'The Lamb' A Sermon

First preached as a sermon at the Parish Eucharist at Croydon Minster, 2nd Sunday of Epiphany. The readings were Isaiah 49.1-7; John 1.29-42. NB This sermon is very much inspired by Jean Vanier's book Drawn Into the Mystery of Jesus, which I would wholeheartedly commend.

‘The Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’ (Revelation 7.17)

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The Lamb is at the heart of the Christian life:

‘Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sin of the world’

‘O Lamb of God, you take the sin of the world, have mercy on us.

‘O Lamb of God, you take the sin of the world, have mercy on us.

‘O Lamb of God, you take the sin of the world, grant us thy peace’.

In the invitation to Holy Communion and in the anthem Agnus Dei Christian liturgy refers to lambs, or rather a particular lamb, the Lamb of God: the one to whom John the Baptist points.

As a church dedicated to John the Baptist let’s reflect on what he is revealing to us as he first sees, and then declares, Jesus Christ to be the Lamb of God.

Often in art and iconography John the Baptist is represented either holding a Lamb or pointing at one: just look around this church, inside and out to see that.

The revelation that Jesus was the Chosen One of God, the Son of God came to John at the Baptism. That experience enabled him to see and recognise and then tell his own followers:

Look, the Lamb of God

who takes away the sin of the world. John 1.29

Francisco de Zurbarán Agnus Dei 

But what a thing to say. That Jesus is a lamb, the Lamb of God, ‘such a meek and gentle little animal.’

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To declare Jesus to be the Lamb answers a question posed, in deep time, by Isaac, the beloved son of Abraham.

God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a multitude of people, ‘more numerous than the stars of the sky’ (Genesis 22.17) and yet had asked Abraham to sacrifice the son who he had Sarah had so longed for.

Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain, with Isaac carrying the wood (evocative, as Origen notes, of Christ carrying the wood of the cross to his own death) and Abraham carries the knife and fire for the sacrifice.

When they get to the place of the sacrifice Isaac asks his father, ‘where is the Lamb for the burnt offering?’ And Abraham replies, ‘God himself will provide the lamb, my son’ (Genesis 22.7-8). That day a ram was caught in a thicket and they sacrificed it.

But John the Baptist gives the long awaited answer: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’.

To understand the significance of the lamb for the Jewish people we must go deep into the scriptures.

In the story of the Exodus it was the blood of the lamb that saved the Israelites from death and enabled them to flee from slavery on the path to freedom. During the feast of the Passover, recalling that deliverance, Jewish people today remember, like their ancestors, by eating roasted lamb.

Again, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the servant who will suffer on behalf of the people, a servant who was pierced because of the fault of others and who brought peace. Isaiah says,

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter…

he did not open his mouth…

he bore the sins of many

and made intercession for our transgression. (Isaiah 53.7, 12)

In Holy Week we walk the Way of the Cross with the Suffering Servant Messiah. At Easter we speak of the Passover Lamb of God; that is Jesus Christ, the deliverer into freedom and life in all its fullness.

This Lamb stands in the face of the power and armies of Caesar, of an overbearing Empire: an Empire that endures today in systems of violence, consumption, oppression and environmental degradation.

In the face of all that what can this Lamb do?

In his writing Jean Vanier says:

The lamb will break down the walls of fear, of aggression, of violence, of sin which imprison people in themselves and incite them to seek their own glory. He will liberate in each person a new life of communion with God, with other people and with what is deepest in the self, sowing seeds for universal peace. (Jean Vanier Drawn Into the Mystery of Jesus p.34).

That’s what the Lamb can ‘do’.

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The scriptures and the prophets, after the example of John the Baptist, prepare our hearts to receive Jesus.

So often, people look for the spectacular. When Jesus comes, it’s not in the spectacular; not as the persuasive celebrity; not as the influencer with a million likes. He comes as a gentle Lamb.

In response our heartfelt cry is, ‘O Lamb of God, I come’. Lamb of God, I come to you messed up and in turmoil, with petty envies, and jealousies and niggles: with, as the hymn puts it, ‘fightings within and fears without’, and yet still, ‘O Lamb of God, I come’.

After declaring Jesus to be the Lamb of God, John continues to point him to others, continues to draw others to the love of God’s lamb. Inspired by John, as followers of the Lamb, let’s keep pointing him out to others.

Not to would be cruel.

For the Lamb, ‘comes in a very simple way, opening our hearts to people with the breath of peace and a quiet shaft of light, a gentle kiss. He comes into that part of our being that is our treasure, that sacred space within us, hidden under all the fears, walls, [frustration] and anger in us so that we may grow in the spirit of love’ (Jean Vanier Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus p. 34-5).

‘We are called to be gentle followers of the Lamb, not people of power.’ (Jean Vanier Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus p. 35)

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And the Lamb invites us to the Supper, what the Book of Revelation calls the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb.

Jan van Eyck Ghent Altarpiece

This is the captivating image of heaven. It’s portrayed by Jan van Eyck in his Ghent Altarpiece which shows the Lamb of God standing upon an altar, and around the Lamb are a multitude of peoples and nations, the saints and martyrs, people of every background and class:

for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7.17)

Today we gather around the altar of the Lamb of God, as young and old, men and women, with heritage of many nations and languages as followers of the Lamb.

We hear afresh John the Baptist’s description and invitation:

‘Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sin of the world. Blessed are those who are called to the Supper of the Lamb’.

Comfort, forgiveness and redemption is at hand! An evensong sermon

First preached at Evensong on the Second Sunday of Advent at Croydon Minster. Readings: Isaiah 40.1-11; Luke 1.1-25.

Like many people, I have always found the opening of the Aria ‘Comfort ye, my people’ from Messiah by Handel, sends tingles down my spine: carried on the tenor voice, Isaiah’s words float out to the Holy City, Jerusalem.

The message: comfort, forgiveness and redemption is at hand!

How our world needs to hear that message today, not least Jerusalem herself. We are living in what has been described as an ‘age of anger’, an ‘age of upheaval’ and of disruption.

How our world yearns to hear that ‘[our] warfare is accomplished, that [our]

Iniquity is pardoned’.

And indeed for those reading Isaiah’s words in the light of the revelation of Christ we are bold to claim that those words are of global, and even universal application, as well as personal.

In St Luke’s gospel Isaiah’s words are directly applied to John the Baptist, our patron saint here at this Minster Church. John’s is ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Luke 3.4).

But at the moment I am getting ahead of myself. For our reading from St Luke’s gospel has not yet taken us out into the wilderness, but rather it places us back in Jerusalem where, intriguingly, Luke’s gospel will end.

Isaiah’s message was, in the first place, to Jerusalem, because Jerusalem, the Holy City, is the place of encounter with God, focused in the Temple.

The Temple was both a physical and symbolic place of encounter with the very presence of God.

The Temple was a microcosm of creation and at its heart was the holy of holies, the place that only the priests would enter.

This was true in Isaiah’s day and into the time of Jesus Christ.

And so it was that Zechariah, an hereditary priest married to Elizabeth also of a priestly line, a descendent of Aaron the Priest, was on duty at the Temple.

Luke records it in a way that it reads as if this was all a bit by chance: Zechariah was at the Temple ready to serve, if need be, and was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary.

Placing on his priestly robes, Zechariah entered into the heart of the Temple, which was at the heart of Jerusalem, which is at the heart of the world. And there a transformation begins.

As Zechariah pours incense on to the coals of the brazier the angel of the Lord appears.

This is Gabriel; Gabriel, who will appear to the Blessed Virgin Mary to disclose God’s purposes for her as the Godbearer. But now Gabriel discloses to Zechariah that his son, born of Elizabeth, will be the Forerunner.

It is from the Temple in Jerusalem that the Forerunner, the one to prepare the way will come: as Gabriel declares, John will turn the hearts of people ‘to make a people prepared for the Lord’.

The centripetal pull of the Temple, drawing all into the focal point of Israel’s encounter with God is now being propelled outwards in a centrifugal action that embraces the whole world.

John is to prepare the people for the coming of God’s Messiah.

John is like the farmer who tills the soil to make it receptive and ready so that the seeds can grow: John prepares us so that the seed of God’s word will grow within us.

After John’s birth Zechariah’s tongue is unloosed and he speaks the words of the Benedictus, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has come to his people and set them free’.

This is the new message of comfort to all God’s creatures, that now we may all be adopted by grace as God’s children.

After preparing us John then declares of Christ, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’

And this takes us back to the imagery of the Temple. The sacrificial Lamb is Christ the Lord.

John is the fulfilment of the prophets and of a priestly line because Jesus Christ becomes both temple and priest, the very presence of God in human flesh: as the hymn puts it ‘Thou on earth, both priest and victim in the Eucharistic feast’.

In the Temple the presence of God was believed to be on the Mercy Seat, flanked by the cherubim. We will come to see the presence of God laid in a manger, flanked by ox and ass.

In this child of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, is all the fullness of God: our life, our hope, our salvation.

In Christ is a message of Good News to the ends of the earth, and lodging in our hearts.

Fear not: comfort, forgiveness and redemption is at hand!