John 1:29-34 (NRSV Updated Edition)
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I 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.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One[a].”
[a] Other ancient authorities read “the Son of God”
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"'Lamb of God' is a sacrificial term but when applied to Jesus its sacrificial meaning is radically changed. No longer does it mean that the lamb bears the death God inflicts on sinners as punishment, instead of us sinners who actually deserve it. It is not sacrifice as substitution, him instead of me, but sacrifice as self-giving, all I have and am for you, O God. Sacrifice as utter self-giving, that is the true meaning of sacrifice as defined by Jesus through his death.
"And the notion of 'sin bearing' then has the force not of bearing a load of divine anger but rather of suffering the sharp points of our human violence against each other and thus against the God in whose image we are [...] [O]n the Cross the Lamb of God absorbs into himself all the force of our rivalry and hatred, all our mutual cruelty and contempt. That ability to “draw all men unto myself,” (John 12:32: “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”), means not that he draws them as saints but as sinners, as violent competitors, who in the Cross may see what wrath they inflict on God and what love God renders in return.
"So this Lamb of God is not the sacrifice we bring to God but the sacrifice God brings to us! This is God's Lamb offered to us not our Lamb offered to God, instead of us. This is the sign and the substance of the fact that God gives and gives, to us who take and take, from him and from each other. This is a new covenant, that is a new way of being together, as givers, as imitators of the generous God whom Jesus described in his parabolic teaching and acted out dramatically in his life."
- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from a sermon on January 20, 2008 (source no longer available online)
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"Let's look at this little phrase, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Please notice one thing which seems to me is very important and which time and time again people misquote. People say “Here's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Umm no, it says the *sin* of the world. It seems to be referring not so much to a collection of bad things as to the whole sphere of [...] a failing creation, that which other parts of the Hebrew scriptures refer to as vanity, the sense of everything grinding down. And indeed the whole purpose of the great Atonement Feast was to bring creation back to its fullness again, precisely taking away the vanity, the failed-ness, the pointing-towards-nothing of things.
"[John the Baptist is] talking, not about someone who's come here to pay a price for things, to tick off, but someone who's come to actually create what I would call an anthropological revolution, the possibility of the New Creation in which everything is able to flow back upwards towards God rather than being ground down into pointlessness, senselessness, going-nowhere-ness, not-being, creation somehow having not having lived up to the value of the glory of God which is what it was made to reflect.
"Anyway, an extremely rich phrase, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And it does seem to be referring to the Atonement Lamb, because the Passover Lamb was not sin-related. The part of the Passover Lamb was to redeem the sons, the firstborns of Israel. [...] In John's gospel the Atonement Lamb and the Passover Lamb are brought together, but here it's very much the Atonement Lamb that's being mentioned.
[...]
"And then he ends, “And I myself have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” John's witness was what John was all about, preparing and being able to say, “This is the one, this is God's son.” The Son, the one who is going to perform the sacrifice not only with the water but the water and the blood - that's a phrase which we'll get later in John's gospel. In other words, here was the one who was going to do the two things: fulfill Exodus and the atonement, the water and the blood, the baptism and the sacrifice. Only the Son, the Davidic heir, the great High Priest, the One who is going to be able to renew creation from within, only he was to be able to do that."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G9xgCLsPDo)
[For further analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany2a/]
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