Wednesday, May 29, 2013

John 1:29

The following day John sees Jesus approaching him from a distance.  When he sees him he shouts, “Look, everyone!  It’s the Lamb of God who removes the sin from all creation!”  John1:29 EFP
 
Boom!  With those words John fulfills his calling.  His thirty years of life find their success the moment he speaks the words.  He could have died then and there and his life would have been complete. Wow!  It must have been awesome to be so certain of the path God had set out before him.

John had just told his persistent “visitors” not a day before that there was a yet unknown individual on his way who would take the ministry he had begun to a totally different level.  I am not certain John totally understands the scope of Jesus’ ministry, but he does know one thing—“Behold the Lamb of God!”  John and Jesus’ births have both been defined by miraculous beginnings.  John’s parents were beyond the customary procreative years, but here he is, a personal testimony to the power of God to perform the impossible. 

Jesus’ birth is ushered in by angels’ songs and visits from a wide-range of worshippers.  His life has already been spared from the clutches of King Herod.  Yet he lives thirty years of obscurity, other than that fateful visit to Jerusalem and the temple on his 12th birthday.  This is the moment—the joining of two lives—two missions, one beginning to spring forward even as the other is commencing its path to closure.  “Behold the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world!”  That is my message to the world in one sentence.  It’s simple, perhaps even a bit offensive to some.  But it is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe it like John! (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:18)  I’m in!

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