The sermon text follows the sermon video.

Click here for sermon video: https://zionepiscopal.com/Sermon%20Videos/second-sunday-after-the-epiphany-1-15-2023-neale.html

Sermon Preached at Zion Church; Sunday January 15th 2023
The Reverend Alan Neale; “It’s Rude to Point – isn’t it?”

In a little book for children, Lynne Gibbs discourages children from pointing. The book’s title “It’s Rude to Point”. Joe the parrot was always pointing at things and saying “What’s that?” His friends told him it was rude to point… and also helped him find other ways to ask questions. But the reason for the book… it’s rude to point.

Isaiah 58:9 warns its readers “not to point in scorn”.

It’s Rude to Point, but is it? In “Spare”, Prince Harry (Duke of Sussex) decides it is not rude to point… so page after page is filled with “finger pointing” at family, relatives and friends.

I am reminded of the old adage, “Remember, when you point… three fingers point back at you.”

In John 1:29 John Baptist exclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” In the famous Isenheim Altarpiece, the artist Matthias Grunewald shows John with oversized finger pointing… “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

It is as if John is saying, “It is not about me!” – let every preacher, let every witness for Christ, let every Christian, let every church bear this in mind, “It is not about me!”.

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Our picture of the world is incomplete if we do not contend with the pervasive presence of evil. Our picture of the world if incomplete without an eyes-wide-open view of suffering, hatred and violence.

“Good preaching points to the Cross. It is about Him! Good preaching reminds us that God is revealed in the hungry, naked, sick and imprisoned… As we turn our gaze to the crucified people of our world today, we get a glimpse of what God can and does care about.

I read recently of a minister who walked into a ‘Christian’ bookstore. In the gifts sections were boxes; on one box it said, “Something nice for you.” Inside was a tortured man who had been nailed to the Cross. Something nice for you! The Cross stands as a sign that God stands with the victim, not the victor. It is a powerful symbol and far, far more and how dare we, the church, rob of its power.

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” – the witness, the sacrifice, the process, the object and the beneficiary.

“Behold” (the witness) – this little, three letter word in Koine Greek carries a wealth of meaning… “be sure to see, do not miss it.” “It is the utterance of one who earnestly wishes that something should not be neglected by another”…
“Behold, you have heard the blasphemy…” – Mark 14:64
Behold, the place where they have laid him…” Mark 16:6
Behold, how much he loved him…” – John 11:36

Episcopal Christians are not renowned for telling family, neighbors and friends of their faith in Jesus (a British understatement, maybe?), like the St. Lawrence River we are often “frozen” at the mouth. But there must be part of our discipleship that respectfully though personally, firmly though hesitantly is ready to speak to another of “The Lamb of God (gentle, yes, to the wounded soul) who takes away the sin of the world (resolute to death to set free the captive, unbind the fettered, induce the ashamed into light and liberate the bound).

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
“The Lamb of God” (the sacrifice) – is a powerful image that runs all the way back (centuries) to the escape of the Israelites from the harsh bondage of the Egyptians. After nine plagues assail the nation of Egypt, so the tenth and most catastrophic is visited upon them all. “Thus says the Lord: “About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the hand-mill, and all the firstborn of the animals” (Exodus 11:5). All firstborn will die unless… the blood of a sacrificed lamb is painted on doors and lintels. And as that blood once rescued from danger, so the blood of Jesus shed rescues us again… every and any one of us, at every and any time.

“That takes away” (the process) – here the Greek word suggests a deep and thorough work of excavating that which needs to be carried, and carried far away; the word suggests to take upon oneself and carry what has been raised, to bear the load in its entirety.

“The sin” (the object) – so many words for sin in the Bible (remember the preacher’s comment, “Sin… I’m against it!”), but here the word suggests missing the mark, failing to achieve the standard set by others, by ourselves and from then on living in sad despair and isolating shame.

“Of the world” (the beneficiary) – the work to which John Baptist points is cosmic, vast, universal, available to all; there are none beyond its reach, there are no outcasts, no dispossessed nor aliens.

Friends, do you see… this is a massive work of God to which St. John points and thence begins the beautiful pattern of friends pointing other friends, and those friends pointing to other friends, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

After many years spent in Jerusalem translating the Word of God, Jerome finished his grand project just days before Christmas. To celebrate his accomplishment, Jerome decided to spend Christmas Eve in nearby Bethlehem, in one of the many grottoes that dot the countryside. According to the ancient account, sometime around midnight Jesus appeared to him, saying “Jerome, what will you give me for my birthday?”

Immediately and enthusiastically, Jerome declared, “Lord, I give you my translation of your word.” But instead of congratulating him, Jesus simply replied, “No, Jerome, that is not what I want.”

Jerome was speechless. Then he began to complain and remonstrate with Jesus, asking why he had let him go on for forty years, far from home, laboring at something other than what God most wanted from him. But Jesus remained silent.

Jerome started suggesting other ways of honoring Jesus’ birthday – fasting, becoming a hermit, giving his possessions to the poor. To each of these Jesus replied, “No. Jerome. That is not what I want most.”
Finally, Jerome protested, “Then you tell me, Lord. Tell me what would give you the most joy on your birthday, and you shall have it.
“Do you promise, Jerome?”
“Yes, Lord, anything at all.”
Jesus replied, “Give me your sins…”.

Friends, will you… will I give our sins to Jesus?

Friends, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Thanks be to God, Amen.