I find little difficulty with that view), it is absolutely clear that both John’s gospel and Revelation share the same theological community tradition.
In Revelation, Jesus is portrayed as the Lamb who is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David (5:5). Again, in this chapter, John the Seer “sees” Jesus: “Then I saw…a Lamb standing as if it had been slain” (5:6). The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders of the vision bow down before the Lamb, and sing a “new song” of praise:
You are worthy to take the scroll and to pen its seals; for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation (5:9).
Here we see the heavenly glory of Jesus the Lamb. The One who was slain in ignominy has been raised and glorified. He is now the Lamb who will take on and defeat the cosmic foes ranged against God – against Life. The Jewish Passover Lamb has become the means of God’s salvation for the whole of creation. The Word, through whom all creation has come into being, is now lauded by all of creation in a magnificent hymn of praise and worship:
I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!” (5: 12-13)
If that doesn’t give you goose-bumps, stop reading, put on a Handel’s Messiah, and sit and listen to this great chorus until it takes you to the sorts of places where the Seer is! The world is alive because of Jesus – the Word who became flesh and who died as God’s Passover Lamb. This is Jesus, the Lamb Who was Slain, lauded and worshipped by all of creation!
The Suffering Servant: blessing to the whole earth (Isaiah 49: 1-7)
Small wonder that the Lectionary compilers have chosen this passage from Isaiah! Small wonder, too, that the Servant Songs of Isaiah became so quickly read through Christian eyes. Substitute “Jesus” for “
Isaiah 49: 1-7 is the Servant’s mission.
Yahweh called me before I was born; while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel , in whom I will be glorified”.
Yet for all the parallels that we may draw between Israel the Servant of Yahweh and Jesus the Suffering Servant who is vindicated and glorified (as we saw in Revelation 5), it is important to note a key difference: John the Seer is talking of an apocalyptic revelation – a vision; Israel’s career as the Servant of Yahweh is played out in historical experience.
The point I want to make here is that “salvation” in the Bible always has a first, historical referent. The salvation accomplished by the God of the Bible is for the whole of creation, yet it is salvation to be experienced in history. It is “this-worldly”, in the sense that salvation is not some sort of escape from the world. Its fullness may embrace more than this world and more than human history; the important thing is that it is never less than that. This is no less true of the Johannine writings: for all the fact that John does “theology from above”, the point is that it is about heaven coming down to earth and bringing Life, rather than “beaming us up” from earth to heaven in some sort of divine escape module.
Look at the contrast between the truth of
But I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity”
This is the experience of being Yahweh’s servant in the world. Mission is hard because human action alone will never accomplish Yahweh’s salvation. In Christian-speak, all that we do in transforming the world doesn’t actually bring about the Kingdom. Or again, whatever we achieve that has lasting value is, at best, a sign of the Kingdom. Yet it is precisely for this reason that we dare not allow our own evaluation of what we do in mission to stand. The verdict on our work for God is God’s alone, because only God knows its true value. This is the dynamic of cross and resurrection: who would have thought on Good Friday that what we were witnessing was God’s ultimate move in bringing salvation? It appeared to be the end of everything – not its fulfilment. And yet resurrection happens on Sunday! And for us, the truth is the same: we experience the bitter sense of failure, and wonder whether we are just wasting out time and our lives. Mission is often our own Good Friday – yet faith tells us to trust in God and to believe that it is the darkest hour just before the dawn.
Yet surely my cause is with Yahweh, and my reward is with my God (v4b).
This is the moment of truth. This is the reason why
It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth (v6).
The Servant learns something astonishing: whereas “he” has seen “his” mission in the narrow terms of ensuring the survival of Israel, and restoring Israel, Yahweh now announces that the work of the Servant is, in fact, much greater – the means of being a blessing and bringing Yahweh’s salvation to the whole earth!
This is something that will finally be recognised by all. Those other nations who despised and enslaved
Discipleship and the values of love (1 Corinthians 1: 1-9)
The two disciples who hear the Baptist’s announcement leave John and follow Jesus. Following Jesus is more than trailing after him; to be a disciple is to share the life, the values, the God and ultimately the fate of the master. It is not a calling to an easy life. To be God’s child, Yahweh’s servant, or, to use Paul’s favourite term, a “saint”, is to become involved in a struggle. Mission is always participation in a war, even though we are called to engage in it as peacemakers! It is a war because the Kingdom is ranged against the powers that hold sway over the world and human living. God’s purposes for Life and human flourishing have their enemies: death, disease, despair, starvation, oppression, vested economic interests, political power, selfishness and self-interest.
While we may be rightly repelled by the militaristic triumphalism of much of Church history, piety and hymnody, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that there is a war to be waged; the difference, following Jesus, is that we ought to expect to be and to offer ourselves as the casualties on behalf of others, rather than expect and hope to be the victors.
It is that difference that is so absolutely crucial and so difficult to sustain. It is far too easy simply to bolt Christian faith and priorities on to our everyday, “secular” values, rather than to see Christian faith as involving a completely different set of values and priorities altogether. When that happens, we can celebrate the Constantinian adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire as a “gain for the Kingdom”, rather than as a tragedy that threatens to cut the heart out of Christian faith and eradicate the “Christian difference” that the Church is called to manifest.
The
In every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – just as the testimony of Jesus Christ has been strengthened among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1: 5-7)
Here is a Church that is to be envied for its spiritual richness! These are indeed “saints of Jesus Christ”. Yet the gap between their gifts and communal lifestyle is a problem. It mirrors their failure to appreciate the importance of bodies and embodiedness. There is a deep connection between their denigration of the physical as somehow “unspiritual” and their carelessness about the ways in which the poorest members of the Church live as second class citizens. Paul begins his letter by acknowledging their gifts because he is going to go on to haul them over the coals for their communal life. The key is chapter 13 – the great chapter on love:
If I speak with the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing! (13: 1-2)
Note that what Paul wants to do in the letter is to “sanctify” daily living. The Corinthians have bought into a Greek (and entirely unchristian) opposition between the physical and the spiritual. They have not understood that it is daily living and this world that is to be transformed by the gospel. They have yet to learn the lesson that to follow Jesus means more than being outwardly and impressively “spiritual” and successful: it is about the life of Jesus – the way of the cross – taking concrete shape in the lives and relationships within the Church.
Discipleship and witness (Psalm 40: 1-11)
Psalm 40 is a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance in the past and prayer for help in the present. It is also a classic piece of divine arm-twisting! You can, if you’re so inclined, read it as a fairly unsubtle attempt to get Yahweh to listen and act, but that is to misread it and to miss the important point altogether.
The psalmist is in trouble. He is in imminent danger (cf vv 12-17). This is the occasion both for the thanksgiving for past deliverance and the prayer for present help. The precise details of the situation are unimportant. What is important is what the psalmist tells us about living with Yahweh as one’s God. It is the spirituality appropriate to being the Servant of Yahweh here that matters.
Look at the experiences mirrored by the psalm – the pattern. The psalmist begins with the experience of “the pit and the miry bog” (vv 1-2a). These are the sorts of experiences that are not only difficult in themselves: what makes them so terrible is the attendant experience of Yahweh’s absence – the “dark nights of the soul”. These are the times when Yahweh seems to be far away, distracted and busy with other things, either unaware of the plight of the people or unmoved.
The psalmist does two things: firstly, he “waits patiently”. He doesn’t give up on Yahweh. And secondly, he keeps crying out until Yahweh listens, pays attention and acts (v1)! Yahweh is the God who can be mobilised by the cries form the pit. Yahweh hears people in trouble – and cares and acts to deliver them. This is a spirituality and a faith forged by the history of living with Yahweh. It goes back to the seminal time when the Hebrews were slaves in the brick pits of Pharaoh, and “groaned” (cf Exodus 2: 23-25). The great story of salvation in the Bible starts with these cries and with Yahweh’s unsought attention to them.
That experience is the model for the life of faith. The people cry, Yahweh hears and delivers, and the people respond with covenantal obedience. This is the pattern reflected in the psalmist’s own experience (cf vv 4-6). Yahweh has delivered him, and so the psalmist “delights to do God’s will” and has God’s “law within his heart”! (v6). This is what discipleship involves.
But the main point I want to draw out in relation to our other texts this week is simply the public testimony that the psalmist gives:
I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see I have not restrained my lips … I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. (vv 9-10).
Yahweh’s salvation is not a private matter. When Yahweh saves (delivers, liberates, helps, comforts) individuals, the stories of these events are to become part of the shared core memory and testimony of the communities of faith. These are meant to encourage the whole community. They encourage the community in two ways: firstly, they dispel the myth that “Everyone but me is living a successful life of faith! I’m the only miserable failure!” Churches are capable of tremendous self-deception. One of the most common ways that Christian communities deal with trouble and difficulties is simply to ignore them – to pretend that they aren’t there! Huge energy and effort goes into promulgating the myth that faith means an easy life – either in terms of circumstances, or in terms of hanging on to God when it is terrifyingly easy to abandon faith. Doubt, anger, discouragement and despair then become signs of “not being spiritual”; those who can sustain the fiction stay; those who are too honest or too broken ship out.
The second way that these stories encourage the community is related: they are a reminder that trouble is more likely to be a sign of living faithfully in a hostile world than its opposite, and a reminder and testimony to the fact that God hears, cares and acts. It’s an encouragement to hang on in; not to let circumstances or doubt or discouragement have the last word, but, like the psalmist, to keep on trusting and crying out to God – and looking out for God’s saving response.
One of the things we are bad at in our postmodern consumerist world is that we have reduced faith to the realm of the private individual. Gossip about people, rather than about our personal experiences both of difficulty and deliverance, are the stuff of our communal stories. And when those stories are not easily told within the community of faith, they are even less easily told outside it! Then those outside are denied the chance of seeing us, like John, point to Jesus, and say, “Look! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Amen.
Technorati Tags: christianity, new testament, old testament, jesus and john the baptist, theology, bible, jesus the lamb of god, jesus the lamb who was slain, revelation 5: 6-13, the suffering servant, kingdom values, spiritual warfare, witness and testimony
Recent Comments