Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

 

 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold!  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'  I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water."  And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.  I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'  And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."

 

- John 1:29–34 

 

On Tuesday we read the testimony of John the Baptist, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"  He confessed, and did not deny but confessed, "I am not the Christ."  And they asked him, "What then?  Are you Elijah?"  He said, "I am not."  "Are you the Prophet?"  And he answered, "No."  Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us?  What do you say about yourself?"  He said:  "I am 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Make straight the way of the LORD,"' as the prophet Isaiah said."  Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.  And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, saying, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.  It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."  These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  

 

 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold!  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'  I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water."  That John declares Jesus to be the Lamb of God is yet one more declaration of the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy (as in his testimony that he was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the LORD,'" in the reading from Tuesday, above).  The "Lamb of God" is a recollection of Isaiah's "Servant of God" who dies for the transgressions of God's people (Isaiah 53:4-12).  My study bible says that Christ, the true Paschal (Passover) Lamb, offers Himself for our deliverance from darkness and death (1 Peter 1:18-19).  It cites St. John Chrysostom as teaching that Jesus came to John this second time in order for John to make this declaration, and thereby stop anyone from thinking that Jesus needed baptism to wash away sins. 

 

And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.  I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'  And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."  Again, we have a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in this testimony by John the Baptist.  Isaiah 11:2 declares, "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord."  But there is a nuance in the fulfillment of prophecy, something richer and deeper than expectation.  That the Spirit remained upon Him is a sign that Christ possesses the Spirit in His fullness from all eternity, my study bible says.  Christ didn't receive the Holy Spirit at His Baptism.  Rather, the vision of John revealed the truth that the Holy Spirit has always rested upon Christ.  This is the second day given in John's Gospel, parallel to the seven days of creation in Genesis.  John declares that Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit, which is greater than his own baptism of repentance, which was performed with water on earth.  My study bible says this parallels the separation of water above from the water below on the second day given in Genesis 1:6-8.

It's interesting to consider that the fulfillment of prophecy reveals more than the prophecy itself has led people to expect.  The expected Messiah was considered to be an exalted human being, but the Christ (or Messiah) is so much more.  Even the notion of "fulfillment" gives us more than we might think the word means, when it comes to our experience of our faith.  That is because the understanding of fulfillment isn't complete in our own earthly understanding and expectations.  True prophecy points to something far beyond itself, and does not originate with the prophet, but is given by God.  Therefore the fulfillment of prophecy is also something given by God, and will contain a fullness that reflects its origin.  In this sense, the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy has not been completed, and continues to give us more than our worldly notions of what the words of the prophecy could indicate.  God's possibilities are contained in that fulfillment, and those potentials are far beyond whatever we could possibly expect.  This is also true of our own experiences of our faith.  How often have we prayed for something, only to experience a fulfillment of that prayer as an ongoing sort of teaching and instruction, something that expands us beyond what we thought we needed or wanted, and teaching us something about God and our relationship to God?  We could pray for something like a new car, or a particular outcome to a problem, and find ourselves with something entirely different as a response, even something deeply disappointing to our own expectations.  But in the long run, our faith will answer our prayer with its own response, and acceptance of a deeper and broader outlook on our lives or the ways that God works in our lives, and especially on our relationship to God.  Even disappointing outcomes teach us to expand our own understanding of what is proper and right; they teach us at once acceptance, and in the long run a pursuit of our faith that requires transcendence, persistence, even a nobility in willingness to sacrifice that expands our own character and capacity to abide.  There are even times I can trace in my life when a bad experience seems to have been given me -- in hindsight -- in order to steer me away from a wrong or bad path.  The story of the Lamb of God will be one of suffering and sacrifice, of a Messiah who will die the ignominious death given to the worst criminals in the Roman Empire.  But for believers, it is a story of transfiguration and transcendence.  The real story is not death, but rather the conquering of death by Christ, with the Cross a sign of Resurrection and redemption.  The dreaded instrument of punishment and death becomes a sign of God's power to conquer, a victory over our own limited perspectives and the expectations based on that limited understanding.  So, the fulfillment of the promises of faith becomes something filled with possibility that we can't necessary see nor predict, and here we come to Christ as the Lamb of God.   John the Baptist's vision of the Holy Spirit remaining upon Christ is at once the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, a revelation to John personally as he testifies in today's reading, and at the same time a promise that is filled with potentials that continue to unfold in the already long history of the Church and in each life of faith.  This is because where God is, there will always be an inexhaustible potential that we simply are too limited to imagine or understand.  Fulfillment, in the hands of God who is infinite, is not a question of manifesting our expectations, but rather of unfolding a continual process of revelation to us.  So, if we look closely into our own lives and experiences of continuing and persistent faith, we find that we are on a pathway of deepening communion, and increasing reliance upon that faith.  And this is the way that fulfillment is meant to be, because we enter into the life of Christ, just as Christ enters into ours.  If all of that seems far too esoteric to ponder, consider the ways in which the Lamb of God might manifest in one's own life.  Christ is at once the One who died for us on the Cross, the One who shows us the way, the One who loves beyond all measure that we know, the One who fulfills the Law and Prophets, the One who dwells in our hearts, bears our sorrows, catches us when we fall, and won't ever turn us away.  And that experience will just continue to grow as we deepen our faith.  So let us begin this journey with John the Baptist and the disciples he will subsequently bring to Christ as we continue through this Gospel of the "beloved disciple."