The Lamb of God

Isaiah 49:1-7 (page 609 in our pew Bibles) The second of four "servant songs" applied by Christians to the person and work of Christ, in which the hopes vested in Israel by God to be "the light to the gentiles" become focused in Jesus 

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 (page 952 in our pew Bibles) In Paul's otherwise standard opening he nevertheless expresses his theological belief in "calling". He is called "by the will of God" but also the whole church is "Called" to be Saints. God is the one calling and we in turn call upon the name of Jesus.

John 1: 29-42 (page 886 in our pew Bibles) "Jesus is the lamb of God". In the Jerusalem Temple lambs (as perfect as possible) were sacrificed to make amendment for sins committed. What John the baptist is referring to is that Jesus sacrifice on the cross will atone (make amends) for the sins of all people in all times if we put our faith in that atoning sacrifice. We all need atonement because we are all sinners and the sacrifice is offered once for all time just because God loves us. All we need to do is believe in this good news

Have you ever wondered why the cross has become the defining symbol of Christianity?

The cross is an instrument of torture and execution.

A modern equivalent would be to hang a gallows or an electric chair around our necks. But the cross, a method of execution so barbaric that even the Romans eventually banned it has become the symbol of a religion that is supposed to reveal the love of God for his creation.

The paradox is on the face of it astonishing.

But when John the Baptist says “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” that throws light on this central mystery.

The lamb is the sacrificial animal killed in the Temple. A terrible thing – an innocent dies. John points at Jesus and says – that’s Him - the sacrifice, the one that will suffer and be killed (unbeknownst to John at that time on the cross). He didn’t know the means but he knew he had to die.

John would have had in the back of his mind, the story from the bowels of the Old Testament when Abraham was called upon to sacrifice his only son Isaac but in the event Abraham said “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son” (Genesis 22:8).

And God did. He provided Jesus. The lamb of God.

For why and for what?

The answer is given in that same short pronouncement. Behold the lamb of God “who takes away the sin of the world”

 Through his death he brings forgiveness of our sins and restores fellowship with God. Jesus’ death opens for us a path, a way, to God. And this is open to anyone who believes.

“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is if you like the whole gospel in one line. That is the Good news. It contains the method by which this will be achieved – Jesus’ death and what will result, the sins of the whole world will be taken upon his shoulders and who it is for – the whole world.

The result, the end product is a restored and renewed relationship with God. And God wants that because he loves us.

So we end up with this central paradox that the ultimate symbol of love is a means of execution.

Epiphany is a time of revelation and today we have revealed the complex, multi-faceted nature of  the cross of Christ. Symbolsed by the gift of Myrrh from the Magi.

And what does it reveal about Love?

We learn That love and sacrifice are closely related. What would you not do for someone you truly loved. Have you not sacrificed willingly for love.

We learn that God’s love is closely related to service.

Do we not call Jesus the servant king in hymns and songs and litrugies? We read the servant songs of Isaiah and apply them to him. Yes he did serve mankind. He healed the sick, he cured the lame, he made the blind to see”

But his greatest act of service was the cross – He laid down his very life that we might live.  What faith Jesus must have had to go willingly to his death because he truly believed that it would make a difference.

Serving, sacrificial love made concrete in that self-giving sacrifice on the cross. The suffering and pain he went through and bore without complaining , could have been done only with the greatest faith in his Father and with the highest love for us driving him on despite the pain. “Take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours”.

The good news is a person. The good news is an event. The good news had wonderful consequences. The good news was achieved through sacrificial love and faith.

John saw Jesus and said,

“Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”

The Baptism of Christ

Isaiah 42: 1-9 (page 602 in our pew Bibles) God here is speaking and he heralds his servant who will have God's Spirit upon him and will bring forth justice to the nations (the whole world). Justice is a way of life based on God's teachings and judgements. Jesus embodies in his person everything that God's servant Israel was supposed to be but failed to do.

Acts 10: 34-43 (page 919 in our pew Bibles) A sermon by Peter that starts by stressing the impartiality of God. It summarises the public ministry of Jesus from his baptism onwards and refers to his crucifixion and resurrection. He is the one about whom Isaiah prophesied.

Matthew 3: 13- 17 (page 808 in our pew Bibles) Jesus is baptised by John and the Spirit of God descends on him and the words "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased". Note that Matthew has changed "You are my Son" (Mark's gospel) to "This is my Son" a much more public pronouncement than a private experience as expressed in Mark. According to John's gospel (1:12) these are the words that each of us should hear in our hearts when we become believers!  

Epiphany is my favourite season in the liturgical year. At Christmas we celebrated the birth of a baby but in Epiphany we answer the question “Who is he? And in that process of having revealed to us not only who he is - we find out who we are!

The main Biblical story attached to Epiphany in the West used to be the arrival of the Magi, BUT the main story attached in the East has always been the Baptism of Christ.

But Why would one be preferred to the other? From my perspective I can offer only this;

The visit of the Magi spoke in “symbols”  - the gifts of Gold, Frankincense and myrrh representing Kingship, priesthood and the significance of his death but Jesus’ baptism speaks in much more “personal” terms of his relationship with God – Father and Son.

The greatest revelation of the nature and being of Christ and the beginning of his public ministry was his Baptism  when the Holy Spirit descended upon him and the Father declared “You are my Son” or the much more public announcement “This is my son” as recorded in Matthew’s gospel.

The Bible makes clear that this relationship was eternal. Jesus was always the Son of God and was there at the beginning of creation, begotten, not created.

“In him was life and the life was the light of all men” as John said.(1:4)

In his baptism Jesus found out who he was and the people who were open to the truth also found out who he was.

Coming alive in our new identity is also the aim of baptism today. As Christians our identity is found in Christ. All of us who are baptised have a new identity.

Jesus has revealed who he is and we have revealed who we are.

So who are we? We all find our identity in terms of relationship. In our normal lives We are all someone’s Mother or Father, son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister, friend, enemy, nationality.

The core of Christianity is that through believing in Jesus, we have another identity that tells us who we are. At our baptism we have the right to all become adoptive children of God.

Ever stopped to think what an honour and privilege it is to address God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Father of lights, the ancient of days as Dad?

That’s what we say every time we say “Our Father” and we say so because that’s what His Son Jesus told us to say. Jesus often used the term “Abba” which is Aramaic for Daddy.

When we become Christians we become adopted sons and daughters of the Father and adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus.

It is my greatest desire that we all know our own true identity and ours is that we are a child of God when we come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus’ baptism is our baptism – His Father is our Father.

In Jesus’ revelation of who he is we also find out who we are. We are born again and discover an identity that is for ever and is the most important of the many relationships through which we build our identity.

The reason Jesus says that we won’t see the kingdom of God unless we are born again is that fact needs to move from mere intellectual assent to being felt in the heart though the Spirit.

To feel it in our hearts the words spoken to us by our Father, exactly the same words spoken to us as to Jesus and allowed to change us-

So God says to me

Martin, you are my child, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.

All Christians need to hear that they too are beloved children.

Ponder these things

Speaking about Mary was very difficult for me in the early days. I started in a low  evangelical church which simply ignored Mary.

I trained at an Anglo catholic Monastery that lauded Mary to the high heavens and virtually worshipped her which frankly made me physically sick.

I reasoned there must be an authentically Christian way of seeing Mary that trod a path somewhere between those two extremes and eventually I did find it, in the iconography and theology of the Eastern Orthodox church and Rowan Williams.

Amongst other things I used to be Archbishop Rowan Williams personal representative to the Patriarchs of the Orthodox churches of Romania and Bulgaria, called rather grandly his Apokrisarios and Rowan too had an intense interest in Orthodoxy and wrote a wonderful little book called “Ponder these things” where he wrote about praying with icons – well worth having if you could ever get your hands on one.

First of all, it is rarely if ever that Mary is depicted on her own in Orthodoxy. She is to be understood solely in relation to her Son Jesus. She is thus guarded from the sin of becoming an object of worship in her own right.

Icons are not “painted” they are “written”. They are words in paint and they are written for us to read and speak to us. They are termed “Windows into heaven”.

Now if you would turn to the reverse of your pew sheet you will find one particular style called Eleousia (meaning the virgin of heavenly kindness). The other two main styles are “The one who points the way” – Hodegetria and “The virgin of the sign – Orans. And I will incorporate insights from those two other styles along the way.

Look at the icon. See how intimate it is. The Christ child embraces Mary cheek to cheek. His arm encircles her neck and fondles her face, one foot is thrust towards us, and his other hand grabs Mary’s veil.  Many versions have the text from the Song of songs (2:6) behind it which reads “His left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me”

Christ’s eyes are fixed on Mary and Mary imploringly looks out at us. and Mary’s hand is beckoning and pointing us to Jesus as if to say “Not me, but Him”.

Here we are being told about the intensity and immediacy of their love.

Despite what we know about God through Christ most of us still have as our starting point a notion that God stands at quite a distance from us, waiting for us to make a move towards Him so this image can be quite shocking when you consider that the child is God and Mary represents humanity.

His love is like an eager and boisterous child scambling up his mother’s lap, seizing handfuls of her clothing and nuzzling his face against hers, hungry for sheer physical closeness.

Instead of a distance between humanity and God we have depicted a movement so direct and intimate it can be quite embarrassing. Mary’s expression does seem half embarrassed by the attention.   

We see here that God is not ashamed to be our God. Not only does not mind our company, he is hungry for it, passionate for it. We have here a picture of God’s hungry love for us. Think now of Jesus’ parable of the Father in the prodigal son running down the road to meet his lost son

He loves the reflection of his love in creation, cannot bear to be separate from it and goes eagerly in search of it. Think now of all the parables about things lost – the lost coin, lost sheep, prodigal son again, eager to be reunited which his own which rebelled against him.

How we respond to such intense love I think is shown in Mary’s gaze which is looking directly at you. I ventured earlier, an embarrassment, but she almost looks a bit tragic, burdened. How do I, how do we possibly respond to such love and devotion? How do we begin to receive it?

Mary looks at us with eyes full of love, grief and care as she is the first one to feel the weight of receiving of this almost desperate love.

Look at this icon and what does it tell you about yourself – your own self perception. You are the object of divine love just as Mary is.

But accepting this love turns things upside down just as any child turns the life of a parent upside down. So it is risky and things will change.

As in any icon of Jesus and Mary, Mary is the sign of our humanity engaged by God. In fact, Mary is creation itself embraced by God, and left in disarray and shock and disorientation when we realise the true nature of God.

God is here not a distant parent, or a perhaps threatening adult love but as a hungry child.

God cannot bear to be separated from us because he cannot bear to be separated from his own divine action. The creator has a burning desire to be reunited with his creation.   

  

John the Baptist

Isaiah 35: 1-10 (page 595 in our pew Bibles) The dominant theme of the entire Bible is "exile and return" which can be applied to both Israel and the human race as a whole. Here Isaiah talks about the return of the redeemed and the signs that will accompany the event and fulfilled by Jesus.

James 5: 7-10 (page 1013 in our pew Bibles) A call to patience when waiting for the day of the Lord from Jesus' brother James. He implores us not to grumble against each other while we wait.

Matthew 11: 2-11 (page 816 in our pew Bibles) John the Baptist wonders if Jesus really is the Messiah and Jesus replies that he should look at Jesus' works in fulfilling the prophesies of Isaiah.

If it is true that as it says in Proverbs 29:18 that “without a vision the people perish or are discouraged” then it is essential that the prophets make God and his certain action the centre of their message.

And here we have a wonderful vision of the salvation of humanity and the everlasting joy that is promised to God’s people.

The imagery is that of a return from exile. The two greatest influences on the Jewish psyche was the captivity in Egypt and the return with God’s help under the guidance of Moses, imprinted into the Jewish mind by the celebration of the Passover every year and the exile in Babylon and the return engineered by God through King Cyrus.

These two exiles mirror the primal exile of the entire human race from the Garden of Eden and our return engineered through The Son of God himself, Jesus Christ.

We are exiled from God in a wilderness of suffering, death and futility, by our own volition until we were rescued by the action of God through Jesus on the cross. What he asks for in return, to access this salvation, this eternal joy, is our faith. The way we exercise our faith is through the amendment of our life – by turning against evil and consciously returning to God’s fold. This involves the surrendering of our will to God’s will.

We also heard from James, Jesus’ brother and the leader of the Jerusalem church in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

He has advice for us. As we are waiting for this glorious future, be patient. And in our patient waiting, confirm our faith. Don’t grumble against each other, and show complete honesty and integrity. We don’t need to swear oaths as Christians because our word is our bond. Our words and actions should be as one. Our yes is yes and our no is no, because we don’t deceive each other.

And it is always a comfort to know that others have gone through what you have gone through so James reminds us that the prophets needed great patience and endurance to achieve their goals.

One of these, the last of the prophets was John the Baptist and in Matthew’s gospel today we see John in prison at a moment of weakness, who is wondering if Jesus really is the long awaited Messiah. Jesus doesn’t answer with a direct yes or know but says, “Look at the prophesies written about the Messiah.” The deaf are given their hearing, the blind their sight, the lepers walk, the dead raised”. What more do you want?

This day we are celebrating John the Baptist’s role in our salvation history and great pains are taken to present him as a traditional Old Testament prophet, wild and woolly, living a frugal existence in the wilderness (which itself is a part of prophesies).

He acts as a kind of Bridge between the Old and New. Jesus is a new thing in their lives but John the Baptist is that link between themselves and the Old Testament Prophets, and is a kind of guarantor that while Jesus is new and challenging, he is the one foretold by the Prophets.

But we end with one startling statement made by Jesus. No-one is greater than John, yet even the least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than John. Now whatever can Jesus be saying here? Any of us that confesses Jesus as our Lord and saviour is much greater than John the Baptist.

Well John was certainly a great prophet who pointed people to Jesus and he knew a lot about God’s Justice and preached as such BUT he had not and could not see the cross. He would not be able to appreciate the depth of God’s Love, his forgiveness and Grace. He had not seen the full revelation of God’s love. We have and we are blessed indeed. That is why we are, through no merit of our own greater than John the Baptist.

We are witnesses to the full revelation of God’s love for each one of us. Christianity is a corporate faith but it is also intensely personal.

Essentially it is personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We have seen God’s glory and experienced his limitless love and forgiveness. That is our greatest possession, and one we should be proud the share and give away as a precious gift this Christmas.

I have seen the light!

Isaiah 11: 1-10 (page 575 in our pew Bibles) Tempting to just luxuriate in some well known and beautiful words of Isaiah. The Spirit endowed Messiah has God like qualities so natural to him that they are worn as "Clothing" (v. 5). He is also endowed with the power to enforce his justice leading to universal peace not just in the realm of human affairs but also in nature as well

Romans 15: 4-13 (page 949 in our pew Bibles) Paul affirms the words of scripture affirming the psalms, the law, the historical books and the prophets as all being written for our instruction (v. 4). On this 2nd Sunday in Advent we celebrate the role of the prophets. 

Matthew 3: 1-12 (page 808 in our pew Bibles) Luke also quotes Isaiah when referring to John the Baptist. John baptised with water but Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit and will judge the nations with God's justice. 

On this day we celebrate the role of the prophets in our salvation history. But what is a prophet? There are two closely related aspects to being a prophet.

One is taken from the Greek profetes which means “foretelling”, but the original Hebrew word Nabi’ means “one who proclaims” powerfully into the political and social circumstances of his time.

The greatest prophet is generally judged to be Isaiah and in today’s offering we have a beautifully written foretelling of the coming of a future Messiah.

This future Messiah will be from “the root of Jesse”  Jesse was the Father of King David so the future king would come from the Davidic line. But this future King would be endowed with the “Spirit of God” and not like all the disappointing kings of Israel they would endure.

Just as true Prophets were endowed with the Spirit of God to deliver the words of God the ideal future king will Govern as God would govern.

Actually his God-like qualities would be so natural that they would be worn like clothing. And he will judge the world as God would judge it and bring in the peace that passes all human understanding.

And not only to the human world but to all creation, symbolised by the calf and the Lion laying down together. The whole cosmos will recognise the sovereignty of God.

And as if to underline the authority of scripture as a binding agent for warring parties to unite behind Paul quotes from various parts of the Bible, including Isaiah, and says that these words were written for our instruction and will if followed bring different parties of Christians together under the authority of Christ as vested in the scriptures.

This is a powerful appeal to the authority of the Bible to unite behind.

And just in case we needed more encouragement our last reading is from Matthew’s gospel where he too quotes from the prophet Isaiah, referring to his prophesy about John the Baptist. And of course, but not included today is the episode when Jesus, sitting in the Synagogue unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and reads from it and declares, “Today this prophesy has been fulfilled in your presence”

But in this text today from Matthew there Is a hint of the extent that Jesus surpasses John. John baptises with water but Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit.

Remember that baptise means “to immerse” so at baptism the person is immersed not just in water but in God’s Spirit. Immersed in God; drenched with God. 

That is God’s promise, that when the little child is baptised here today she will be drenched in the reality and truth of God. A light will be lit in her heart that God willing, when she is old enough to understand will respond to in her life.

The prophesies in the Bible are true. They were fulfilled in Jesus and their prophesies about the far future will also be proved true. Our role is to co-operate with the truth and work in tandem with God to bring his light to bear where we find ourselves.

Not in an overbearing way. We need to be canny. We introduce people with gentleness and respect. After all, Jesus told us that we had to as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

Nothing impresses people more than a positive change in ourselves and today we bestow the means to enact that positive change on another child. Whether she uses the God given gift given to her this day will be up to her but all baptised people are given the means, God’s Spirit at their baptism. 

Christ the King

Who do you look to for leadership, moral guidance, direction or inspiration. A political figure (less and less common), a celebrity (very common nowadays), some spiritual guru perhaps? It is a fact that most people are more likely to find inspiration in David Beckham than anyone else nowadays.

But for a Christian that question should be absolutely simple.

We look to our king, Jesus. Or if you are a republican, our president, though actually that doesn’t really work as a President is mainly symbolic, as actually is our own monarchy nowadays.

But in the time the Bible was written the kingship of Jesus is to be thought of more as an absolute ruler, though a supremely just and merciful and forgiving absolute ruler so  ”King” fits the Bill more than any other description. The kind of king that the Bible yearned for and often described was more like a shepherd who looked after his sheep.

Jeremiah rails against the imperfect shepherds that had beset Israel and looked forward to a future perfect king of Israel and his name will be “The Lord is our righteousness”.

The Christian church is the new Israel and Jesus is that perfect shepherd, our righteous king. Unlike the failed shepherds, Jesus is also divine and so is perfectly just, perfectly loving and also sees through all our pretence. He can’t be fooled and will also rebuke us when we go astray.

His power though at his crucifixion is mocked and misunderstood. In Luke he is tempted to misuse his power for his own ends, to save himself from the cross, but he refuses. He has bigger fish to fry. His mission is to serve and die for the whole world. He proves his steadfastness and trustworthiness in looking past his own needs and fulfilling God’s will. We have a sacrificial king, who was willing to die for us.

In a strange irony, the reason Jesus was killed was nailed to his cross and the charge against him read “The King of the Jews”. But the scope of Jesus’ kingdom had been misjudged. They thought his kingdom was a worldly one and his aim was to simply remove the Romans from power.

In fact his kingdom was universal and everlasting and the kingdoms he challenged were all the temporal powers of this world, past, present and future.  

And although it is only Christians in this world that recognise his divine rule, actually Christ is king over all creation. We are the lucky ones because we have seen and recognised his rule. One day everyone will have to bow the knee regardless. Paul says that one day, everything in all creation will be reconciled to this fact – so every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and King.

So we have privileged knowledge. We already have been transferred to the kingdom of God. We are already children of God because we are privy to the truth. We are presented holy and blameless and above reproach to the Father through Jesus.

We need a new boldness and a new confidence in this fact. We need to let that fact empower us.

Our kingdom is forever. Our king is forever.

We have God himself on our side so we have nothing to fear. In God’s grace we have the ultimate safety net. We have a freedom to be bold and try new things. Even is we fail we still have God’s blessing. If we sometimes trip and fall God will still pick us up again.

Our shepherd king will always hold us in his grasp and never let us go. He went so far as to die for us – why do we think he’d let us down now?

Christ is our leader, our moral guide, our inspiration, our servant, brother, shepherd and KING.

  

Remembrance Sunday

The first thing to say is that Remembrance of the war dead and those affected by war is always intensely personal. We all have our own stories. My paternal granddad, known as “Little Granddad”, (because he was little!), fought all the way through the first world war. Because he was a country boy and used to looking after horses that was his job on the front lines in France.

My maternal granddad was captured at Dunkirk and spent five years in a POW camp, an experience that broke him and he died well before his time.

And one of the most poignant trips in the last couple of years was making a pilgrimage to visit the grave of Louise’s Great uncle, Thomas Brooke, killed on the Somme and buried in a Graveyard near Thiepval called “Blighty Valley”, made more moving by the fact that as far as we know we are the first people from his family to visit his grave ever.

These and a million other personal stories are the content of Remembrance

It is also important to understand that Remembrance Sunday is a secular national commemoration and not a Christian festival. But it is a secular commemoration which the Church of England as the National Church lends its fulsome support and frames every commemoration up and down the nation from the cenotaph downwards.

That being the case, I suppose the question for us to reflect upon is what does the Christian faith have to contribute in offering the spiritual framework to the day which recollects the sacrifice of so many people during war?

And just at that point we have our first offering – the notion of sacrifice. The Christian faith is built on the notion of sacrifice.

That a sacrifice, is not an empty gesture, or a simple waste, but has innate power is written in to the Christian faith. In the case of Christ, we have a blood sacrifice and the sacrifice of that one man resulted in the defeat of evil, and the gift of hope to millions.

Using this motif, no sacrifice could ever be futile or meaningless but imbued with import, and should be received with gratitude. Sacrifice has meaning and can achieve things.

Pacifism is a noble position but the Church of England is not a pacifist church. It recognises that we are part and parcel of this fallen sinful world, and while we certainly hope and work for a future world of peace, we acknowledge that while we are part of this fallen creation with a heavy heart sometimes the unthinkable becomes necessary.

Remembrance is itself a word that Christians use all the time. “do this in remembrance of me” said Jesus Christ. Remembrance in Greek (anamnesis) in the Bible is much stronger than just “remembering”. It means to “make present”. We “make present”, in order to enter into the pain and misery, and ultimately death of Jesus. Applying this to the remembrance of the fallen soldiers - When you really enter in to the pain, really feel it, so that it becomes a moment of transformation. We hope it may become a powerful way of stopping us rushing quite so fast into yet another war if we can avoid it.

Also on the question of an example and an inspiration to others Christ offers an insight. In the manner of Christ’s life, his morality, courage, selflessness and sense of justice, we have a life worth emulating. There is something to inspire us. So too in the countless stories of courage and heroism do we find stories, lives, to inspire us.

So both as a sacrifice and an inspiriation, the Christian faith can speak into the commemoration of the fallen.

Thirdly we inevitably then should ask the question no one else asks. “Where are they now?” In a culture that routinely poo-poos the notion of a post death existence, Christianity is clear that one is not only possible but can in fact be positively assured by faith in Christ.

And lastly perhaps the greatest asset that the Christian faith brings to Remembrance Sunday is hope for a future world of joy, love and peace; a hope that is never extinguished no matter how much it is shaken.

We possess a hope that there is a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no more tears, pain, suffering or death. And this must naturally also mean, no more war. This is our hope. Because of the sinfulness of mankind this must remain a distant hope. Mosul, Aleppo, Libya, Sierra Leone, extermination camps, medical experiments on humans, rape and  every kind of vile practice against civilians seems to have proliferated of late; yet we as Christians never lose our hope.

What insights Christians can offer to Remembrance Sunday are; sacrifice, inspiration to follow their collective character where they led, life after death, hope for the future.