Behold – look – the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! Exclamation, proclamation!!

This is the One I’ve been telling you about – he’s here!!

What, or who, do you see when you look at Jesus?

John the Baptist saw the Lamb of God. We need to understand what he meant by that, & what his audience understood.

The lamb – in the bible’s view – stood for innocence, humility, purity – that was sacrificed in place of another.

We first read of this sacrificial lamb in Genesis 22: God asks Abraham to sacrifice his precious son, Isaac – the son God had given Abraham & Sarah – as a test of Abraham’s devotion & obedience. At the last moment, God substitutes a lamb & spares Isaac. This is fundamentally the whole point of the gospel, which we ultimately see fulfilled in Jesus.

And then, the blood of a sacrificed lamb is daubed on the doorposts of the houses of Israel, protecting them from God’s judgement of Egypt & leading the salvation of Israel from their captors.

And then, we see the institution of the Temple sacrificial system & the requirement of sacrifice of a lamb, pure & unblemished, as atonement for the sins of the nation.

This is how the Baptist’s audience would have interpreted ‘the Lamb’ – but as their long-awaited Messiah?

The Baptist himself said: I did not know him earlier – but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, this is he (1:33). And then, to paraphrase: then my eyes were opened, then my heart knew, this really is the One of whom all the Law and the Prophets spoke. This truly is God’s Chosen One.

You see, it took the revelation from God – at Jesus’ earlier baptism – to enable the Baptist to see what he’d been yearning for.

In Luke 2:22-35 we read of a man called Simeon, who’d been faithfully living in the promise God had given him: that he would not die until he’d seen the Lord’s Messiah with his own eyes.

One day, prompted by the Spirit, he went to the Temple – and there met Mary & Joseph, presenting the infant Jesus to the priest as was custom. Simeon saw, beheld God’s Son, the salvation of all the nations. Later in the same chapter, re read of the widow Anna also beholding the child in his parent’s arms. Both Simeon & Anna foretold of the redemption of Israel through this child – as revealed by God.

Simeon & Anna had been waiting & praying in faith; the Baptist had been waiting & obediently serving God in expectancy. And at just the right time, God.

We are all tasked with revealing Jesus to the nations – or our neighbours – to the extent that we ourselves see him.

So again, how do you see Jesus?

The Apostle John (in his prologue, chapter 1) saw him as the Word through whom all things were made; the light of life and of all mankind; God incarnate; the fullness of God’s grace.

The Baptist saw him as God’s ultimate provision to judge and to atone for the sin of Adam – the rejection of God. And, as one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit, the means of new life & transformation for all who would believe in this Jesus.

How do you see Jesus?  (Pause)

Behold – he is standing in our midst, the Lord of Lords, the victorious Lamb of God.

He says to you: ‘What do you want?’ (1:38).

Do you actually want to renew your vision of him? Because what we’ve seen so far, what we’ve understood so far, isn’t all there is!

Remember the story of the blind men & the elephant – they all believed an elephant to be the bit they exclusively ‘saw’/felt/experienced?

But there was more, & they best understood this when they shared their stories collectively.

We see Jesus best when we – as the body of Christ – come together in accord. We see him when we read Scripture together, & worship him, & serve our brothers & sisters in sacrifice & love.

But we also see him in his creation; as we reflect upon our day at day’s end; in the kindnesses of strangers; & even in the tragedies & woes of world events. Because he wants you to see him even in that – he is the Lamb of God who is our hope.

But do we want to? Do we want to move beyond our sometimes narrow, Sunday school perspectives?

One of my favourite hymns is ‘Be Thou My Vision’. For over a year now I’ve used this as my prayer, that Jesus would reveal himself to me more & more that I might love him more & more.

Perhaps you could make this your resolution for 2023? To look, to seek him out – because he wants to be found.

Psalm 27:4      ‘One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple …’

Proverbs 8:17 ‘I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.’

Jeremiah. 29: 13 ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’

Matthew.7: 7-8 ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.’

We see an aspect of the Lamb that the Baptist’s audience didn’t.

In Revelations 5, we read of the Lamb who’d been slain, taking the throne of heaven. He who was victorious over the powers of sin & death, now worshipped by all who call him Lord.

What does it mean to ‘behold’? It means to truly look, take hold of and consider, to gaze into, to understand there may be more – that this is truly remarkable.

And today, I ask for that vision for us too, that we would behold him as the victorious Lamb, who died in our place so that we might truly have life in all its eternal fulness. We surely must respond!

Revelations 5: 13, Together with every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, say:
‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!  Amen.