Presented by Rev. Ellen Brantley

January 20, 2008

SERMON: Lamb of God

TEXT: John 1:29-42

A number of years ago, there was a movie out called, Saving Private Ryan. It was a box office hit and was nominated for and won a number of awards. The movie takes place during World War II, and opens with the scene of the attack on Normandy Beach. For twenty minutes, the battle rages on the screen, with little detail left to the imagination. It is loud, it is bloody, it is both gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching. We are shown young men with limbs missing who are calling out their last words to mama, while other soldiers step over them or hide behind them frantically trying to get to a safe place. At the end of the scene, the beach is covered with bodies; the water is red with blood. It was not a pretty picture.

But I have to say it was a good movie – not good in terms of enjoyable. But good in the sense that it gave me a new appreciation for the horrors of war and the absolute hell that those soldiers had to go through. I never imagined how awful it could be, and what an enormous sacrifice it is to serve in a war. I am amazed that anyone actually survived. And for those who did, I wonder how they ever maintained their sanity.

Oftentimes most of us would rather deny the ugliness of the world instead of having to face it. We’d rather not know too much about war, about poverty, about homelessness, about murder, about death. We know it’s out there, but we’d prefer to keep it “out there” at arms length. We’d rather not see it or experience it. We prefer to focus on beauty and happiness, and keep our eyes closed to ugliness and pain. But the truth is, sometimes we learn more from seeing the stark, ugly realities of life.

We’re like that in the church, too. We treasure our stained glass windows which keep us from seeing what’s really going on out there in the world. We want to hear music that is joyful and we don’t like to sing hymns in a minor key because they sound sad. We like everyone to be dressed in their Sunday best; and we want the message to be uplifting and encouraging. But sometimes it brings us down and makes us look at what we don’t want to see.

Like our story from the gospel of John where Jesus is declared by John the Baptist to be “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Now, you’re probably thinking, “What’s so bad about that?” Jesus as the Lamb of God is a rather pleasant image, we think. Lambs are wooly and warm, even kind of cute. And the fact that Jesus as the Lamb takes away the sin of the world is a reason to rejoice.

But let’s think back to Old Testament times and remember what lambs were used for. Back then, God’s instructions for the temple, the place of worship, called for animals to be slaughtered on the altar. The blood of lambs and other animals was to be poured over all sides of the altar. This sacrifice was offered to God as a way of paying for one’s sins. If you brought a lamb and killed it on the altar, your sins would be taken away.

And remember the Passover. Through Moses, God told the Israelites that in order to save themselves from death, they were to slaughter a lamb and paint their doorposts with its blood. Then the plague of death that was to strike all the firstborn sons would “pass over” that house. Only the blood of a lamb could protect them.

So when John proclaims Jesus as the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” we are made to see the harsh reality of the Good News. Jesus, as the Lamb of God, had to be sacrificed for our sins. He had to bleed in order to pay for our sins. He had to die a horrible death, in order to save our lives. It is not a pretty picture. It is gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching reality, that he had to die so that we could have abundant life.

I remember a woman in my last church in Iowa who didn’t like singing any of the hymns that had the word “blood” in them. She didn’t like the “bloody” hymns. We try to pretty-up the cross, too. We make it into jewelry and architecture and decoration, we adorn it with jewels and ornate designs. But when we do this we forget that it was originally an instrument of execution. What the cross symbolizes was not pretty.

Especially in church, it is necessary for us on occasion to have our guts wrenched in order to appreciate the magnitude of the sacrifice Christ made for us. It is necessary for us to have our hearts wrenched in order to understand the depth of God’s love for us.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, is an image which cannot be taken lightly. If we really understand what he endured for us, we won’t be able to sing hymns like “Joy to the World” and walk away. If we really see what it meant to be the Lamb of God, then we will not hesitate to respond with our lives.

My sister was in downtown San Francisco, just about to leave work and drive across the bridge to Oakland, on that fateful October evening in 1989 when a huge earthquake rocked the city and collapsed a portion of the Bay Bridge. Sixty-some people died that day, but my sister’s life was spared. Had the earthquake occurred just five minutes later, she could have been on that bridge, she could have been one of the victims. In the days, weeks, and months following the tragedy, she felt the pain of what is known as Survivors Guilt. “Why was I spared when other had to die?” she thought. Not only did she realize that each day was precious, but she decided that she ought to make each day count for something. Perhaps she survived because God had a purpose for her. Perhaps she should use her new lease on life to help save the lives of others. Because she received a second chance, she felt that she had to respond. She felt that she had a responsibility now to make a difference in the world and make sure that her life was worth saving. From this ugly experience, she learned a valuable lesson which changed her life.

Back to the movie, Saving Private Ryan, one unit has been given an order that their mission is to make sure they find and save the life of one Private Ryan. They do save him, but many of them lose their own lives in doing so. Just as the final, fierce battle is ending, the Captain who was in charge of saving Ryan’s life, pulled Ryan close to him and whispered these dying words: “Earn this.”

EARN THIS. In other words, make it mean something that so many died to save your life. Make your life worthwhile. Do something to make the world a better place. Make your life mean something so that our death will mean something.

Perhaps that is how we should be moved to respond to the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Not that we can earn it – we never, ever could. But we could take the ugliness of Christ’s death and use the second chance he gave us to make the world a more beautiful place.

We need to remember Christ as the Lamb of God; we need to keep the memory of his spilled blood in our hearts; we need to remember the magnitude of his sacrifice so that we can make a magnanimous response. We need to remember the harsh reality of his death so that we can make the most of the abundant life we have been given.

His blood was spilled so that our sins could be washed away. If our sins were important enough for Jesus to die for, isn’t that a good enough reason to try as hard as we can not to sin? Otherwise, what does his life mean?

Our lives have been spared. Our sins have been forgiven. Our debt has been paid because the Lamb of God was willing to die. It is not a pretty picture, but we can make it a beautiful thing by making our lives count, by making a difference in the world, by taking advantage of our second chance and by living the way he would want us to live, and by loving others the way he loved us.

Let us make his life and death count, by making our lives count.

To the glory of God! AMEN.