Isaiah 49:1–7
Psalm 40:1–12
I Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29–42
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 15, 2023, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“THE GOD WHO SAVES AND PRESERVES”
(Homily
text: John 1:29–42)
One
way to study and understand Holy Scripture is to examine the major themes that
appear in its sacred pages.
One
such theme would be to see God’s saving acts, done down through time and in
many differing situations and circumstances. God’s intent in choosing to save
His people is not only to rescue them from danger and death, but to preserve
them as a witness to His power and to be His agents for bringing the Kingdom
into being in this world.
Examining
God’s saving and preserving acts would enable us to make sense of John the
Baptist’s description of Jesus Christ as being the "Lamb of God, who takes
away the sins of the world”, heard in our appointed Gospel text for this
morning.
At
first glance – and if we give it some thought – John’s comment might not make
much sense. But if we find a connection to another mention of lambs elsewhere
in the Bible, then we might be able to unravel the meaning behind John’s
statement.
The
most obvious connection to the mention of lambs must surely be the Passover
lamb, mentioned in Exodus 12:1–49. The institution of the Passover is set
against the hardness of Pharoah’s heart, which has resisted letting God’s
people leave their bondage in Egypt in order to return to the Promised Land. Nine
plagues have come upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians in a campaign to free the
people, but still there is no granting them permission to leave. God then
resolves to visit one more plague on the Egyptians, by killing their firstborn.
In order to escape the visitation of the angel of death and the loss of their
own firstborn, the Hebrews are to kill a lamb and to apply its blood to the
doorposts and the lintels of their doors. In this way, the angel of death
“passes over” the homes where this sign is displayed.
God’s
people are not only saved from destruction, but they are also preserved.
Writing many years later, the prophet Isaiah would declare that God’s people
are to be given as a “light to the nations”[1], a
witness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to act as witnesses to
God’s power to save and to preserve.
Let’s
return to John’s Gospel account. A connection to the meaning of the Passover
lamb and its connection to Jesus Christ becomes clear when we read the account
of the Lord’s suffering and death. John takes steps to connect Jesus’ sacrifice
to the timing of the killing of the Passover lambs[2],
both occurring at the same time. Moreover, John also tells us that not a bone
of the Lord’s body was broken during His crucifixion, another connection to the
killing of the Passover lambs.[3]
The
essential meaning and importance of the Passover event is that God’s people
were freed from bondage in Egypt, and were returned to the Promised Land, free
of bondage.
Connecting
this meaning to the Lord’s death and resurrection tells us that His sacrifice,
occurring (as we’ve said) at the time of the killing of the Passover lambs,
means that all those who claim the name of Christ as also saved from the
destructive power of death, in order that we might be free from the claims of
sin and might be witnesses to God’s power and love.
The
essential meaning of Baptism is that it is a death-to-life experience, by which
we die to our old selves, to the way of sin and death, and we rise to a new
life, claimed by Christ in a resurrection like His.[4] God’s purpose in claiming us for His own as we enter and leave the waters of
Baptism is to ensure that we are not only saved from our self-destructive ways,
but so that we can be God’s witnesses to this new, better and life-giving way
of being.
AMEN.
[1]
See Isaiah 49:6b.
[2]
The killing of the Passover lambs took place on the Day of Preparation
for Passover. See John 19:14.
[3]
See John 19:36 and Exodus 12:46.
[4] See St. Paul’s description of the meaning of Baptism in Romans 6:3 – 9.
