St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Rev Sue preached this sermon on Wednesday 3 January 2024. Here it is for you again.

Today we are picking up the threads of a story which began before Christmas. We heard how the Pharisees had sent their disciples to ask John to tell them who he was. We have moved from Advent to Christmas and now the one who was expected arrives. In John’s gospel there are no stories around Jesus’ birth and this is the first time we meet him.  John the Baptist announces who he is “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s a startling way to introduce someone. What would have come to mind for those who had gathered to hear John’s message?

Sheep were a major part of the life of people in the Old Testament. Abraham lived as a nomad, driving his flocks from place to place wherever the pasture was good. When his descendants settled it was in Israel, a hilly country, suited to farming sheep. Three images of a lamb would have immediately sprung to mind for everyone who knew their scriptures.

Abraham was the ancestor of the whole Jewish race. After many years of waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled he had a son in his old age, Isaac. And yet he believed he heard the voice of God telling him to offer his beloved son as a human sacrifice. The boy accompanied Abraham carrying wood to the top of a mountain, ready to build the fire for a burnt offering. Abraham was prepared to kill his son, but at the last minute an angel intervened – instead Abraham was to sacrifice a ram caught in a nearby thicket. The ram saved Isaac, but at the cost of its own life.

Secondly, we have the Passover Lamb. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and God sent 10 plagues on the Egyptians to convince Pharaoh that he must let Israelites go. The last and most terrible plague killed the eldest son of every Egyptian family. Each Israelite family was told to kill and eat a lamb. Its blood was daubed on the door of their house to tell the angel of death they were not Egyptians, and therefore to pass by without harming them. That same night the Israelites fled from Egypt and began their long journey to the promised land.

Thirdly, we have the passage in Isaiah about the man of sorrows who was despised and rejected. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter”
And “he poured out himself to death
and was numbered with the transgressors,
yet he bore the sin of many.” The people listening to John the Baptist might well have identified the suffering servant with the nation of Israel which in Isaiah’s time had seen the city of Jerusalem destroyed and the most able of its people deported. At the time of John the Baptist Israel was once more subject to foreign occupation – this time the Romans. Definitely oppressed and afflicted. But the earliest Christians saw in the passage a striking presage of the suffering of Jesus.

Put these three together and we have the lamb who willingly dies in our place, who submits to its fate without complaint. We have read the end of the story and we know that the gospel writer will tell of Jesus crucified on the day the Passover meal is celebrated, willingly allowing himself to be killed for our sakes. The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Note that the word is sin, not sins in the plural. John here is talking about not the catalogue of things we each individually do wrong, but fact that the whole world is out of balance. Humanity has got it wrong. John sees the root problem as our lack of trust, of faith, of belief. We are not like the submissive lamb – we insist on trying to do things our own way, quarrelling with each other and cutting ourselves off from the empowering love of God. In Jesus final prayer he prays that world might believe that he was sent by the Father, so that we might be one with each other and with him, and might know that the Father loves us too. If our sin of unbelief is taken away, and we trust in the power and providence of God, we will live in harmony with each other in lives filled with love and peace.

In a few minutes we will pray the words from the gospel at the heart of our communion service. We assert our faith that the sin of the world is being taken away, that a new way of life is possible not just for you and me, not just for Christians, but for the whole world. At that most sacred moment, just before we take communion, we pray for mercy and peace. In humility we, too, are like lambs unable to look after ourselves, we cease to strive knowing that in that acceptance lies the peace we so much desire for ourselves and for the world.