How amazing that John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." Why would he use the name Lamb to describe Jesus? Why does he not use the name "Savior" or "Mighty Deliverer" or even describe Jesus as the Shepherd who protects the sheep as King David did in Psalm 23? You see dear Christian, it was God’s plan from all eternity to rescue us by the sacrificial death of Jesus his only begotten Son, similar to the way lambs were offered for sacrifice when people worshipped in Jerusalem.

All of us were born into this world with deeply imbedded conviction in our hearts and minds that we can save ourselves and have a better life in the future by the sacrifices we make in our lives for other people and for God. Every religion in the world except the Christian faith teaches that you can make certain sacrifices that will enhance the chance of improving your life in the future. Only the Christian faith teaches that Jesus, Lord and God from all eternity, sacrificed himself like a lamb, not on an altar, but on a cross for the sin of the world. This morning we want to use these words of John the Baptist to help us appreciate more what it means when we say Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin, and how we can share this important truth with other people.

John the Baptist wants everyone to have his full attention when he says, "Look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" The Greek word for "Look" is a strong attention getting word. I prefer the word "Behold!" because it is a stronger attention getting word. There will sure be a lot of things that try to get our attention as we live another week of life on this earth. There will be aches and pains, pressures at work, problems getting along with people, and our own struggles against our sinful nature. God’s Word calls to us and tells us to look at the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin.

"The Lamb!" What an amazing name for Jesus that helps us appreciate how much he loves us and cares for us. The people who heard these words were used to seeing lambs everywhere, especially in the Judean hills as they came up to worship. They grew up watching the priest take the lambs and with a knife in hand offer them as bloody sacrifices to the Lord. They gathered yearly for Passover with family and friends and ate the Lamb they had taken into their house and remembered how the blood of the Lamb was used to ward off the angel of death in the land of Egypt. For the Jewish person the very mention of a lamb immediately brought thoughts of blood and sacrifice.

Children had to part with lambs that they loved as pets. "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and every where that Mary went the lamb was sure to go." This poem was written because of a little girl named Mary who had a pet lamb she once brought to school. Imagine raising a pet lamb, taking it to Jerusalem, watching as the priest took a sharp flint knife to kill it, and seeing blood cover its white soft wool. God wanted his people programmed to think of a lamb and think of sacrifice. Moms and dads were forced into explaining why the lamb that was penned up for Passover or taken to Jerusalem had to die.

Jesus is not just the Lamb, but the very Lamb of God. It is the Father who chose to have his Son sacrificed as a Lamb in our places, crushed and broken and bleeding and dying for our sin. Listen to how this sacrifice is described in Isaiah 53. "Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him ands cause him to suffer." "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

This sacrifice was the only plan by which we could be saved. Romans 3 shows us how our personal sacrifices in life cannot make up for the things we do wrong on a daily basis. We are told, "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away and they have together become worthless." Then this chapter goes on to tell us, "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin." There is no way we can observe the law or perform sacrifices to make us worthy. Then we find our hope in these words, "There is no difference for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus." Listen now as it describes what the Lamb did for us, "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, though faith in his blood."

Hebrews 9:14 says, "How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death."

Here is what Martin Luther had to say in a sermon about putting our trust in the Lamb of God instead of ourselves. "It is extremely important that we know where our sins have been disposed of. The Law deposits them on our conscience and shoves them into our bosom. But God takes them from us and places them on the shoulders of the Lamb. If sin rested on me and on the world, we would be lost; for it is too strong and burdensome. God says: ‘I know that your sin is unbearable for you; therefore, behold, I will lay it upon My Lamb and relieve you of it. Believe this! If you do, you are delivered of sin.’ There are only two abodes for sin; it either resides with you, weighing you down; or it lies on Christ, the Lamb of God. If it is loaded on your back, you are lost; but if it rests on Christ, you are free and saved."

John the Baptist wanted the whole world to know that the Lamb of God was a reliable place to put our hope and trust, because this Lamb of God is Lord and God from all eternity. He said, "This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’" John said the one who came after him as his cousin born six months after him was actually before him." This was true because Jesus is God from all eternity. John says that he did not know him. He grew up with Jesus, but did not fully see him as God until the baptism. Then the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and pointed to Jesus as the Christ and the Father said, "This is my Son." John confessed, "I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God!" Think of how your life has changed just as John the Baptist’s life changed. You believe with all your heart that Jesus is Lord and God, and yet a child born in Bethlehem and a man who was sacrificed on a cross like a Lamb.

There is a story about a man who was working on a cathedral and fell off the steep roof and landed the street below. Did he die? No he survived because a flock of sheep had wandered in from the country and was next to the unfinished cathedral. Instead of landing on the hard cobblestones, he landed on the sheep, breaking the back and killing one of the mother sheep. In appreciation for not breaking his own back in the fall or even dying, he and his fellow works carved a lamb out of stone and placed it on the edge of the roof where he had fallen off. I doubt whether this story is true, but I do know with absolutely certainly that the back of Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the safe place for you to put your trust, because Jesus is not only the Lamb that was sacrificed, but Lord and God who makes this sacrifice your very own.

When you know about Jesus, the Lamb of God, you want others to know what you know. That’s the way it was with John the Baptist. We are told, "The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus he said, ‘Look the Lamb of God!" When you know about the Lamb and what he has done for you, you want everyone around you to come to know the Lamb and if they know him, you want them to know him better every day.

In our Sunday morning Bible study of the Book of Hebrews we have seen how Jewish Christians who believed in Jesus as the Lamb of God were thinking their faith and salvation could be improved if they went back to some of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and added them to what Jesus had done. Hebrews 12:2 tells us, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." It has all been done! The sacrifice of the Lamb has been made. The only thing still remains to be done for you and me is to join John the Baptism in pointing other people, especially the people close to us, to this Lamb of God.

When John pointed his disciples to Jesus, they immediately start following Jesus. They asked Jesus where he was staying because they wanted to be with him and learn more about him. "They said, ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?" Then Jesus said to them, "Come and see." "So they went and saw where he was staying and spent that day with him." Some of the best moments in your life are those that you spend with Jesus, alone with him, listening to him, and being drawn closer to the love that Lamb of God has for you. Oh how much Jesus wants you to spend time with him here in his Word. Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts toward God."

The two disciples who spent time with Jesus that day could not keep this good news to themselves. Andrew had to go and tell his brother Simon Peter. He simply says, "We have found the Messiah" When you are drawn close to the Lamb of God you immediately think of how you might be used to draw other people close or closer to Jesus, especially those in your family. You think of the friends you have, or the people you meet or the people with whom you work. In Boston’s Trinity Church here is a statue of the famous minister Philips Brooks who wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem." The statue shows him pointing his finger. That is why we are still living here on this earth, to point people to Jesus the Lamb of God. Amen.