Sermon: The Lamb Leads the Flock – Second Sunday After Epiphany (John 1:29-42)

This week, the gospel reading the lectionary has provided us was a rather long one. It was John 1:29-42. You heard the first part of that reading just now, verses 29-34. We will hear the rest of the recommended scripture in just a moment. I chose to break up the text because, really, it offers us two distinct stories. The first was a speech by John the Baptist, announcing the arrival of Jesus into the story and proclaiming what makes him so special. The second part of the scripture shows us how Jesus’s first disciples found him and chose to follow him. Together these verses tell us a couple things. First, why Jesus is worth following, and second, how we might go about doing that. Here is the second part of this scripture.

[Read John 1:35-42]

John’s account here of the calling of the first disciples is probably closer to a historically accurate take on what happened. As opposed to what we read in the synoptic gospels. The story we are probably most familiar with is Jesus coming upon some fishermen one day, and having the audacity to tell them they should leave behind their lives as fishermen to come and follow him as he wanders the country side teaching and preaching. The only assurance he gives them is what must have seemed like a confusing promise that they would become “fishers of people.” In this reading from the Fourth Gospel, we are told the first disciples were originally followers of John the Baptist who were so moved by what John had told them about Jesus that they left John’s group to become students of a new rabbi. This is probably closer to what might have actually happened, and it seems reasonable that Jesus would amass followers in this way.

What does it look like to follow Jesus, though? The Gospel of John gives a somewhat different perspective on that as well. Because, what Jesus asks of these men is not nearly as dramatic as what is asked of the disciples in the other call stories.  When they first approach Jesus, the question he asks them is “What are you looking for?” A reasonable question, probably one nay of us would ask if a couple of strangers came up to us unexpectedly. Of course, this is Jesus, so there is more than just the surface level to this question. What are you looking for is also a deep spiritual question. A question we must always ask ourselves when we seek to follow anyone, but especially Jesus. What are we looking for?

It is an important question to ask, because depending on what you are looking for, Jesus may or may not be the one to follow. For instance, some people seek power, and think that standing behind the banner of the Son of God gives them cover to seek that power by any means necessary, all while maintaining some sort of moral superiority. Some of us may be looking for absolution. So, we turn to Jesus to save us, to give us a clean slate and a blank check for the rest of this life and the next. Some of us are looking for comfort in a cruel world, so we turn to Jesus to tell us that no matter what we’re scared of everything is going to be alright. So, what are you looking for?

It’s tricky, because Jesus can be all of these things, but also, none of these things. In Jesus we can find strength and power for the journey, but not justification for the abuse of that power. In Jesus we can be saved and our sins forgiven, but our actions will still have consequences. In Jesus we can find comfort amidst our fear and our pain, but the outside world will not go away. So, what are we looking for? Well, to get an idea of what these two unnamed first disciples were looking for let us turn back to the beginning of today’s scripture reading, John 1:29-34.

This is where we hear the Gospel of John’s version of the baptism of Jesus. Although you will notice there was no water and no voice from heaven speaking over Jesus in this version. In fact, all we get here is a second-hand account of the baptism from John the Baptist. The Gospel of John is primarily about Jesus and Jesus’s relationship with God and his identity as the Son of God. With that goal in mind, it portrays the character of John the Baptist in a different way than the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here John the Baptist is primarily a witness to Jesus, so there is less emphasis put on his own ministry. John the Baptist is here in this narrative to reveal Jesus to the world, and we have an example of that in the reading we just heard. John is not preaching about sin and repentance; he is not baptizing people. The Gospel does not even imply that John was the one who baptized Jesus, as he does in the other versions of the story. His main action here is to point out Jesus to a crowd and announce that he has been touched by the Holy Spirit. As if to say, “Don’t look at me. There’s The Man over there. Follow him.”

In John’s gospel the Baptist does not come out of the wilderness preaching the repentance of sins. So, he does not baptize to take sins away. For this version of John the Baptist, sins are forgiven through Jesus. So, John baptizes with the intent of preparing people to see and accept Jesus for who and what he truly is. And what does he say Jesus is? The Lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world.

By using the lamb imagery John is turning people’s attention and imaginations back to the Passover event and story. When the Israelites who were slaves in Egypt were told by Moses that to protect themselves they should sacrifice a lamb, eat it, and put its blood over their doorways. This was all part of God’s plan to liberate the people from slavery. So, for John, the lamb represented freedom from oppression. So, taking away sin may have more to do with the Israelites being freed from slavery than it does with being unburdened of personal sins. Jesus is recognized as the sacrificial lamb and the suffering servant and the sin he has come to take away is not necessarily personal sin. This is partly because the John’s (the Baptist and the Gospel writer) are not as focused on the burden of individual sins as a barrier to God, they are concerned with our collective sins. When John says Jesus came to take away “the sins of the world” this was referring to a broken world, a world that was, and is, marred by the darkness of oppressive powers. That is the sin that Jesus came to take away, because that is the sin that was the true barrier to the people’s freedom.

So, John introduces his followers to Jesus. One who has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and with that Spirit he will be at work in the darkness and the brokenness of the world. He will come to help free people from whatever power, whatever sin, keeps them in bondage. As John gives this sermon two of his listeners take note. They are moved to go and meet Jesus for themselves. Perhaps, then, what they are looking for is freedom, and they believe what John has told them, and think Jesus can lead them there. Which is why they answer his question with another question, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus answers, “Come and see.” So, they follow him throughout his day. They come to understand what he is all about, and in the end, go out to find others to share this with.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once gave a sermon entitled. “The Drum Major Instinct.” He reflected on Mark chapter 10, a story beginning in the thirty-fifth verse when the disciples James and John ask Jesus to give them the honor of sitting on his right- and left-hand side in heaven. He uses the metaphor of the drum major instinct, which he describes as the desire for attention, and to be praised, and to first ahead of our peers. He tells his audience that this instinct is common and we all have a bit of it from time to time. He even notes how he himself suffers from those desires for praise and recognition, on occasion. He also links these drum major instincts to the sins of the world. Sins like racism, which feeds an instinct to feel superior over other people. So, if we are looking for power and superiority, we might just find ourselves following a drum major who leads us down the path of racism. Christian Nationalism works the same way. We are looking for power and so we follow the one who promises us power. King, of course, also talked about militarism, and how the need for national supremacy has led to war and the building up of nuclear arsenals. If we are looking for supremacy like that, or if we are looking for security through any means necessary, including violence, we might find ourselves following a drum major for war. If we don’t know what we are looking for we might end up following the loudest, flashiest drum major. The one who got out in front by stepping over everyone else and pushing aside anyone that go in the way.

As Christians, we are just as susceptible to this as anyone else, and yet…We know those aren’t the people to follow, those who seek power for power’s sake. Jesus leads from behind. If we are to follow Jesus we can’t always look to the front of line. We can’t always count on those loud people who we try to be our drum majors. We look for drum majors but that is not where we find Jesus because that is not how Jesus leads. Jesus leads as the lamb, as a suffering servant.

Dr. King concludes the Drum Major Instinct sermon by reflecting on Jesus’s reply to his disciples, James and John, who wanted the honor of sitting beside him in heaven. He tells them that if they want to be first, if they want to be leaders, they will have to be servants of all people. In that spirit, King tells his congregation that when he is gone, he wants to be remembered not for all the awards and accolades he received, but for being someone who loved God and served his neighbors. He said if was a drum major let him be remembered as a “drum major for justice” “a drum major for peace” and “a drum major for righteousness.” Certainly, those who followed him would say he was those things and more. They followed the one who followed the Lamb God.

So, if we are looking for a leader or a teacher, let us look first for Jesus. And if we are unsure where to find him, if we wonder where he is staying, we should then look for the lamb. That may mean looking to places where we are not accustomed to looking for greatness or leadership. It means looking away from the front, away from the one shouting “Follow me to glory!” It means looking for someone who like John the Baptist will say instead, “Don’t look at me, look to Jesus. He’s the one.” It means looking instead to where there is suffering or where there is instability or vulnerability. As Mister Rogers said, in that quote that is so frequently Facebook-memed, “look for the helpers.” Indeed, look for the helpers. Come and see where they are staying. Amen.