Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”
We seem to have come full circle. The Gospel for the Sunday Next Before Advent in our Canadian Prayer Book begins with John the Baptist looking upon Jesus as he walked and saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.” This morning’s Gospel on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, also from John’s Gospel, ends with John the Baptist “seeing Jesus coming unto him, and saying, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Such is the witness of John the Baptist to the advent of Christ and to the meaning of human redemption.
In between the two Gospel readings for these Sundays are four verses which open us out to the mystery of Christ in his Advent to us. John the Baptist points us to Christ. That is his ministry. He identifies him as “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” But in the intervening verses (John 1.30-34), we have John’s account of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. An Epiphany theme, it nonetheless highlights the fuller meaning of his witness to Christ, “the one who comes after me,” he says, “ranks before me, for he was before.” Why? Because he is divine. “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” This is the witness of John.
The form of this witness is instructive to us in our approach to Christ and to Christmas, our approach really to the mysteries of God and his love for us. Quite simply, John the Baptist, like Mary, shows us the attitude of faith. They provide the strong counter to the endless narcissisms of our age. As if it was all about us! But no. The witness of John is very much about notcalling attention to himself, but to the “one who cometh after me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” he says. The questions about John the Baptist in this Gospel are all turned by John to Christ. “Who are thou?” he is asked.
There is in this a wonderful sense of wonder about John the Baptist, this strange and arresting figure of ascetic rigour and disturbing intensity. Last Sunday, Jesus pointed to John the Baptist and the significance of his ministry of preparation. Today, John the Baptist insistently points to Christ. “I am not the Christ,” he says. He calls attention not to himself but to Christ.
