-18-26        John 1:29-42

29 [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”
  35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Ask your questions of Jesus and find grace in the answers.

We have heard much about John the Baptist, whose birth and role in the life of his people receives considerable attention in the gospels. Last week we read of his baptizing of Jesus from Matthew’s account. Now it is John’s gospel that records that John the Baptist provides his followers with more information about this man who is the culmination of the very message and preparation John came to give. He reminds his listeners: I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel. He identifies Jesus very openly: Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John and Jesus are tied together in their work but there is no question that it is Jesus who has the greater authority and it is Him that John was meant to bring to light. This was reenforced as he saw the Spirit descend like a dove and remain on Jesus. With that assurance John continues with his testimony that this is the Chosen One, the one they have awaited. John seems to be an unusually humble guy, content with himself and dedicated to the task set before him. Two of John’s disciples hear this witness about Jesus as the Lamb of God and then follow Jesus as he was going on his way.

The symbolic imagery of a lamb has multiple connections in the Old Testament. When Abraham went to worship on the mountain, God provided a lamb instead of his son Isaac for the sacrifice (Gen 22), and in Egypt the lamb’s blood was spread on the door frame of Hebrew homes, as a protection against the angel of death,(Ex 12) and the lamb was part of the Passover meal that commemorated that rescue from slavery. In Isaiah we have the servant, later identified with Jesus, who is led as a lamb to the slaughter (Is 53:7). The image of this vulnerable lamb gives us a sense of the man that Jesus is for us and the role he has been given.

In this text there is another divine connection made with an earthly creature. God’s Spirit receives incarnation as a dove becoming a sign of God’s active presence, as it descends and remains upon Jesus. We discover that creation thus speaks in its own way, testifying to the Good News of the Son of God who joins with this earth, making it his home. And of course, the water is another earthly image, which is central to baptism, bringing new life as it washes clean and supplies hydration essential to all beings. 

With such testimony before them then, those two of John’s men shadow Jesus, when He notices them, He asks them: “What are you looking for?” Their answer may not seem to fit. They call him Rabbi (teacher) and ask where he is staying. Perhaps their response is on target; they are looking for a teacher, one who has the information and answers they seek. They may also realize that they will need to be with Jesus to learn what they need to know. They are looking for a companion and guide. If they are indeed searching for a new life, a direction and a relationship that will lead them, it is going to require more than a single lecture, more than an hour once a week. They will need to be with him full time to soak up and experience what they yearn to know and to become. That is why they need to know where he is staying, that they can stay there too, with Jesus. So, Jesus invites them to come and see. In other words, they are welcomed to get involved in that learning so that it can be absorbed and utilized, taking over their life; it becomes a part of them and will allow them to demonstrate it to others. 

Consider this story about a teacher that the Connection publication shared. 

A student arrived at her junior high school early one morning. As she passed the classroom of her math teacher Mrs. Peak, the student saw an astonishing sight.

     There was Mrs. Peak: She had pulled her wooden desk chair to the middle of the room. She had placed her open grade book on the chair; then she knelt on a small, orange carpet square. She was praying over the names in her roll book,( or maybe her ipad.) 

    This was Mrs. Peak’s ritual ever morning before students arrived for the day. Shemaiah Gonzalez was a student of Mrs. Peak’s. In an essay in America Magazine [September 2022], she remembers her teacher’s praying: (as she wrote)

 “Even at this Christian school where we were taught and encouraged to pray, we students found her ritual as strange as it was sacred. Mrs. Peak knew that we saw her, as hundreds of students, including my own father, had done during her decades of teaching.  But her prayer was not a show. She moved without artifice and with a humility we had not seen in any other person. We knew we were witnessing something holy.

 “The choice to look so utterly ridiculous could have been motivated only by love. Mrs. Peak knelt there with a posture that seemed to define the word fortitude, as if she knew precisely, in exact terms, that our God would answer her prayers. She believed in things unseen . . . ”

 Now, as a parent herself, Shemaiah wants that same prayerful support for her two sons.  “So I pray in the spirit of Mrs. Peak. Although I am not their teacher, I type out the names of all the children in my children’s classes. I kneel and whisper each name as I pray. I pray that they will know Christ and his love for them. And I pray that these prayers will help sustain them when they cannot pray for themselves.”  (Connections Jan 2023) Mrs. Peak was a teacher after Jesus’ own heart.

 Along with those disciples of John who followed Jesus, you are asked: What are you looking for? Or it may be phrased this way: What do you need to ask for from Christ? The Spirit of God that “came down like a dove” at Jesus baptism still moves among us. The Spirit is willing to work in every humble prayer we offer. The Spirit can work in every selfless act of compassion we extend, in every effort we make to bring the grace of reconciliation and peace into our world. Here is the challenge if you want to know the word made flesh: come and see Jesus.  If you want to understand what love is like, come and see Jesus. If you want to be cleansed with living water, and bask in the light of the world, come and see Jesus. If you seek to be filled with bread that never perishes, come and see Jesus.  Abide with him, where he is staying, and enter into everlasting life; there you will find and see the Lamb of God.