Epiphany 2A

2nd Sunday of Epiphany, Year A

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may remember me telling you about Salada tea tags and the short bits of wisdom I used to find on the back of the tag when I was a kid. One of my dad’s favorites was: “What we see depends on what we’re looking for.” He used to use that in discussions in our astronomy group. When you’re using a high-powered telescope, you need to have an idea of what object you’re trying to locate so that you can determine where to point your scope. The more powerful the telescope, the more precise you need to be in your aiming, or you’ll never see the object you’re hunting.

As an adult, I’ve found that saying to be far more applicable than merely stargazing. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ll be driving and someone in the car will point to an object off in a field far from the road and ask me if I saw that thing. No, actually, I was watching these other cars on my side of the road, also travelling in 2-ton metal boxes at 65 miles per hour in the same direction we’re going, while being careful about the other 2-ton metal boxes traveling at 65 miles per hour coming at us head on. I’m a little too focused to look at something hundreds of yards to my left, sorry.

I’m not looking for interesting objects far away from the road. I’m looking for vehicles and objects and hazards that might put my vehicle and its occupants in danger. THAT is what I’m looking for when I’m driving.

So today’s Gospel lesson has us in a scene with John the Baptist pointing to Jesus as he is walking by and proclaiming him as “the Lamb of God!” Two of John’s own disciples began to follow Jesus. As he noticed them, Jesus then asks them: “What are you seeking?” This question hit me rather hard in my reading of it this week.

What are you seeking? There is so much about Jesus that is not what the nation of Israel was expecting. Yes, they were expecting the Messiah - the Christ - to come and save them. But they were expecting a mighty warrior-king who would come in glory and power… not a baby born to a poor carpenter. They were expecting that their deliverance…their salvation… would be from the Roman Empire, yet this Messiah came to deliver them from sin and death…forever. Jesus of Nazareth was just not what they thought he would be.

But what hit me hard about this question is that I thought about my own answer to that question: “what are you seeking, Todd?” It’s not a stretch to say that Jesus asks that of each one of us. If Jesus looked you in the eye and asked you this question, how would you respond?

This question has a lot of deeper meaning to it. I take this to mean something like Jesus saying: “What are you looking for in me?”

The easy answer is: in Jesus, I am seeking a teacher. One who will - with great patience - help me understand better. It seems that the more I study, the more I realize I need to learn. And I do want to.

The harder answer is: in Jesus I am seeking an example. Just like the old bracelets, right? WWJD? It’s harder - at least for me - because Jesus was able to truly love his enemies. He genuinely prayed for those who beat him and crucified him. I find this extremely difficult, and I’ve never been beaten or whipped. I am woefully inadequate when it comes to following Jesus’ example of loving your neighbor when they hate you. And yet, Jesus is the example we are called to follow.

Do you know what is even harder? Seeking a Savior. Think about that for a minute. Why would that be hard? Well, because sin is easy. Have you ever sat here on Sunday morning and confessed a sin that you’ve confessed before? That’s my point. Sin is easy. Sin is usually comfortable. Sin is often quite enjoyable. Sin is typically very tempting (Garden of Eden?). Think of one of the 10 Commandments: lying is how we get out of trouble - it’s the easy way out, rather than take responsibility when we’ve done wrong. Sin is easy. It’s living the life of faith that’s hard.

In my journey, I have been in quite a few different churches, and heard a wide variety of different preachers. I have always been really turned off by preachers who bad-mouth other preachers. So what I’m about to say is terribly hypocritical, but I have to say it: I’ve been in churches that refuse to preach God’s Law. In fact, that’s how I was taught to preach. I know that’s wrong. I knew it was wrong then.

When we say that Jesus is our Savior, it’s expected that we will follow him. That means that our life is different from the world. It does *not* mean that Jesus just loves us - period - so we can just continue doing whatever the world wants us to do. That is *not* what following Jesus means. It is this misguided understanding that has given us the radical Christianity that endorses things that make us all scratch our heads and think “are we reading the same Bible?”

Following Jesus - seeking a Savior - means that we want to hear what he has to teach us and we will take that teaching to heart, and live it out. Will we get it perfect right away? Of course not. I can’t imagine that Jesus ever expected that any of us would get it perfect, and certainly not right away. But we make the effort because it is a loving and grateful response to the love that God has shown us in sending His Son to die on the Cross for us… to be “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.”

I can’t hear this passage without thinking of the famous painting of John the Baptist pointing an unusually long and bony finger at Jesus - this very scene depicted in our Gospel lesson this morning. John’s finger is just a bit bigger than normal in this image, but it’s unquestionably larger than it should be for the size of his hand. The artist did this because it is the most important action in the image - pointing people to Christ. That was John the Baptist’s purpose - pointing people to Christ. He pushed his own disciples toward the Messiah, and they went! They left their teacher to follow the greatest Teacher. And they listened and learned and lived it.

The Gospel today gives us the account of John the Baptist revealing his cousin to his own faithful disciples - faithful Jews who loved God and repented of their sins and wanted desperately to find the Messiah foretold by the prophets. Jesus is revealed first to God’s Chosen People - Israel, beginning with these faithful few.

Soon this morning, Jesus will be revealed to all of us in the Sacrament of the Altar, when we receive his body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. This meal reminds us of what it means to be the Lamb of God. I love how Dr. Lenski describes this: “the Lamb which belongs to God, his Lamb, i.e., which he ordained as a sacrifice for himself… The word ‘Lamb’ connotes sacrifice, the Lamb whose blood is to be shed. Thus also and especially in the full title, ‘Lamb of God,’ lies the idea of being without blemish, i.e., sinlessness, and joined with this the divine purpose and aim of substitution, expiation, and redemption. A truer and more expressive title could hardly have been found for the Savior.” [R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 126.]

In this scene, “at this very moment [Jesus] is engaged in removing the sin of the world. He had just assumed this burden by assuming the office of mediation at his baptism; and his baptism itself signifies that, though he is sinless himself, he ranges himself alongside of sinners to take on himself and bear away the load they never could bear.” [Lenski, 127]. No, we certainly could never bear that load. Thanks to the Savior for bearing it for us. When we sing the “Lamb of God” before Holy Communion, that song should remind all of us of this passage, of what John the Baptist said about Jesus, and of what this meal means for all of us: Jesus *has* taken away the sins of the whole world, including my own.

So, am I seeking a Savior? Are we? I am. And I will continue to confess every week, even when I am confessing a repeated sin. I will bring it back to the foot of the Cross again and again, and ask God to send His Holy Spirit to help me do better.

And there’s one more thing that seeking a Savior means: it means that he is sending me out into the world to share him. That’s a message for all of us. Back of your bulletin, Vision Point #1 - “Be a Great Commission Church”. This is one of the things we are seeking from our Savior. He has sent us. Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We have been sent. That’s the other part of following our Savior, is going where he sends us. Where is that? Well, that’s what we’re going to spend some time discerning this year. It will take our whole church family to figure that out. I would ask each of you to pray about that. And pray about how our church family would answer today’s question: “what are you seeking?” How we answer that question together will play a large part in how we make our vision become reality.

What are you seeking? I’m seeking a Savior, even though I know it’s going to mean work and change. But work and change mean growth, and it’s the kind of growth that’s good for me. I pray that all of us would seek Him for that same goal, that we might grow in our faith together, and share His Good News with our neighbors, and with a world that so desperately needs to hear it.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.