“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
When John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus as the Lamb of God he was announcing the good news that the Messiah is God’s own sacrificial Lamb whose blood would be shed to atone for the sins of every human being. Not all would agree with this, particularly the rulers of the Jews. They were the religious authorities who administered the Law of Moses. They expected a warrior King who would throw off the yoke of Roman oppression and establish a new and invincible nation. Though they claimed to walk in the light and show the light of God to the world, they actually dwelt in spiritual darkness. While it was true that they looked for the Messiah, they were not looking for a sacrificial lamb.
Today as well as 2000 years ago, those who accept Jesus as their lamb are oppressed by the rest of the world. Our culture labels them as fools, losers, and weaklings. The world scorns believers as delusional and irrelevant for they know they are sinners who, contrary to the ideals of the world, can do nothing to help themselves. Such news is antithetical to our cultural principles of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. People think they can make it to heaven or whatever facsimile of it they can imagine by their own inherent goodness and by their fame and works. But no one can for all of us are sinners by nature and have no ability of our own to change our situation.
The good news is that though we are sinners incapable of keeping the Law, Jesus kept it for us by becoming the Lamb of God. Because of Him, we no longer dwell in darkness, but in the light of God’s truth revealed in the Word. Our duty is to share that light with everyone else so they would not have to dwell in that unbearable darkness of an eternity apart from God. We can do so by the power and authority of Christ Jesus working in and through us.