The Lamb We Follow
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
Isaiah 49:1-7 • 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 • John 1:29-42
According to its website, Fort Collins High School in Colorado is the only school in the nation to have a Lambkin—a young lamb—as its mascot. Back in the early twentieth century, when that mascot was chosen, Fort Collins was a hub for raising sheep and producing wool, so it made sense. But in 1981, presumably because the image of a prancing lamb had failed to strike fear in the hearts of their opponents, the school adopted Clyde, a rather fierce-looking lamb, as an alternative. Somehow, though, Clyde never fully replaced the prancing lamb, and the school continues to use the comically gentle image as symbol of its athletic and academic prowess. [1]
Although it’s a common symbol for Jesus, there aren’t many religious schools or clubs or churches that use a lamb as their mascot. Lions, eagles, and warriors are the most common. Saints can be fierce. Some have chosen the crusaders, though that can be problematic these days. Ironically, Wake Forest, originally a Baptist university, became known as the Demon Deacons, and Duke University, a Methodist school, is home to the Blue Devils. I went to a seminary where the Fighting Friars took the field, and Earlham College has its Hustlin’ Quakers. But I don’t know many athletes or fans who cheer on the lambs. After all, why would anyone want to be a part of a team that is led by its mascot to slaughter?
“Here is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!” John the Baptist declares as he sees Jesus approaching. Anyone want to follow him? With the benefit of two thousand years of hindsight, we understand enough about that label to know that it means more than certain defeat, but what did John the Baptizer have in mind when he used that label to describe Jesus?
For us, the Lamb of God is the one who is sacrificed on the cross yet raised in victory at Easter. One of our needlepoint cushions at the altar rail contains the most familiar representation of the Lamb of God in Christian iconography. It is the image of the lamb holding with one hoof the flag that bears the cross of St. George. This flag—or vexilium—is a Christianized version of a Roman imperial military banner. Instead of a legion of soldiers parading around a symbol of their military might, the Lamb of God, who was killed by the empire yet raised by the one true God, stands with the sign of victory.
But what did the John the Baptist know about the cross and empty tomb at the very beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry? When he called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, what sort of expiatory victory did he have in mind?
The gospel according to John doesn’t tell us a lot about John the Baptist’s preaching, but the other gospel accounts give us a pretty clear idea that a sacrifice for sin wasn’t the sort of savior the Baptizer was getting the world ready for. Instead, he called upon the people to repent of their sins so that they would be prepared to receive the one who was coming to baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire. His job as the forerunner was to make the path straight and clear for God’s anointed one to come and bring the full power of God to the earth. The great reordering of the world, which God’s people had long been waiting for, was coming, and John was in charge of getting them ready to receive it. So, when John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God, he probably didn’t envision a sacrificial offering that would reconcile us to God but a strange sort of apocalyptic figure who would trample down the evil in this world.
There are some ancient Jewish texts, including the Testament of Joseph and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which were composed about the same time as the New Testament, that describe how a lamb who is sent by God will come and defeat the enemies of God’s people. It is likely that Christian redactors got their hands on those texts and shaped them to conform more closely with the story of Jesus, but they still give us a sense that, at the time of John the Baptist, the lamb of God was understood to be more than a passive sacrifice for sin. God’s lamb was also the one who could carry out God’s triumph over the forces of evil.
There are some other lamb of God traditions that may have informed John the Baptist’s use of that label for Jesus. In the writings of the prophet Isaiah, God’s faithful servant is likened to a lamb that remains silent as it is taken to be slaughtered. In the Book of Exodus, before God’s people are delivered from slavery in Egypt, they slaughter the Passover lambs and paint the lintels and doorposts of their homes with the blood in order to protect their firstborn when the Lord comes to deliver them. In later Jewish practice, lambs were included in the daily sacrifices offered in the temple, but they weren’t usually a part of the sin offerings. None of those examples sounds a lot like the one whom John was preparing the world to receive, but, when you put them all together, we get an image that gets pretty close to the Jesus we know and worship.
What makes John the Baptist’s label for Jesus so interesting, therefore, is that he got it exactly right without fully understanding what he meant. The Lamb of God is the one whose death takes away the sin of the world, yet it is through that death that he defeats death itself, trampling down the evil one. We worship all of them at once, in the same Jesus—the one who gave himself up in obedience to God and the one who was slain for our sins and the one who stands victorious over the forces of evil.
Before Jesus brough them together, no one could have imagined how those threads would be woven together into one—how the passive victim would also be the glorious victor. In the Book of Revelation, the vision of God’s triumphant lamb, whom we worship, is the one who stands as if slain—an oxymoronic image that only makes sense in Jesus (5:6). We try to make sense of it again every time we celebrate the Eucharist and sing the Angus Dei. When we proclaim Jesus as the Lamb of God, we bring together synthetically what was, before Jesus, a collection of impossibly disparate traditions—the atoning sacrifice and the paschal lamb and the apocalyptic victor, which are one in Christ Jesus.
But the good news is that you don’t have to see all of that at once in order to follow Jesus. If John the Baptist wasn’t fully aware of how Jesus would become the Lamb of God, then neither were Andrew or his brother, Simon Peter, when they decided to follow him. For those who would be his disciple, it is enough to answer the invitation to “come and see.” “Rabbi, where are you staying?” they asked him. “Come and see,” was Jesus’ reply. Whether it is the promise of a long-awaited victory or the hope of reconciliation or the example of unwavering faithfulness—whatever it is that has brought you here, you will find in Jesus Christ the one for whom your heart yearns. He is the Lamb in whom we are permitted to dwell, to remain, close to God. You do not need to understand it with your mind in order to be faithful to that invitation with your heart.
1. https://fch.psdschools.org/mascot-story.
© 2023 The Rev. Evan D. Garner
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas