Text: John 1:29-42
The season of Epiphany, which we are in right now, can get a little lost in the church year. Coming between Christmas and Lent, it is a curious, transition space with John the Baptizer, the call of the disciples, and early teaching and miracles. In this season, we are asked to look at the same world we’ve always known and see something entirely different.
That need for epiphany- a new way of seeing happens for the people in today’s gospel. John, son of Zechariah, is standing by the Jordan, at the edge of the wilderness. He’s doing his thing: wearing odd clothes, eating strange food, preaching repentance, dunking people in the muddy water, challenging the status quo. People are coming to see him because he is interesting, but they know what to expect as they come. One day, John looks up and sees Jesus walking toward him.
John doesn’t just say, "Hey, there’s my cousin." He says something that would have greatly surprised his listeners: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."
To understand why this was such a shock, and why it signaled a massive "something new" was happening, we must look backward. When John calls Jesus the "Lamb," he is invoking one of the deepest, oldest memories of the Jewish people: the Passover.
Recall the shape of the Exodus story. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. They were stuck in a cycle of generational trauma, forced labor, and hopelessness. Through Moses, God promised freedom. Freedom, liberation, a new beginning requires a marking—a boundary between the old life of slavery and the new life of the wilderness.
In that first Passover, the role of the lamb was specific and visceral:
Each family took a lamb, "without blemish." It was an asset, a sign of their livelihood. After killing the lamb, they were told to take the blood of that lamb and smear it on the doorposts of their homes. That blood was a sign. It identified who belonged to the God of life, to the covenant of life. When the plague of death passed over Egypt, those marked by the lamb were spared.
The lamb was the bridge. It was the price of the exit ramp from Egypt. Without the lamb, there was no exodus. Without the lamb, they remained slaves.
So, when John points at Jesus and says, "There is the Lamb," he is telling the crowd: The exit ramp is here. The time of enslavement to your old ways, your old habits, and your old systems is over. God is once again trying to lead you into freedom, into a new way of being, into a bondage of mercy and justice.
The hardest part of faith—and frankly, the hardest part of being human—is recognizing when one way has served its purpose and is no longer doing what it was meant to do. In that time, we often cast about and resist change, even when we know in our heart that it is time to be open to something different and, even, new.
The Baptizer is the ultimate model for this. John had a successful ministry! He had disciples. People were coming to him, and he was pointing them to a new way of living in and for God. But the moment he sees Jesus, he points away from himself. He realizes his role was to prepare, not to possess.
How do we know when it’s time to do something new? How do we recognize our own "Lamb of God" moments?
In the text, two of John’s disciples hear him speak and they immediately start following Jesus. They don’t wait for a three-year strategic plan. They feel a tug. Usually, when God is calling us to something new, there is a holy restlessness. The old "Egypt", the old addiction, the old habit, the old way of relating to friends, family, or neighbors, starts to feel cramped. The space becomes tight because your capacity is bigger.
When Jesus realizes he’s being followed, he turns around and asks a question to anyone who would follow him: "What are you looking for?"
He doesn’t ask, "What do you want to do?" or "Where do you want to be in five years?” He asks about the hunger of their hearts. To do something new, you have to be honest about what you are actually seeking. Are you seeking comfort? Or do you want to be in the company of the "Lamb" who changes everything?
The disciples answer with a question: "Where are you staying?" And Jesus gives them the only answer that matters: "Come and see." Newness rarely comes with a map. It comes with an invitation to walk. You don't get the clarity beforeyou start moving; you get the clarity while you are in motion. The disciples stayed with him that day. They sat in his space. They listened to his breath. They didn’t learn everything in the first day, but they gained enough wisdom and clarity to stay for a second day and so on. Learning the shape of something new takes time and trust.
There is a beautiful, quiet detail at the end of this passage. Andrew, one of those two disciples, goes and finds his brother, Simon Peter. He tells him, "We have found the Messiah."
Think about the courage that took. Andrew had to leave John —his teacher, his mentor, his "safe" religious home—to follow a carpenter from Nazareth. Andrew had to trust that this Lamb was indeed a doorpost to pass through for life, for freedom, for God’s future of hope for the world.
We each must ask ourselves: what is my Egypt? What is the thing that is keeping you from the new place to which God is calling? Is it a grudge you’ve held for years? Is it your judgment of people whose lives do not look like yours? Is it the idea that the church or the town or the community should always be the same? Imagine what it would have meant for the enslaved Israelites to have been more afraid of the unknown than they were of Pharaoh or the horror of his rule.
John stood at the edge of the water and had the grace to say, "He must increase, but I must decrease." He recognized that the Lamb had arrived to take the sin of the world—including our corporate sin of resisting the call of the will of God.
The Lamb of the first Passover was about protection for a night in order to make the journey to freedom. The Lamb of God that John points to is about liberation for a lifetime. Jesus remains on the move, speaking to us and asking, "What are you looking for?"
If we indeed want to follow where he goes, if we indeed want to be like Jesus, then when he says, “Come and see”- like Andrew and Peter before us, we go. The blood is on the doorpost. The way is open. The new thing has already begun.
Amen
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