Sermon for January 15th 2023. Who is Jesus?

Sermon for January 15^th 2023.

Gospel: John 1.29–42

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ³¹I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ ³²And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” ³⁴And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ ³⁹He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my lord, God and redeemer. Amen.

I have a question, which could be easy to answer, or could have many answers, depending on who you ask. Who is Jesus? Well of course, he was a white man, in white robe, with a perfectly groomed beard who sometimes carried a little lamb, kept a good diet and did a lot of sit-ups, as we all know from many artistic interpretations.

Or was he a middle eastern, dark-skinned Jewish man, who was a bit scruffy from being on the road.

So already we have a contradiction.

I think Jesus probably knew very early on that we would be asking this very question, so that, in this passage we have Jesus’ first recorded question in the Gospels, which is, “What are you looking for?”

He knows John the Baptists disciples are looking for him, but I think we can be very like the disciples sometimes, when, in a manner reminiscent of our Life Group, often go off on a tangent by replying with another question, in this case, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

Or perhaps it’s not a tangent, they want to know where he will be, so they can go and learn from him. May be every tangent does have meaning after all…

To which Jesus replies, come and see. They are invited in, and they follow.

Come and See, says Jesus, which could be an answer to both questions. Come and see what you are looking for, then come and see where I’m staying.

The disciples think they have found what they seek and go with Jesus. Perhaps faith is that simple. The call and response. Jesus calls us all, all the time. The question is whether we have ears to listen, the wisdom to discern what that call means and the courage or need to follow.

The two disciples were pretty certain, they must have heard about this charismatic man teaching in the synagogue. So much so that one of the two disciples, Andrew, went to fetch his brother, Simon Peter and Jesus immediately named him Cephas, or Peter, which means Rock.

So the disciples begin their journey to finding out who this man they longed to meet is, and in the process, begin to find out who they are as well. This all starts with that initial command, to come and see, and so they do.

And this is part of our journey and purpose as well, to follow, to come along and see, to read the bible, to listen to the word, to worship and learn more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit at work. We are also called to participate, to join in with what the spirit, and Jesus are doing.

And this is what we do now. It’s part of what some of us were doing yesterday. In the morning with Alpha, learning about Christianity, then in the afternoon, discerning some ideas to make our church even more welcome to all.

John the Baptist is introduced as one who will testify to the truth, he denies he is a prophet but merely the one who is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.

Then John meets Jesus for the first time, and while the baptism of Jesus isn’t described in John’s gospel. John does recount the spirit descending on Jesus and testifies without doubt that Jesus is the son of God.

In fact, in just a few verses, Jesus is identified with numerous titles, Rabbi, Son of God, the Messiah and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Elsewhere he has other titles including Lord, Redeemer, the Bread of life, the son of man and as Isaiah recounted; Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

But what do all these titles mean? I’ll stick with ones we hear today.

Well, Lamb of God evokes the Passover lamb from Exodus, where to be spared from a plague, doorposts were marked with the blood of a slaughtered lamb which was cooked and eaten.

Isaiah 53 also describes a suffering servant, as a lamb led to slaughter.

So that Jesus becomes a protector, our faith marks us as saved, we are sustained (as we would with lamb or bread), through his word and body and in the Passover sacrifice of the lamb, we are provided with some sort of atonement for sin.

Especially if we see Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, which some but not all Christians do, or perhaps his death was just execution by rulers scared of his potential for power. So, as lamb of God, Jesus, then, is an avenue for God’s intervention in the world on behalf of God’s people.

John the Baptist calls Jesus the Son of God, and we have already heard in John’s Gospel, that the word was God, the word became flesh and is God. In this, the son and the father are one.

That these confessions come from John the Baptist is important as the first two followers of Jesus (1:35-37) are also initially disciples of John. When John, again, refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God (1:36), the two disciples, both begin following Jesus instead. These disciples call Jesus, Rabbi and the Messiah.

As a rabbi, a teacher, Jesus does not just speak here, although he certainly does plenty of that in John, he invites disciples into participation.

As we know, Jesus will teach thousands of people in his life, through his sermons and parables, many recorded in the Bible.

The final title today for Jesus is messiah. This revelation occurs early in John’s gospel (it happens much later in Matthew 16:16, Mark 8:29, and Luke 9:20), each time in these books to Peter.

In John’s Gospel though, it is not Peter who makes the confession, but Andrew, his brother. Andrew tells Peter, “We have found the Messiah” (1:41) which is enough for Peter to come to Jesus.

We are reminded that, “messiah” is a Hebrew word meaning anointed (by God). In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, kings, high priests, and (possibly) some prophets were anointed.

Over time, especially during and after the Babylonian captivity, some Jewish folk began anticipating a future messiah that would be an heir to King David and fulfil God’s promises to Israel in a new King. All of these hopes are picked up in the depiction of Jesus.

So in a short space we have had revealed Jesus the son of god, messiah, lamb of God and teacher. His role is complex, the expectations to be fulfilled are earth shattering. No one idea, philosophy or theology can simply sum up Jesus without missing something important.

The joy of Jesus is that there is so much to learn and he has so much to teach us. This is before we even come onto his nature as man, or God, or both.

By the end of this passage, John the Baptist was happy. He knew what he was looking for, he had found it and his work was complete.

So what is it you seek?

What are we looking for? All those titles, ideas. All those verses to quote from and put on posters. It can be confusing…

Is it Jesus? If so, which one? Do we have to choose?

Or do we seek the cross? The resurrection? Friends? Help? A friend to talk to? To hear about the life of Jesus? To encounter the presence of Christ in communion, with each other, and in the sacraments?

Is it all or none of the above?

I realise that by trying to explain who Jesus is, the more information I give, the less certain we become.

Which I know is unhelpful. But ours is also a faith of trust and mystery. I’d suggest that the more we learn, the less it matters. For God is in everything and the more words we use, the more he gets lost in them.

So let’s go back to the beginning and to Jesus’ question, So what is it you seek?

To me, the Jesus I seek, is all of this, but mostly, the one who welcomes me in, who is a God of love, of hope and joy. Who has shown the way to eternal life for me and those I love.

A Jesus who has taught me to love my neighbour, to sit alongside those who need a supporter.

A Jesus who is always there, no matter what, especially when life is difficult. Somehow, I know I am not alone.

And perhaps we have found what we seek. Here today. A home, a church, a community of faith.

So let us not worry about what to believe, but just rest, in the love of God and his son, who came to earth to experience all of life as we do and seeks one day to bring us home, and would not want us to worry about all the words and simply rest in his love.

Whatever you seek. Whoever Jesus may be to you, know that he is love, a God of love, and this is good and may we rejoice in this above all else.

Amen.

Preached at St George, Cam at Holy Communion and St Cyr, Stinchcombe at Evensong

 

 Picture is from here: paint by numbers