"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world....Again, the next day, John....said, 'Behold the Lamb of God!'"
You know as well as I do that the appearance of Jesus in the First Century Roman Empire was not something you and I would have taken with much less surprise or wonder. Nor would we have reacted much differently than Moses when he saw the burning bush and heard God's voice, or the people who said to Jesus, "Who is this Son of Man?" We have millennia of history, the Bible and for most reading this, a Christian based nation. We have had generation after generation of Church History, rituals, icons, songs, books, etc., to help us form an "acceptable image" of Jesus. But I want you for a moment to consider what the ones who were there when John uttered our text may have experienced.
"Behold the Lamb of God." Okay, we worship, praise, and preach great sermons about Him. But on that day in the wilderness, everyone probably looked at Jesus, not some Olympian god like build, just perhaps a common looking 145 pound, 5' 8" middle eastern Jew. Anyone of us could have said, "Do you mean that man standing over there? Wait; isn't that the carpenter from Nazareth? Are you crazy? That's Joseph and Mary's boy." Those were reactions of people who were no less "spiritual" than you or I.
The paintings over the centuries have perhaps done a lot to cause our Lord Jesus to "stand out" too much in the crowd. After all, if Jesus were so "spiritual" looking when He first appeared among men, John would not have had to introduce Him. People probably walked by Jesus many times with not a clue as to Who He Was. The reality of, "Immanuel, God with us," in a middle eastern Jew has been always foolishness to the Gentile and a stumbling block to the Jews. Only, "the pure in heart," will, "see God."
Sometimes I hear people speak of our Lord Jesus as though, "Oh, yea, of course I understand it all, and if I would have been alive in the First Century, I would have responded so differently." Perhaps, but the key is, How are we responding today to this "great mystery?" I shall never forget the great statement of Oswald Chambers, "Beware of always trying to be profound. God became a baby." And we could say, Then a small boy, then a teen-age adolescent, and then a young adult. And He did this all so that, "they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent," and, "that we may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."
Oh, Lamb of God, I want to know You, not some painting, some evangelical, charismatic, new age version, only You, only You. Amen.
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When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
