Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
John 1:29–34 (NIV)
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
CONSIDER THIS
Our text about John the Baptist is preceded by the Pharisees questioning him as to why he was baptizing at all since he claimed that he was not the Messiah (vv. 24–25). “Among you stands one you do not know” (v. 26), came the cryptic reply. John himself was likewise a mysterious figure who spent much of his time in Judea, in the wilderness, and he preached a message of a coming judgment which required repentance—a turning around, a change of heart. As a prophet, he was at times perceived as antisocial, especially due to his directness, since he warned Herod the tetrarch, for example, that he could not sleep with his brother’s wife (Matt. 14:3–5). Such a warning had infuriated the adulterous Herodias, and such anger ultimately led to John the Baptist’s death.
In our current text, John the Baptist hailed Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and the following day, when he was with two of his own disciples, and in seeing Jesus pass by, John proclaimed again: “Look, the Lamb of God!” (vv. 35–36). What does such a phrase mean? Although this language has a biblical ring to it, as if it occurs often in Scripture, nevertheless, it is actually difficult to determine its exact referent. To illustrate, the author of the book of Revelation employs the image of a lamb, powerfully and often, but such usage celebrates triumph and victory over the enemies of God, whereas the Baptist underscores both sacrifice and suffering. Again, the book of Exodus describes the Passover lamb, another powerful image, but the lamb in that historic setting was not a sacrifice for sin, but was slain so that the angel of death might pass over the Hebrew houses whose lintels (a horizontal beam spanning the top of a door opening) had been sprinkled with blood. Also bear in mind that bulls, not lambs, were offered for the sacrifice of sins in Leviticus, though there is mention elsewhere of a lamb being offered on the altar in the morning and at twilight (Ex. 29:38–39), and so it is not clear that such usage corresponds to the meaning John the Baptist had in mind.
It may be that, in employing the phrase, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” John was a visionary and wonderfully prophetic. In other words, the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth would be so significant, brimming with meaning, that it would gather up the old understandings of the Hebrew faith (see Isaiah 53, especially vv. 7 and 10) and add to them new ones as well, ones never envisioned before, in a fullness that would be deeply and richly satisfying. Such newness is already evident in the very words that follow the pronouncement of the Lamb of God: “who takes away the sin of the world!” Indeed, the Gospel of John has underscored the universality of this provision in the often-quoted verse: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, emphasis added). The Gospel of John also taught that the Samaritans—kept at a distance by the Jews of the first century for numerous reasons, and thereby in many ways alienated, estranged, from the chosen people—came to know that they, too, were the beloved of God and that Jesus was referred to by them not simply as the Savior of the Jewish people but more broadly as, “the Savior of the world” (4:42, emphasis added).
When John the Baptist exclaimed, “I myself did not know him” (1:31a, 33a), meaning Jesus, we have to be careful in order to understand in what sense this statement was meant. Since Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were relatives, perhaps cousins, then John could not have meant that he did not know Jesus at all, for that would not have been truthful—and prophets always tell the truth. Even though the two boys grew up about ninety miles away from each other—John in Judea and Jesus in Galilee—they would have likely heard family stories that would have filled out some helpful details. So, then, what would it mean to know Jesus in the way that John the Baptist had in mind?
If we could go back to the first century and meet Jesus, he would undoubtedly look like so many of the other young Jewish men of his day. He probably had a beard, although he might have been somewhat leaner than most due to rounds of fasting. His likely profession as a carpenter’s son (Matt. 13:55), his level of education, his ethnicity, his religion, his customs, along with his economic class—all of this would have made him virtually indistinguishable from so many other men of his time. Indeed, in terms of all of these characteristics, Jesus would seem to be just another man: obscure, easily passed over, even invisible. And yet, John’s statement, given his background and the way he posed it, suggests that Jesus was different; he was exceptional.
Knowing Jesus in an all-too-human way would take John only so far. He quickly realized that. There was a limit, a border that could not be crossed. Again, knowing Jesus in a fresh way would require nothing less than a revelation from on high: “The one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’” Notice the difference here, because it is huge: John baptized with water but Jesus “will baptize with the Holy Spirit” and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke add: “and with fire” (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16). John’s baptizing with water was something that any humble prophet calling the people to repentance could do. It was in the realm of human possibilities. But baptizing with the Holy Spirit, communicating the very presence of the Most High to the hearts and minds of those who are baptized, now that’s something only God can do.
It’s that “more” that describes who Jesus is in terms of his basic identity, and one that John had come to know through the revelation entailed in the Spirit coming down upon and remaining on Jesus. It is then and only then that John the Baptist had been enlightened, and thereby empowered, to proclaim: “I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” Other translations of this verse are even more emphatic: “this is the Son of God” (John 1:34 NSRV). John came to this deeper knowledge by seeing the Spirit come down and remain upon Jesus. That same knowledge is promised to us today, not by nature of course, but by grace, for those who can see with the eyes of faith.
THE PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you were chosen by God and anticipated by the prophets, including your cousin John. Baptize me with your Holy Spirit and put testimony on my lips that you are God’s chosen one, reconciling the world to yourself.
