Sermon: Second Sunday of Epiphany 2011

The Very Revd Victor Stock is Dean of Guildford

Preacher:: Victor Stock
Date:: Sunday 16th January 2011
Service:: Eucharist
Readings:: 1 John 29-42

‘The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and sayeth, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”’ Thus the 1611 Bible, whose 400^th Anniversary we commemorate this year. Or the New English Bible: ‘The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him. “Look”, he said, “There is the Lamb of God, it is he who takes away the sin of the world”’, or as the Latin Mass has it, ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis’. As the Eucharistic bread is broken, ‘This is my body, broken for you’, the third great act of the Eucharist is accompanied by these words, the words of the Agnus Dei. First Taking the Offertory, the placing of the bread and wine upon the altar, then Blessing, the great Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving over the bread and the wine, and thirdly, the Fraction, the breaking of the bread: ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis’.

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

From William Blake, to the children’s Nativity Play, to the self-conscious little boy clutching a woolly lamb, to that greatly-loved Christmas carol: ‘What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb’. The Christmas season running in the Church from Christmas Eve until the Feast of Candlemas on 2 February deals with light, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, the Epiphany of God. But here, today, in the first chapter of St John’s Gospel, we have this imagery when ‘John seeth Jesus coming unto him and sayeth, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”’. This imagery speaks of the sacrificial vocation of Jesus, which is why, in the Eucharist, the Agnus Dei accompanies the breaking of the bread, for this child is given to us, this man, this Saviour, whose life is broken and given, as in the fourth great movement of the Eucharistic dance, we together receive the Communion of the bread broken and the wine poured out.

This Passover symbolism is a theme in John’s Gospel, especially in relation to the death of Jesus, and this is important because in Christian imagery the Lamb takes away the sin of the world by death. The 19^th chapter of John, verse 14 says that Jesus was condemned to death at noon on the day before Passover and this the very time when the priests began to slay the paschal lambs in the temple. While Jesus was on the Cross a sponge-full of wine was raised up to him on hyssop and it was hyssop that was smeared with the blood of the paschal lamb to be applied to the doorposts in the twelfth chapter of Exodus. The 19^th chapter of John, verse 36, sees a fulfillment of the Scripture in the fact that none of Jesus’ bones were broken, a reference to Exodus, chapter 12, which states that no bone of the pascal lamb shall be broken. ‘Little Lamb, who made thee?’

Then, in that other great work that carries the name of John, the Revelation, with which Scripture closes, the Passover motif again appears for the Lamb of the Revelation is a slain lamb, and the lamb is seen also as a source of living water. As Moses brought forth water from the rock, the Lamb gives us drink, the Lamb stands triumphant with the marks of slaughter upon him, which is why Van Eyck, in his great painting in Ghent, has the Lamb standing on the altar, surrounded by the Saints and Angels, The Adoration of the Lamb, one of the great masterpieces of the late Medieval period.

The Christian religion deals in many-layered imagery, imagery which lodges in the mind, and because it lodges there and is returned to again and again, in painting and music, in the children’s nativity play and the Christian Eucharist, repetition takes us deeper.

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

At Christmas we saw that the shadow of the Cross falls upon the manger, but the high Johannine doctrine of Christ reigning from the Cross perhaps can only be approached through the low door of the stable. It’s a wonderful fact that if you go to the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, many of you will remember that you have to bend down to get in. So although the shadow of the high Cross is cast backwards upon the manger and soon we will pass Christmas tide and its many epiphanies into the austerities of Lent, we do so because of the Lamb; the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin.

There’s nothing woolly about this lamb from the Revelation to John; the Lamb standing with the marks of slaughter gives encouragement to the Coptic Church in Egypt in its terrible persecution, a persecution which has called forth from the Muslim majority the most wonderful and sacrificial solidarity. Muslims have been in their thousands lining the streets and attending Christmas Mass with their Christian neighbours as a protest against Islamic Fundamentalism – a remarkable and moving story, hardly noticed by our press or television.

So, the Lamb makes sacrifice possible. How is this? Because he calls himself a lamb, ‘He is meek and He is mild’. What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man I would do my part. But what I can I give him, give my heart.’ Perhaps giving our hearts to God is the whole nature and work of Christian discipleship, and this work only achieved over time and by grace, or as Augustine said, ‘Lord take my heart from me, I cannot give it to Thee, and keep it in spite of myself’.