BEHOLD, THE LAMB OF GOD!
(Pastor Vyacheslav Horpynchuk's sermon outline:
John 1:29-34, January 20, 2008)

Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:3). Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, I grew up in the Soviet Union or as one of my favorite political heroes, whose name was Ronald Reagan, would say "in the evil empire". As I was a kid and I was going to school we would see at school portraits of Lenin and a teacher, a Communist party activist, would say how great that leader was and what he had done to bring happiness to ordinary people. When I was coming home and telling what I've learned of Lenin, my parents and grandparents looked very skeptical and explained to me that Lenin and his gang of followers have killed one of my grandpas, Zachariah, and also sent my aunt's Lydia family into Kazachstan to work in a concentration camp in Karaganda mines. They have also confiscated our land earned by hard labor of generations of my ancestors-farmers, and exploded a power station and a socket factory that used to be built under management of my great-grandfather, Victor. Communist propaganda with all their portraits and slogans, and nice words and a movie about their revolution evaporated from my mind and the truth revealed by members of my beloved adult family members showed evil essence of communism and materialism in general.

The truth is that we do not need even to be Communists or Marxists or whatever to have evil in our nature. We are born that way. It is expressed so vividly as a child fights another child for a toy. It is expressed most fully in death proving the validity of our Creator's verdict on Adam's sin, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19).

Sin is a terrible thing. Power of sin is all-penetrating. It's like radiation of Chernobyl. Millions of people could not feel it, they could not see it, and yet it was there: in Ukraine, in Russia, in Belarus, and even in Sweden penetrating into human bodies to destroy them later. Satan knew what he was doing by tempting Eve. Being professional murderer, in his cunning hatred he brought a perverted message about the truth and led all mankind into its major trouble sin. All other problems that we have today either in Ukraine or in U.S. or elsewhere in the world are just consequences of the Fall.

What a wonderful message is brought to us in our Gospel text today. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) John the Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet said pointing at Jesus Christ. This is the One Whose sole purpose is not to moralize over issues of politics or history or being politically correct or incorrect. No, His sola task is to take away the sin of the world. All kinds of roles ascribed to Him outside of this great mission nullify this great message, "This is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world."

John the Baptist looks at the Jesus Christ solely as at his eternal Savior. It's not easy for a natural man to see eternal God in a Man Who came from Nazareth to be baptized in the waters of the Jordan River. Eyes of unbelief cannot see Almighty God in the words of the pastors who declares us "Your sins are forgiven, go in peace." Restless and sinful mind cannot understand and accept Christ's body and blood real presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

Under guidance of the Holy Spirit Isaiah confesses our weakness in recognizing the true Messiah. He writes, "He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:2, 3).

And yet He is the eternal God the Son Almighty of Whom John the Baptist testifies further, "This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me." He was before John. He was before the world was created. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:1-4) John, the evangelist writes in the beginning of his Gospel.

God, the Word Incarnate, Life and Light of men is the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ Who takes away the sin of the world, all our sins. That was His mission. John the Baptist says, "And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God."

The Son of God, Messiah, the Savior of mankind cannot be recognized by human sinful eyes. God reveals Him. He does it so through His living and faith-creating Word. He has done that with John the Baptist, Christ's Forerunner. He is doing so nowadays as well. There is no other way to recognize Jesus except by hearing His Word and believing it. And it does not matter what country we live in: in Ukraine, in the United States, Germany or Norway "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17).

The Lamb of God was at the waters of the Jordan River. This same Lamb of God is in the waters of our Baptism present in the Word of God and testifying us that "as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27).

For the believing Jews the words of John the Baptist had to remind bondage and deliverance. They were slaves in Egypt. God delivered them from that terrible bondage in a miraculous way. As Angel of the Lord was passing through the land of captivity, he was killing all the first-born in Egypt. Consequences of being part of the sinful oppression never touched Israelites sojourning in that god-less country. They had a lamb. They put blood of the lamb on the door-posts, they ate the body of the roasted lamb without breaking its bones. They ate the lamb, lamb's blood was on their doorways and death had not touched them. Christ was with His people there foreshadowing unxpressible love of the Triune God in the coming Incarnate Lamb of God. Now a prophet of the Lord is standing at the Jordan River and points at Jesus Christ and says, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

This Lamb of God not just protects from the temporary death. This Lamb of God takes away the reason of our death, condemnation, human evil and all the problems with God. The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ takes away our sin. This is the reason for His coming into our world. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

A Passover lamb in Egypt and the lambs sacrificed by Israelites as it was commanded by God were pointing at this true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ that sacrificed Himself for our sake on the Cross of Calvary. There He brought all our sins to wash them away with His holy, innocent blood and in a minute of His holy death to proclaim "It is finished!"

The Lamb of God took away the sins of the world on the cross and died for them, on our place, for our sake, for the forgiveness of our sins. But Him "God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it" (Acts 2:24). Because this Lamb of God, Who died on the cross and has risen on the third day is also the Lord over everything. In His Name our sins are forgiven. In His Name we are declared righteous. In His Name we are adopted as children of the Heavenly Father. In His Name we have eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" - hear we today in our Gospel. And we turn our eyes to the Baptism when we were dressed in Christ. And we turn our ears attentively to the living Word of God proclaimed from the pulpit that testifies us about our complete forgiveness and love of God to each of us, undeserving servants, everyday's failures and beggars despite of material values we have in this world.

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world", and we look at the Altar where the Lord's Supper is celebrated and where we eat the true body of the Lamb of God in bread, with bread and under bread and where we drink His blood in wine, with wine and under wine for the forgiveness of our sins and life everlasting.

The Lamb of God has taken away all our sins and all the consequences of sin accordingly. He took away our enemy, the devil, who cannot accuse us any more as it is written, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:33, 34).

The Lamb of God has taken away our eternal death, so that we do not have fear of it anymore and exclaim with Apostle Paul, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:55-57).

The Lamb of God has taken away hell and instead He opened the doors of heaven for each of us inviting us, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt. 25:34). And all of this is ours for the sake of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

I grew up in the Soviet Union, a country that made militant atheism one of its main policies of state life with all its concentration camps, persecutions and terror. I live in Ukraine now, a country that became free and enjoys religious freedom today. But whatever country we are born, grow up and live, how sweet the words are, ""Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" and what a comfort to hear that this Lamb of God, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8). Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you (1 Cor. 16:23). Amen.