“Come and See the Lamb of God”

by Bruce J. Johnson

January 16, 2005

Scripture: Isaiah 49:1-7

John 1: 29-42

I often wonder if John the Baptist ever really understood what he was saying on successive days when he stood in the waters of the Jordan and declared that Jesus was

“The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

AND, are there not times when we all think—if even momentarily—that the sin of the world is sometimes too big for anyone to take away?

These are times that are incredibly challenging for people of faith. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about and reflecting on the impact of the tsunami on faith—faiths of all kinds. It has been at least one of the big stories that were picked up and run with by the news media. The measure and magnitude of the death and destruction was another. The outpouring of compassion and generosity from all over the world is still another, and of course, there are many more. It continues to be a time that challenges us to think and pray and work through what we truly believe about God.

At the same time, we are also being challenged in a special way to think about ourselves. Although I have decided to reflect on the death penalty in next week’s sermon, I was struck this week by the bold headline over the article reporting on the press conference at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, where religious leaders from most denominations in the state issued statements against the death penalty. The headline was:

“A Stand Against Inhumanity”

Although it may relate specifically to what may take place on the morning of January 26^th--- the headline is certainly much broader and deeper in its impact---. Indeed, as Rabbi Herbert Brockman said:

“The crawl of humanity from out of savagery has been long and difficult…. And we have so far to go; let us always choose life.”

And Prince Harry has caused a stir—actually an outrage around the world-- when he chose and wore a Nazi uniform to a costume party in southwest England. Can you imagine the Prince entering this costume for hire shop and picking that costume? Everyone seems to be talking about it with great alarm and concern for the younger generation’s level of awareness. --- Especially on this, the 60^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I went to see ‘Hotel Rwanda’ on Friday. It is the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the real life manager of the Belgium Sabena hotel in the Rwanda capital of Kilgali. He proves to be an uncommon hero amid the horror of that ethnic war--- saving 1268 men, women and children from certain death. It is a movie every bit as powerful as any movie I have ever seen.

Joel Siegel of Good Morning America called it:

“A film that can change the world.”

(New York Times, 1/15/2005, A 27)

I don’t know about that but what I do know is that at its end, you just sit there and ask--- “How could they?” and “Where was I, where was UN, America and the other good and great nations around the world--- when all this genocide was happening in 1994—when Hutus slaughtered 1 million Tutsis.”

It reminded me of something I read that a fellow preacher Fleming Rutledge wrote of that time:

“During the genocidal slaughter in Rwanda a few years ago, there were many people who sought refuge in churches. Alas, even the welcome of the churches did not protect them. Thousands were murdered. Journalists were later shown their stacks of mutilated and decaying bodies, the blood-spattered walls of the churches. Rutledge said that a reporter asked a French priest who had survived the massacre if these experiences had shaken his faith in God.

“Absolutely not,” the priest replied, “But what happened in this country had destroyed my faith in humanity forever.”

(Pulpit Resource, Vol. 33, #1, p. 14)

I would guess that in some ways, we all feel that way at some time or another. A number of years ago when the Nobel Prize for literature was given to the English novelist William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, a reporter asked Golding what he had learned in his lifetime of observing humanity. Golding replied,

“I have learned that humanity makes evil the same way that a bee makes honey.” (Pulpit Resource, Vol. 33, #1 p.15)

I guess that there is much in our world today that supports that observation.

How did you like that quote from Goethe in today’s meditation?

“If I were God, this world of sin and suffering would break my heart.”

Goethe

There is so much sin causing so much suffering.

I am sure that it does break the heart of God and that is what so amazing about the proclamation of the faith by John the Baptist, whether he knew it or not.

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

And it is no surprise that those would soon be disciples show such enthusiasm--- Come and See!

I have read a number of reviews of Hotel Rwanda and each one mention this scene or that scene but none mentioned the one that I remember the best. On a particular night after Paul Rusesabagina had witnessed the results of a day butchery, he is lying there with wife sleeping beside him. He reaches for the simple gold cross around her neck and he holds it there against his very black fingers with a trace of the moonlight upon it. I’m not sure what the scene means for the movie but I was feeling that this cross was and is an amazing symbol, especially within the context of so much inhumanity--- a sign of God’s forgiveness of our sin, of our capacity for evil and maybe our only hope ultimately for changing human hearts.

The most recent issue of “O Magazine” contains an interview with Desmond Tutu. I was struck by his answer to her first question—especially for today, knowing that many will be quoting Martin Luther King Jr’s. “I Have a Dream” speech.

Oprah asks: “Your latest book is called God has a Dream. What is God’s Dream?

Bishop Tutu responds:

“God’s dream is that we all could know that we are members of one family. There are no outsiders—black, white, rich, poor, male female, gay, lesbian. And so-called straight. Bin Laden. Bush. Sharon. They all belong.”

And then she ends the interview with this question:

What do you know for sure?

Tutu’s response: “That God loves us—and we’re loveable because he loves us. Each of us is of infinite worth.”

Oprah should have then asked him—“How do you know this?”

I know what his answer is. In his book, Hope and Suffering, Tutu writes:

“That is tremendous stuff—that is the Good News. Whilst we were yet sinners, says St. Paul, Christ died for us. God did not wait until we were die-able, for He could have waited until the cows came home. No, whilst we were God’s enemies, He accepted us. God loves us, says Jesus, not because we are lovable, but we are loveable because God love us … That is the most important fact about me and nothing, absolutely nothing, can change that fact. All I do now is an expression of my gratitude for what God has already done for me in Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior.”

(Hope and Suffering, p. 139)

God does have a dream, that we will indeed come together and see the Lamb of God who takes away our sin and the sin of the world and because of that amazing grace shown to us in Christ, we choose to live in gratitude and love, creating a better world.

Amen