The Lamb Of God
Sermon
The Churches' Advertising Network nearly always comes under fire. The picture of Christ which adorned advertising hoardings around country a year or two ago at Easter, was that of Che Guevara overlaid with an image of Jesus from a classical painting. It produced a black on red poster designed to help new Christians discover the "real" Jesus. We were told the real Jesus is actually a revolutionary and that he was an angry man a lot of the time.
It's all a far cry from the gentle Jesus meek and mild of my childhood. The pictures I remember from our Sunday school room were Victorian paintings of gentle Jesus with a small crowd of children standing around him, or gentle Jesus the shepherd with the lamb on his shoulders. The implication of course, was that we children also ought to be gentle, meek and mild.
I've had a lot of trouble since that time with the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God. It sounds so weak and feeble, so very gentle, meek and mild. But I'm not sure I wish to replace that image with the image of Jesus as the revolutionary. No picture and no image can give us the full story, but pictures can give such a powerful subliminal message that we need to be careful how they're used.
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and declared to his own disciples "Here is the Lamb of God!" His disciples immediately deserted him and started to follow Jesus. So clearly the phrase "Lamb of God" didn't produce in those disciples quite the same image as it produces in me.
They may instantly have thought of the Paschal lamb which saved Israel from certain death way back on the occasion of the original Passover. As the result of a terrible famine in their land, the Ancient Israelites had moved into Egypt. There they had settled, but their numbers had multiplied so greatly that the Egyptians had taken them as slaves. Moses was the great leader who had arisen to lead the people out of slavery into the Promised Land.
But Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, was loath to lose his source of free labour, and after Pharaoh had reneged on his negotiations several times, God sent a number of plagues to persuade Pharoah to change his mind. The final plague was the deadliest of the lot. On a given night, the Angel of death would move throughout Egypt killing the first-born in every household.
But the Israelite households were each to take a perfect first-born male lamb and sacrifice it. The flesh of the lamb was to be roasted and eaten that night. They were told to eat it moreover, "with their loins girded, with shoes on their feet and their staffs in their hands" ( Exodus 12:11) for it would be their last full meal for very long time, and they were to be ready to leave on a long journey.
The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled on the door posts. This would be a sign to the Angel of death to pass over those houses. It all happened exactly as God had said it would happen. The first-born of the Egyptians all died that night, but the blood of the lamb saved the Israelites from this terrible fate.
This Passover history was so ingrained in Jewish minds, that when John the Baptist referred to "the Lamb of God", his disciples may instantly have visualised God's first saving Act, when he saved his people from death and led them out of slavery towards the Promised Land.
There's no real explanation for the title "Lamb of God" in the Gospels, and John is the only gospel writer to refer to Jesus in this way. But in the period between the Old and New Testaments, a war hero arose, Judas Maccabeus. He became know as "the Horned Lamb" because horns were regarded as a sign of power, and lambs and sheep in Palestine (like goats) have horns. So the disciples might also have thought of power when they heard Jesus called "the Lamb of God." But perhaps the clearest link for Christians is between the lamb in that first saving act of God at the Passover a thousand or so years previously, and Jesus, the new saving act of God, saving his people from slavery to sin.
And after the death of Jesus when the disciples were trying to make sense of that terrible death, they begin to see his death as sacrificial. The first real link is made in the book of Acts, when Philip comes across the Ethiopian reading from the book of Isaiah,
"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opened not his mouth." (Acts 8:32)
Philip seized upon the occasion to identify Jesus as that lamb, and a theology begins to grow of Jesus as the second saving act of God, and as the final and complete sacrifice for sin.
In the book of Leviticus, the law book of the ancient Israelites, a perfect and unblemished lamb can be used for a sin offering, a peace offering, a guilt offering, or a burnt offering. Scholars are aren't sure of the purpose of the burnt offering, but in early Christian theology, through his death Jesus came to be identified as the final token of all these different types of offerings.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7, St. Paul says:
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
And the author of the first letter of Peter writes,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. (1 Peter 1:19)
So the very earliest Christian theology uses the image of the sacrificial lamb to explain the difficulties posed by Christ's shameful death as a common criminal. John's gospel was the latest gospel to be written, written after many of the letters, and so John introduces the idea of the Lamb of God at an early stage in his treatise.
But it's in the book of Revelation, that strange book of dream sequences, that the title "Lamb of God" really comes into its own. The author of the book of Revelation, St John the Divine, is unlikely to be the same person as the author of the gospel of John. But Revelation is full of images of the Lamb, most of them bizarre images with which it is difficult for us in the West to identify today.
For instance, in Revelation 5:6 we read:
Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures
and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,
having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God
sent out into all the earth.
In Revelation, "Lamb" is the main title used for Christ. It's used there 28 times, which is probably the reason why it sounds such a familiar title to us. But it's a title which is almost unknown in the Gospels, apart from this occasion in John's gospel.
I have in the past used an interesting exercise with young people. I ask them to imagine they are an animal or bird, and then we share with each other images they have envisaged. It's a very revealing exercise. Timid people tend to see themselves as timid animals. People who are very conscious of their weight tend to see themselves as large animals. Some people see themselves as aggressive animals. And a handful see themselves as cunning or sly animals.
I don't remember anyone ever seeing themselves as a lamb, and any who saw themselves as sheep would probably be quite self-derogatory people.
If we were starting afresh today with images of Jesus, I wonder which animal or bird you would use as an image of Jesus? Do you envisage him as a lamb gambolling around a spring meadow, or as a more robust animal? For if you see him as a strong, courageous or kingly animal, perhaps the poster of Che Guevara had something important to say to us after all.
It's all a far cry from the gentle Jesus meek and mild of my childhood. The pictures I remember from our Sunday school room were Victorian paintings of gentle Jesus with a small crowd of children standing around him, or gentle Jesus the shepherd with the lamb on his shoulders. The implication of course, was that we children also ought to be gentle, meek and mild.
I've had a lot of trouble since that time with the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God. It sounds so weak and feeble, so very gentle, meek and mild. But I'm not sure I wish to replace that image with the image of Jesus as the revolutionary. No picture and no image can give us the full story, but pictures can give such a powerful subliminal message that we need to be careful how they're used.
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and declared to his own disciples "Here is the Lamb of God!" His disciples immediately deserted him and started to follow Jesus. So clearly the phrase "Lamb of God" didn't produce in those disciples quite the same image as it produces in me.
They may instantly have thought of the Paschal lamb which saved Israel from certain death way back on the occasion of the original Passover. As the result of a terrible famine in their land, the Ancient Israelites had moved into Egypt. There they had settled, but their numbers had multiplied so greatly that the Egyptians had taken them as slaves. Moses was the great leader who had arisen to lead the people out of slavery into the Promised Land.
But Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, was loath to lose his source of free labour, and after Pharaoh had reneged on his negotiations several times, God sent a number of plagues to persuade Pharoah to change his mind. The final plague was the deadliest of the lot. On a given night, the Angel of death would move throughout Egypt killing the first-born in every household.
But the Israelite households were each to take a perfect first-born male lamb and sacrifice it. The flesh of the lamb was to be roasted and eaten that night. They were told to eat it moreover, "with their loins girded, with shoes on their feet and their staffs in their hands" ( Exodus 12:11) for it would be their last full meal for very long time, and they were to be ready to leave on a long journey.
The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled on the door posts. This would be a sign to the Angel of death to pass over those houses. It all happened exactly as God had said it would happen. The first-born of the Egyptians all died that night, but the blood of the lamb saved the Israelites from this terrible fate.
This Passover history was so ingrained in Jewish minds, that when John the Baptist referred to "the Lamb of God", his disciples may instantly have visualised God's first saving Act, when he saved his people from death and led them out of slavery towards the Promised Land.
There's no real explanation for the title "Lamb of God" in the Gospels, and John is the only gospel writer to refer to Jesus in this way. But in the period between the Old and New Testaments, a war hero arose, Judas Maccabeus. He became know as "the Horned Lamb" because horns were regarded as a sign of power, and lambs and sheep in Palestine (like goats) have horns. So the disciples might also have thought of power when they heard Jesus called "the Lamb of God." But perhaps the clearest link for Christians is between the lamb in that first saving act of God at the Passover a thousand or so years previously, and Jesus, the new saving act of God, saving his people from slavery to sin.
And after the death of Jesus when the disciples were trying to make sense of that terrible death, they begin to see his death as sacrificial. The first real link is made in the book of Acts, when Philip comes across the Ethiopian reading from the book of Isaiah,
"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opened not his mouth." (Acts 8:32)
Philip seized upon the occasion to identify Jesus as that lamb, and a theology begins to grow of Jesus as the second saving act of God, and as the final and complete sacrifice for sin.
In the book of Leviticus, the law book of the ancient Israelites, a perfect and unblemished lamb can be used for a sin offering, a peace offering, a guilt offering, or a burnt offering. Scholars are aren't sure of the purpose of the burnt offering, but in early Christian theology, through his death Jesus came to be identified as the final token of all these different types of offerings.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7, St. Paul says:
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
And the author of the first letter of Peter writes,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. (1 Peter 1:19)
So the very earliest Christian theology uses the image of the sacrificial lamb to explain the difficulties posed by Christ's shameful death as a common criminal. John's gospel was the latest gospel to be written, written after many of the letters, and so John introduces the idea of the Lamb of God at an early stage in his treatise.
But it's in the book of Revelation, that strange book of dream sequences, that the title "Lamb of God" really comes into its own. The author of the book of Revelation, St John the Divine, is unlikely to be the same person as the author of the gospel of John. But Revelation is full of images of the Lamb, most of them bizarre images with which it is difficult for us in the West to identify today.
For instance, in Revelation 5:6 we read:
Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures
and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,
having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God
sent out into all the earth.
In Revelation, "Lamb" is the main title used for Christ. It's used there 28 times, which is probably the reason why it sounds such a familiar title to us. But it's a title which is almost unknown in the Gospels, apart from this occasion in John's gospel.
I have in the past used an interesting exercise with young people. I ask them to imagine they are an animal or bird, and then we share with each other images they have envisaged. It's a very revealing exercise. Timid people tend to see themselves as timid animals. People who are very conscious of their weight tend to see themselves as large animals. Some people see themselves as aggressive animals. And a handful see themselves as cunning or sly animals.
I don't remember anyone ever seeing themselves as a lamb, and any who saw themselves as sheep would probably be quite self-derogatory people.
If we were starting afresh today with images of Jesus, I wonder which animal or bird you would use as an image of Jesus? Do you envisage him as a lamb gambolling around a spring meadow, or as a more robust animal? For if you see him as a strong, courageous or kingly animal, perhaps the poster of Che Guevara had something important to say to us after all.
