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John Message 2
A Dream Come True
John 1:17-51
High Expectations
It’s human nature to want a messiah … one who will make our dreams come true. In the baseball world, fans wait for their pitching messiah. I’ve been a Cubs fan since 1964 and over those years we’ve had pitchers who we thought might lead us to the promised land of the World Series: Ferguson Jenkins, Greg Maddox (we traded away that ‘Messiah’), Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, and … well, the last couple seasons, Carlos Zambrano (probably not our messiah). But still we wait with every year bringing renewed hope followed by disappointment. There is likely no baseball messiah for Cubs’ fans …
You see similar messianic hopes in the political world. I remember after the 8 years of the Clinton administration that for conservatives, George W. Bush was the political messiah … and after 8 years of the Bush administration, for liberals, Barack Obama was to fulfill America’s dreams. Somehow no matter our political leanings, we seem to forget that all American presidents are fallible individuals with limited power and that even the best of leaders will not make this country a paradise. No political messiahs.
Nor economic ones. I’ve been listening to a book published in 2000 entitled The Lexus and the Olive Tree … it’s about economic globalization. The author Thomas Friedman makes the observation that in the 1970’s, an economic minister in Mexico might be able to call up a small group of bankers in New York in order to stabilize the value of the Mexican peso. But in the 1990’s in the era of globalization, the minister watched as the value of the peso plummeted and he had no one to call, because there is no one in charge of what Friedman calls the electronic herd of investors and currency traders. Whether it scares you or comforts you, there is no one in charge of the global economy. So let me reiterate something I said several years ago during the Bush administration which continues to hold for President Obama. When a pollster calls and asks how well you think the president is handling the economy, you say that the question is nonsense. I have this vision of a national movement starting in Eau Claire so that 20 years from now, news channels will report: “In answer to the question as to how the president is handling the economy, 10% were favorable, 10% were unfavorable, and 80% replied, “Stupid question.” No one “handles” the global economy; there is no economic messiah.
Still, it’s human nature to long for one … thus we might have some empathy for the ancient Jews who for centuries longed for God to keep his promise and send them his Messiah, his anointed deliverer. They had high expectations. As leaders stepped forward, hopes were raised. One named Judas Maccabeus (meaning “Judah the Hammer” … sounds like a pro wrestler) had military success in 160’s BC against those who wanted Greek culture and idolatry to dominate Judea … but he was killed in battle … and in the end, foreign power continued to dominate the region. “Judah the Hammer” was no Messiah.
Another guy named Judas the Galilean led a tax revolt in 6 AD against the Romans. He was credited in starting the militant Zealot group which over the next decades would look for opportunities for guerrilla attacks against the Roman occupiers. Judas’ fate and those of his followers? Dead! No Messiah.
Still people waited expectantly … and these were people of faith, believing that if was going to be any kind of decisive deliverance, it would have to be a God-thing. It was in this environment of fervent messianic hopes that a rather strange man named John the Baptist began his ministry (anybody who lives on a grasshopper diet can hardly be considered mainstream). Early on, John was asked if he was the Christ (the Greek word for Messiah or “anointed one”). John said, “No, I’m not the guy. But I baptize in order to prepare people for Messiah’s coming.”
Then one day Jesus of Nazareth came to be baptized. John testified, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.” [John 1:32-34 (NIV)] It was at Jesus’ baptism that John the Baptist became convinced that this ordinary looking guy was not ordinary at all. He was their dream come true, the one they had been waiting for … for John had seen the Holy Spirit come from heaven and anoint this Jesus with power.
The Lamb of God
So the next time Jesus showed up, John the Baptist said, “Look, there’s Jesus Maccabeus” … Jesus the Hammer … right? After all if the hope was that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed deliverer, one would have expected that Jesus would raise up a military force to smash Roman control and take power. That’s clearly what many in the crowds anticipated a couple years later when Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday.
But it wasn’t “Jesus the Hammer.” John the Baptist said, “Look the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” [John 1:29 (NIV)] “Look the Lamb of God.” There are certainly many astounding things in John’s Gospel; but this title given to Jesus early on by John the Baptist ranks among the most surprising. For who would have possibly thought that the Messiah would come as a lamb and not a hammer… as a sacrifice rather than a conqueror? No one would have expected that … but God had shown John that this is what the Messiah would be … his sacrificial lamb given our sins.
Somehow I doubt that John’s listeners could have fully grasped the implication of his words. But as good Jews, they knew the tradition. For centuries, animals had been offered at the Temple as a sacrifice for sin. In the book of Leviticus, it was stipulated, “If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect.” [Leviticus 4:32-33 (NIV)] At the Passover feast, every family was to butcher a lamb for the meal in memory of the first Passover in which the blood of a lamb was put on the doorframes of homes so that the divine angel of death would pass over those dwellings and spare the lives of the firstborns.
The picture of a lamb offered as a means of deliverance from sin and death was embedded deeply in ancient Jewish culture. And John said that God’s anointed deliverer was to be such a Lamb. It was a title fulfilled on the cross … on which Jesus the Lamb of God was offered to bear the guilt of all of humanity’s sins. There is mystery here as to how the death of any single person, even a divine/human person, could possibly be an event of cosmic liberation. But that is the unlikely testimony of the New Testament. It was as if the hundreds of thousands of animal sacrifices done over centuries at the Jerusalem temple were only an incomplete anticipation of the one horrible sacrifice of Jesus … which for us would be glorious. The Apostle Peter affirms, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” [1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV)]
Jesus the Lamb is our dream come true. For if you’re like me, you know you’ve got a sin issue. You know that at whatever your level of goodness … daily you deal with things like lustful thoughts, daily you ignore opportunities to serve, daily you treat people as objects who serve you or as interruptions to your agenda, daily you stretch the truth or tell outright lies to make yourself look better, daily you are a sinner in need of forgiveness. And if John the Baptist was right, then Jesus offers you what only he can give: He offers you his sacrifice and the complete forgiveness of all your sins.
There are some who say that Americans don’t have a strong sense of sin anymore … that we think we’re all just OK, doing the best we can, basically all good people. The counter evidence to this is that studies show that we lie a lot … that regularly Americans speak falsehood to cover up the reality in our lives. That would indicate to me that deep down, we know we’re not OK, that deep down we know of our guilt, our lusts, our lovelessness. If that wasn’t the case, we could just tell the truth. Lying is our defense mechanism, wishful thinking … but there is better solution: confession/forgiveness/freedom from the Lamb of God.
L: We come to the Lamb of God to make confession.
C: Jesus our King and our sacrificial Lamb, we come before you in humble adoration, but not in unholy fear. We acknowledge our unworthiness, but claim your forgiveness. We know that we have failed you, that we have sinned in thought, word, and action. Hear our confession, gracious Monarch of the Cross. Forgive and rule us.
L: Fellow sinners and fellow saints, our King has heard the confession we have made this day. He will not speak a condemning word from a distant throne, but comes into our world to suffer with us, for us, and to die on a cross. His word of liberations restores us and his power lifts us in service to him. You are forgiven by the blood of the Lamb of God.
C: Christ is the King! We are his and we are free!
The Messiah
Bible scholars have noted that the first chapter of John has more titles for Jesus than any other in the New Testament. Several of these titles are spoken after individuals have had their first encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. He seemed to have an immediate, powerful impact on people he met. John the Baptist introduced two of his followers to Jesus … one of these men was Andrew who then went to find his brother Simon (whom Jesus would nickname Peter, “Rocky.”) Andrew told Peter, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). [John 1:41 (NIV)] Living in this skeptical age, we might find it hard to believe that Andrew so quickly had come to this conclusion … how could he be so sure that Jesus was the one they had had been waiting for. The writer John doesn’t tell us what Jesus said to or did with Andrew. What we know is that Andrew’s life was changed forever. It’s the kind of impact that Jesus has had on so many lives for so many centuries.
What did it mean for Andrew to call Jesus “The Messiah” … the “Anointed One?” There were three groups of people in the Old Testament who were anointed with oil as an outward sign of God’s commissioning them for office.
- prophets: those who spoke on God’s behalf, communicating his Word to Israel. Elisha was anointed as successor to the prophet Elijah.
- priests: those who served God in the Temple, offering sacrifices and prayers for the people. Aaron, brother of Moses, and his sons who were the anointed to serve as the first generations of Israel’s priests.
- kings: those who governed Israel. Saul was the first king to be anointed to that office by the prophet Samuel.
In a word, those who were anointed were leaders, spiritual and political. And for Andrew to call Jesus the Messiah was for him to say that Jesus was their God-designated leader … in ways that Andrew likely could not have imagined. Jesus would be their prophet, opening up the Scriptures to them and revealing God’s love and truth. Jesus would their priest … their link with their heavenly Father and the one who would offer up himself as a sacrifice for sin. Jesus would be with King, one they were called to honor and obey. He was their dream come true.
Have you experienced the goodness of having Jesus as your Messiah-leader? Have you committed yourself to follow him? This is a fundamental question because all of us will follow someone or something. The American tendency is to follow our own instincts, to rely upon our own level of wisdom … that which has been inculcated in us by pop culture. As the song says, we are raised to “do it my way.” If that’s been your mantra, I would simply ask you the Dr. Phil question: “How’s that working for you?” Because my experience has been in evaluating my own life and watching others is that when we go our own way, when we think we know better than God, that things don’t work out all that well. Jesus invites you, “Follow me.” Jesus invites you into a life that is “really life.” [In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. 1 Tim. 6:19 (NIV)]
The Son of God
A third title given to Jesus in this chapter came from Nathaniel. Nathaniel was initially a skeptic regarding anyone of importance coming from Nazareth. But then Jesus tells of having seen Nathaniel when he was not in sight … before Nathaniel was even invited to meet Jesus by Philip. Nathaniel was stunned and blurted out, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” [John 1:49 (NIV)] Nathaniel recognized that this wasn’t normal human insight … but divine knowledge that only God could have revealed to him. It’s likely at this moment that Nathaniel had no clarity as to the full nature of Jesus’ divinity. But he recognized that there was power here that wasn’t of any earthly nature … power that would be displayed repeatedly in Jesus’ ministry as he healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, and in the end, defeated the powers of sin, death, and hell through his own death and resurrection.
Jesus let Nathaniel know that many wonders were to come. Using the glorious image of the “Son of Man” from the book of Daniel, he told Nathaniel, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that … I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” [John 1:50-51 (NIV)] The image is drawn from Genesis … the famous story of Jacob’s ladder … and what Jesus was saying is that he would become the meeting place of heaven and earth … he would the nexus of the eternal and the temporal, of divine love and human need … he would connect God and people.
This past week, we had our second meeting of a Christian Formation Team which is looking at how we can be more effective as a church in helping people grow spiritually. Several times in our discussion the phrase “relationship with Jesus” came up … that a crucial breakthrough for a number of us in our life of faith was to see that Christianity was not just believing about God, but relating with God … that Jesus is our link to a life with God that is personal, powerful, intimate, involving every aspect of ourselves. Is that how you see being a Christian? Is this church thing just about believing some of the right things and showing up in worship to fulfill a duty? Or is church a community of people who desire deeper connections with God and each other … which we pursue together and individually as we go back to our homes and daily lives? Is this is a religion we practice on Sunday or is it a relationship that embraces our entire life? Let’s pray …
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