Year A
11Epiph. 2
JANUARY 14-20
Sunday 2
John 1: 29-34 (Sermon
1: “Lamb of God”)
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9
Isaiah 49: 1-7 (Sermon
2: “The joys and frustrations of those who are called”)
Psalm 40: 1-11
PREPARATION
What do offering we need to
bring to God?
God does not look for
sacrifices or offerings,
but for open ears, like
channels for the truth.
Grand gestures and offerings are not required,
but a heart-felt delight in doing the will of God.
My friends, Behold the Lamb
of God
who takes away the sin of the
world.
God has put a
new song in my mouth,
placed a new
melody on my tongue.
The love of the Lamb of God
be with you always.
And also with you.
OR -
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
God has given us a Light for
all nations,
that salvation may reach
every corner of the earth.
Behold the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world!
Rulers shall see him and rise
up to honour him,
parliaments shall bow down
before him,
because God is always
faithful,
the Holy One has chosen this
person.
Behold the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world!
PRAYER
Most wonderful God, most
faithful Friend, please remove from us the incessant chatter of the world, and
open our ears to the still small voice of your Spirit as you witness to the
truth of Christ Jesus. Enable us to hear clearly, to understand profoundly, to
respond freely, to serve lovingly and to worship delightedly. For your name’s
sake.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
We face up to the presence of
evil in all our own lives.
Let us pray.
Holy Friend, Joy of the
Universe, we seek you in the confidence granted to us in Christ Jesus. We are
here to come clean; to confess that we are mixed up beings who need extensive
mercy and assistance.
Each of us is like an arena where
goodness and evil struggle for supremacy. At times the goodness breaks through
for a resounding win. But frequently it is the evil that seems to hold sway.
Occasionally we lose the fight over a really big issue, and our fall hurts and
shames us badly. Yet more often we give ground on a host of seemingly trivial
issues, and then one day, in a moment of self awareness, we get a shock to
discover how far we have retreated for the light and joy of Christ.
Loving God, how greatly we
need you! We need to hear you calling for us, we need to feel you breaking
through to our predicament, and we need your hand stretched out to us where we
crouch entangled and bruised. We need the saving grace of the Christ who is
both Lamb of God and shepherd of the lost.
Lamb of God, you take away
the sin of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away
the sin of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away
the sin of the world,
grant us your peace.
Sisters and brothers in
Christ: Do not be anxious, do not be timid. Trust and welcome the unconditional
grace of God into your mind, and heart and soul. You are a forgiven family with
a future that makes even the angels in heaven marvel and rejoice.
Thanks be to God.
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Dear God,
when people call Jesus
“the Lamb of God”
it sounds odd to us.
Lambs are okay
when they are gambolling
on green grass in springtime,
or if we have one for a pet.
But you know, God,
they are not very smart,
and they can’t do tricks and
things.
Jesus isn’t like that.
He is so smart
in what he says and does
that he leaves even
the cleverest men and women
far behind;
like at the bottom of the
class.
And yet,
he wants children like us
to come up front, close to
him,
and he places loving hands on
them
and blesses them?
We really, really like that,
God, you know?
Thanks.
Amen.
PSALM
40:1-11
I waited and waited for some action;
at last
God bent down and heard me.
I was pulled
out of the pit of despair,
lifted above the mud and slush.
My feet were
set on solid rock
and I could walk with certainty.
God has placed a new song in my mouth,
put a
new melody on my tongue.
Many will be
surprised by this
and put their own lives in God’s
hands.
If you want to know true wealth,
then
it’s time to trust God,
who does not
favour the arrogant
or those who chase after vanities.
You have heaped grace upon grace,
God,
our very own God.
The joys you
plan and do for us
cannot be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
You do not look for
sacrifices or offerings,
but ears open like windows to the truth.
Grand gestures and gifts are not required,
it is
enough that I come to you, God.
It’s as if the Scriptures were written for me:
“From the
heart’s depths, I delight in your will.”
I have published the gospel of liberation
in the
presence of the great congregation.
You can see
that I cannot keep quiet,
you are well aware of that, God.
I have not
kept it all to myself,
but spoken out for your healing truth.
Your
unfettered love is not kept under wraps,
in the congregation your true-love is
known
For you, God, have never held back,
your
mercy is always there for me.
Your
unfettered love and faithfulness
will look after me forever!
Ó
B D Prewer 2000
LAMB OF GOD
The Word as the Lamb,
God as a
mere child,
the wounded healer
left out in
the cold.
Where else is such strength
so gently
supplied,
or so much glory
so quietly
displayed?
Despised and rejected,
acquainted
with grief;
Man of our sorrows
bridging the
gulf.
The sinless beauty
without
shade or sham.
The wisdom of God
bearing our
shame.
Wounded and bruised
by the
strong-willed;
denied and forsaken
yet
saving the world.
Vulnerable then,
up there on
skull hill.
Love without limit
vulnerable
still.
Ó
B D Prewer 2000
COLLECT
Lamb of God, for ever taking away the sin of the
world, please visit this congregation with your salvation. Come with your
almighty gentleness and lift from us the burden of everything that discourages,
bewilders, or makes us anxious. Come with your beauty and induct us into your
peace, strength and holy happiness. Lamb of God, evoke in us the want and the
will to be the people you wish us to be.
To the praise of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Inspirer! Amen!
SERMON 1:
LAMB OF GOD?
1 John: 29
“Behold the
lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God.”
It’s a strange phrase, if you stop and think about it.
For most of us it is so familiar in Christian tradition that it does not
surprise us. But for an outsider, it sounds definitely odd.
That goes for its pictorial representation also. Often Jesus is represented as a woolly sheep
with a gentle face, and the base of a cross held between its front feet, or
lying across its shoulder. Even for me, after years of familiarity, there is
still something jarring about such pictorial representations of my Lord.
Why is this so?
Maybe it stems from the lack of affection that
Australians, in general, have for sheep. We usually regard sheep as stupid
creatures, following one another lemming-like across paddocks or into trouble.
When driving along a country road and we encounter a flock, we proceed extra
carefully, for although as we approach the whole flock may be located on one side
of the road, it only needs one idiot to decide to cross in front of our motor
car and whoosh! The whole mob will follow it!
Sheep appear to be over-endowed with the herd
instinct, and are “intellectually challenged”. I have come across sheep that
have blindly followed the leaders into a bog, and were trapped. They did not
have the brains to stop when they saw the leaders get into trouble.
How does that fit Jesus? Lamb of God?
Was Jesus a creature governed by the herd instinct,
blindly following others?
A simplistic and intellectually challenged guy?
Not likely!
Jesus of Nazareth defied the pressure from the “herd”
and its leaders. He broke new ground, opened up new paths, and when necessary
went on ahead all alone.
What is more, he was certainly “not intellectually
challenged” but was a genius, creating a new way of understanding God, and
talking about faith.
WHY STICK WITH THE PHRASE?
Why then do we stick with this archaic pastoral
language of another culture and era?
!/ Because it is in the Bible; a valid part of our
Scriptural resource.
2/ Because it has been a continuous part of Christian
worship since early days. Woven into the fabric of 2,000 years of Christian
devotion.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Grant us your peace.
Yet we must ask the hard question: “What does John
mean by the phrase Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world?”
Frankly we are not sure. The meaning is not obvious. I
was once in attendance at a seminar for ministers, being led by a New Testament
scholar. He put the question to us: “What are the Old testament antecedents to
describing Jesus as the Lamb of God.” It soon became apparent that we had many
suggestions, but no clear front runnier. It sounded as if it has to do with
sacrifices, made on an altar. Three possibilities were first aired.
1/ There is the story of Abraham, willing to offer his
son as a sacrifice in obedience to God, who is forestalled by God providing a
ram instead. Not a sin offering in this case.
2/ There are the thousands of lambs killed, and eaten,
by Jewish families at the Passover Festival each year. This was a commemoration
of the liberation of the Jews from slavery. But not in any way an offering to
atone for sin.
3/ There was the once-a-year Day of Atonement, when a
beast was driven into the wilderness, symbolically bearing the sins of the
people on its shoulders. But this was not a lamb but a goat. Hence the phrase
which is still used: “a scapegoat.”
4/ At the seminar those ministers present agreed that
the most likely connection was in the famous 53rd chapter of the book of the
prophet Isaiah. This is the best known of the so-called “servant songs” of
Isaiah. Here God’s special Servant is depicted as suffering on behalf of his
people. You recall the words easily:
He was despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Surely he has born our griefs
and carried our sorrows.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that made us
whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
Like a lamb that is lead to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers
his dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
That this Scripture was in the mind of John seems
possible, mainly because Jesus himself definitely identified himself with the
writings of Isaiah.
OUR EXPERIENCE OF THIS “BEARER OF SINS”
Certainly the later apostles of Jesus came to see
their Christ as bearing the sins of the world on his shoulders, as he suffered
on that terrible Cross at
Those of us who these days find many such theories of
atonement historically conditioned and unhelpful for the current setting,
nevertheless believe that in some remarkable way Christ Jesus does take away
the sins of the world. Millions experience a sense if awesome release and peace
as we say the ancient prayer:
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the
world,
Grant us your peace.
I cannot offer you any neat interpretation; no new
theory of the atonement. But I can
testify that in the presence of Jesus, our crucified and risen Saviour, the
burden of sin is still lifted away and we experience liberation.
Somehow sheer love, that perfect love such as Jesus
alone gave, is the sure way that the evil of the world is tackled and its
oppressive power removed.
SIN-BEARING PRECEDED THE CROSS
Of course, it began to happen long before he was
arrested and killed. Jesus was good at releasing people from their sin and
guilt.
When Jesus went to dinner with tax gatherers and other
sinners, his very identification with them and loving respect for them. lifted
the burden from their shoulders. In the case of those people like Zacchaeas, he
set them free to live an open and generous life.
In the face of criticism, Jesus dared to speak direct
words of forgiveness, and break the vicious circle of evil. He could say to a
crippled man, and to a repentant harlot, “your sins are forgiven you,” and they
really were forgiven. The crippled man standing up and leaping with joy
testified to this forgiveness.
Jesus took the burden of sin
on to his own shoulders. In a world where people are out to blame someone for
evil, passing the buck constantly in condemnation of one another, Jesus said
“Let the buck stop here. Once and for all, let the buck stop here!” If that is
what it takes, then I will give my life on a horrible cross to set you free.
Jesus was ready to take
frustration and the anger and the blame.
THIS WAS GODS DOING
This was God’s doing. Not
just Jesus, but God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Jesus was
not acting to change God’s mind, but to express God’s mind. The Lamb of God is
the one Person in whom the very essence of God chose to dwell in remarkable
totality. God is the redeemer. Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the Holy One’s
closet, most intimate, entry into our human predicament. And by that event we
are healed.
The cross is the place where
God bears the sins of the world.
Since then the “gallows” of
the Lamb of God, although displaying human evil at its most depraved, has
become for us the sign of love, healing and peace.
Those gallows now crown the
apex of many of our houses of worship.
They are carried on gold
chains and worn around our necks.
In countries where believers
are persecuted, they are worn secretly next to the heart.
These gallows adorn the
vestments of clergy and are placed on our most precious altars.
We chisel the sign of the
gallows on to the tomb stones of our dear and holy dead.
On ambulances the gallows are
painted as a sign of mercy.
We even name them in a
constellation of stars in the Southern skies.
The phrase “lamb of God” may
indeed sound odd to the uninitiated, especially to sheep despising Australians.
The words may give a headache
to New Testament scholars trying to track down its origins in Old Testament
Scriptures.
But to those who have met this Holy Lamb, they know they are at
the point where the Creator of all
things has also become the Redeemer. Therefore, no person is hopeless, and all things are being made young again and
are returning to their perfection.
SERMON 2:
THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATIONS OF THOSE WHO ARE CALLED
Isaiah 49:
1b & 6
God called me
from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. Isaiah 49:1b
God said: It
is not enough for you to be my servant and revive the tribes of Jacob, and
bring home the survivors of
Called. Isaiah was a called man. Called to a great
task as a prophet to the nation.
Friends, do not envy those who are called by God to
prominent tasks.
I well know it is easy to fall into envy; I have found
myself in that situation at times. We know how the sneaky voice of envy
whispers: “Why are they in the limelight, their names well known, people
hanging on their words, while we give of our best and rarely get any
recognition?”
Maybe we should count ourselves fortunate if our
calling is more modest. The bigger the task, the bigger the discipline, the
self sacrifice, the responsibility, and larger the wear and tear.
In my earlier days I read about St Francis of
I think of a joyful man like Desmond Tutu; the very
essence of fun and laughter. Yet he is also the leader who weeps copious tears.
When he chaired the “Truth and Justice Commission” in South Africa, (or was it
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?) the tears he shed with and for people
brought before the Commission, were not gentle little melancholy
trickles,, but scolding tears that flowed up from the travail of his spirit.
I repeat: do not envy those whom God has called to
special and powerful work.
CALLED AND EQUIPPED
Back to the book of Isaiah, and to that remarkable
prophet responsible for chapter 49 (and the other passages where we find the
poems, labelled by scholars as the Servant
Songs) tells of the unique servant whom God will send to his people.
In this poem you will notice that when God calls a
person, that person is then equipped for the task. Often this means that the
Spirit of God enhances and hones the gifts which the person has, or in some
cases adds new gifts appropriate to the calling.
The person described in Isaiah 49 is well equipped.
His capacity as a speaker is trained. In the secret times of meditation and
prayer, God teaches him what to say:
He made my mouth as sharp as a sword,
he
worked secretly with me in the shade of his hand,
He fashioned me into a smooth arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.
We are not called by God to any particular task
without being given the necessary equipment. God knows us better than we know
ourselves. We may not think we are up to it. But we are. If we are called, we
are up to it.
That applies to the person who is called to be an elder
in the church, as well as to the person
nudged by God into visiting a new arrival in the street. It applies to those
who are called the preach sermons as well as those who are called to take
office in the Trade Union movement. If God calls you to be a nurse, you can do
it, and if God calls you to teach in Sunday School, you can do it. Most importantly of all, if God calls you to
be a Christian, then you will be equipped to be a Christian.
Jesus was equipped. Prior to these words being spoken
of him, “Behold the lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world,” there had been many years of preparation.
We hear of Jesus at the age of 12. When we next hear
of him he is about 29-30 years. What had
he been doing in that time?
We have no details of the so called “hidden years”.
Maybe he spent those years working as a carpenter.
Maybe he was an elder in his local synagogue. Maybe he studied with the monks
in the monasteries of the wilderness. Maybe something else.
I put no store by the legend that he visited
And did those feet in ancient times,
Walk upon
And was the Holy Lamb of God
on
But do not take it too seriously as history. However,
wherever Jesus was in those hidden years, whatever he was doing, God was
equipping him for the most remarkable ministry this planet has seen. The Lamb
of God was wonderfully ready for his ministry.
Those whom God calls are equipped.
WASTED EFFORTS?
That does not mean that everything will be easy, or
that things will turn out exactly as we expected. To be called does not mean an
armchair ride to spiritual success.
Listen to Isaiah’s voice: But I
said:
“All my efforts have been useless,
I have exhausted myself for nothing but hot
air.
Yet I thought my cause was God’s,
and that God would give me some success.”
Does that ring any bells with you? When you have given
your very best for God, but all your sweat and tears seem to have come to
nothing???
There are times when our best efforts appear wasted.
It’s as if there is somewhere hidden in the midst of life, a great black hole,
down which many of our endeavours disappear, sometimes without so much as a
gurgle.
Should you get disappointed, don’t allow yourself to
get disheartened. Success is not at all obvious. Sometimes we do our best and we see some
fruits. Other times we do our best and there seems to be no harvest whatsoever.
You are in good company with people like Isaiah,
Moses, Jeremiah, Elijah, and John the Baptist.
Take heart. Or as Jesus said to his friends when he was facing imminent
execution: “Be of good cheer.” No effort
for God is wasted. Nothing is lost.
A SUFFERING MESSIAH
The prophet may have felt he had failed, but he
hadn’t! This Isaiah is the person who achieved a mighty break-through in the
understanding of salvation He came to see that suffering offered to God could
be redemptive.
Most people would want to sing songs of a mighty,
conquering hero, coming to save the people. A military Messiah, a
Superman. But this prophet began to see
that the perfect servant of God might in fact be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Who “like
a lamb led the slaughter, does not open his mouth” to curse his assailants.
It is uncanny how the central section of the book of
Isaiah anticipates Christ Jesus. Jesus in turn read and nurtured his spirit on
Isaiah. I believe it helped him understand the way he had to go when early mass
popularity gave way to malicious rumours and death plots. “The son of man came not to be served; but to serve and give his life as
a ransom for many.”
When we hear Isaiah protesting about his apparent
uselessness, remember Jesus. Remember how in the ever-unwasteful economy of
God’s kingdom, the work of Isaiah became a part of the fulfilment. There was
not a cosmic plug hole that swallowed up Isaiah’s efforts; they rested in the
hands of that remarkable providential Power we call God. And in God’s hands all
was woven into the redemptive future.
NOT ENOUGH
There is one other thing I want you to notice in this
piece of Scripture. The reward for the
prophet’s faithfulness, for his exhaustion, was more trust and responsibility:
God said: It
is not enough for you to be my servant and revive the tribes of Jacob, and
bring home the survivors of
It is not enough.
Light for
Too often the Hebrew people misinterpreted their
calling as God’s chosen people, to be a sign of favouritism. They preened
themselves and thought themselves superior to the Gentiles. Isaiah was given
the unpopular message that the Jew was to be the servant of the world.
Here the mind and the soul of the prophet was
stretched to the limit. God’s holy Servant would be for everyone. The Lamb of
God takes away the sin---not just of the chosen people---but of the world.
To be concerned for the people of
OUR CHRISTIAN
The same applies to us as Christians. William Temple, that most wonderful
Archbishop of Canterbury in the middle of the last century, made a stunning
claim: The church is the only
organisation which exists entirely for non-members.”
It is not enough to have a comfortable and comforting
church, where we preach to each other the grace of God in Christ, pray for each
other, serve each other, and share each other’s joys and sorrows. That is not
enough. Like the Jews, we exist to bring
the Light to the world.
To paraphrase the text from Isaiah:
God said: It
is not enough for you Christians to be my servants and revive the church, and
bring back the backsliders. I shall make you a light for all nations, so that
my liberation and healing may reach the remotest places on earth.
Called. We are called.
Today, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world. Look on him and rejoice. You have a million reasons to be happy.
But remember your Saviour belongs to the world.\
THANKSGIVING
We thank you, most wonderful God, for your providence
in calling Abraham and Sarah to be the beginning of a chosen Hebrew people:
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
We thank you that when your people were slaves in
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
We thank you for caring for outsiders like the
Caananite woman Rahab, and the Moabite woman Ruth, and for giving them a place
in the family tree of salvation.
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
We thank you for poets like David and prophets like
Isaiah, who witnessed to your loving kindness and pointed your people to the
glory that was to come.
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all
, they would blow the mind.
We thank you for John the Baptist, who in a moment of
Spirit-given insight pointed others to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world.
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
Most of all we thank you for Jesus, the unique Lamb of
God. For all that he was, for all that he did, and for all that he still is and
does among us today. He is the great love of our lives and the life of our
love. Thanks and praise be you for your unspeakable gift!
The joys you plan and do for us
cannot
be matched anywhere.
If I tried to
list and name them all,
they would blow the mind.
PRAYERS
FOR OTHERS
God’s love is for all people.
Let us pray.
Lamb of God, please enable us to co-operate with your
ministry in the lives of people around us.
Let us be your ears, eyes and hands:
With the friends whom we have taken for
granted.
With enemies whom we have ignored or
derided.
With work colleagues of whom we have been
jealous.
With the folk we forget to thank in shops,
garages and banks.
Lamb of God, help us to share your respect and love:
With ethnic groups whose differences make us
feel uneasy.
With politicians whom we elect then
endlessly criticise.
With other churches for whom we might have
shown little respect.
With the sorry millions whom we will never
meet
yet whose poverty, hunger, disease, and
oppression
cry out
for our compassion.
Jesus of Nazareth, Lamb of God, may those who cry to
you be willing to accept the help you offer, even though it comes at a cost.
May those who do cannot seem to believe in you, or do
not want to believe in you, receive your blessing unawares.
May those who, deeply hurt and angry, curse their God,
find themselves this very day embraced by your grace.
Lamb of God, you share the
pain and bear the shame of the world, continue to have mercy on us all, and
grant us your peace. For your love’s sake.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
Look on the Lamb of God and
be happy.
As you go from this sanctuary,
do not go as slaves, fearfully obedient to a hard master.
Go as the free children of
God, who are loved with a depthless and everlasting love.
Serve God gladly,
serve your neighbour
lovingly,
serve your loved ones
thankfully,
and serve yourself most
kindly.
Amen!
The love of the Holy God
surround you,
the love of the Holy Christ
redeem you,
and the love of the Holy
Spirit indwell you,
now and evermore.
Now and evermore.
Amen!