Epiphany 2

Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42

This week we hear of the baptism of Jesus again, but this time from St. John's gospel. And as I hinted at last week, St. John adds to what we are told about Jesus. He fills out the picture of Him. You may recall that last week we could see that in the baptism of Jesus we discover Him part of the Trinity. And using the word 'part' is inappropriate because we discovered that in being part of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is God in all His fullness; revealed to us, as we say, in the 'person' of Jesus. So we have that revelation, if we'd doubted it at His birth, affirmed here at Jesus' baptism. We see here 'who' Jesus is. He is God with us, God amonst us and we praise and glorify Him for that.

But why? Why is He here? What need was there for Him to come? What is He here to do? Well, again, if at the birth of Jesus we were in any doubt as to why God is here amongst us in the person of Jesus, John the Baptist tells us right away. As John sees Jesus coming towards him he announces; 'Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!' Exclamation mark in the Bible at the end of that sentence. This is important. This is vital. It says in St. John's gospel that John the Baptist 'declared' this. And that word 'declare' means, we read in our dictionaries - to make known formally or officially; to state emphatically or authoratitively; to reveal or make manifest, to show. So here St. John who wrote the gospel, is telling us through St. John the Baptist, the prophet and forerunner of Jesus, telling us unequivocally, who Jesus is and what He is about.' Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - and you'd better believe it!'

For thousands of years, people believed, that since Adam ate that forbidden fruit, and tried to be like God, humankind had been estranged from God. The history and exploits of God's chosen people in the Bible, tell us that God, time and time again made a new covenant with the people, a new agreement that despite Adam's sin and the sins of people ever since that He would still be their God and they would be His people. But ever and always, despite God's loving kindness towards them they drifted away from Him. They drifted away from His way of life, the way of life that God had ordained for them. And because of their continual drifting away and turning away from God, they grew diseased, aged and died, physically, emotionally, spiritually. God, in His goodness and out of His love gave them the choice. You choose; you choose either My way, leading to life, or your own way, leading to death. But always, they chose their own. And so always and ever the people were estranged from God, eventually forgetting Him. And their forgetting God was the worst sin of all.

This estrangement from God was felt very keenly by the people despite their waywardness, and that estrangement was highlighted very vigorously by the prophets who spoke in the name of God. An elaborate system of sacrifices was devised or demanded by God, with the intention of restoring that lost relationship with God. Complicated rituals were put together to appease God, to get Him back on side so that the people would feel safe again and confident of their relationship with God, confident that their relationship was in fact, in the end, good. Many of these sacrifices and rituals were designed to free people from their sins, to take away the guilt they felt about their estrangement from God with the resulting sin against and towards one another. One particular day of the year, the Day of Atonement was set aside for that purpose where the scapegoat was sent into the wilderness with the sins of Israel on its head and the people could begin again, refreshed, renewed and take on this new life that God had offered them.

But always history would repeat itself and the people would fall away, fall away from the love of God. Until Jesus came along that is. John declares Jesus to be the sacrificial lamb that takes away not just the sin of a particular people, of privileged individuals, but of the whole world. Jesus is here not just for one nation but for every nation. And as time went by it became clear, from what Jesus went on to say, that His sacrifice, made out of love, would be for the whole world and not only that, but for all time. No more sacrifices would be necessary. His sacrifice would be the last and the door to God would ever be open afterwards, to those who came to God with sorrow for their sins and with the intention of doing whatever was necessary to love God all the more. And it's though Jesus Christ that we come to God, in that way, day by day. Because of that great, once and for all sacrifice of Jesus out of love for us, our relationship with God is for ever renewed. We simply have to come to Him, as we say every time we meet in worship, 'in penitence and faith' and our relationship with God is renewed then and there.

So this baptism of Jesus shows us God in His fullness and a God who loves us so much He is prepared to give His all for us, to give everything He is for us. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. How wonderful it is to know how great is God's love for us shown in Jesus.