Behold the Lamb of God: Meditations on John 1

 

This Sunday has been dubbed, in the modern era, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, and many churches across the west will be emphasizing some aspect of this in their homilies this week.  From war, to euthanasia, to infanticide and abortion, many will discuss the blights of our evil age, and what some 20^th century theologians have identified as a “culture of death.”  These sins, grievous as they are, are condemned by the Law of God, earning for those who commit them eternal and temporal punishment.  As with all evil, the end of those who practice such things, is hell and eternal torment—first for the wounds done to the neighbor created in God’s image, but primarily for the wounds done to God and His Holy Word.  Ultimately, every sin and evil is an assault and rebellion against God, though it often finds its way to wound His creation, also.

It is important, though, that we do not lose sight of the individuality of this evil, which is summed up in the commandment, “Thou shalt not murder.”  Much hay is made over political parties and policies, but these are macrocosms built upon the individual realities:  all societies are simply the aggregate of their individual people, no matter how large and gaudy their governments appear.  Here in our country, we have a government that is elected by the citizens, to do the work of the people, under the Constitution and its derived laws.  Individual people manage their own lives, have families, gather in churches, build cities, establish states, pay taxes, and support a federal government.  For all the pomp and power of our nation, it is nothing more than the extension of each of our 300+ million people, using our resources, and acting out our lives in local, national, and international contexts.  We are a nation of individual people, as much as we are families of individual people, knit together in our social construct, and living together in our time and place.

I make this point, because it is easy for the Church of Christ, and her people, to chase shadows rather than realities.  If governments and their policies are the shadows cast by a nation of individual people, the Church must be careful not to waste efforts against governments and policies.  Every time the people of the Church enter such battles, they swipe through smoke and cinders, never reaching the source of the fire.  If we have a government or a policy that needs to be corrected, the target is not so much the government or the policy, but the people who bring them into being.

This makes sense also, when one considers that Christ did not send out His Apostles to convert governments or change social policies in the ancient Roman world (a world still far more problematic for Christians than the one in which we live today in the west,) but rather to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you…” (Cf. Matthew 28, Mark 16, John 20, and the Acts of the Apostles.)  Jesus did not send His Apostles to convert governments, but people—individual people.  Jesus knew better than anyone, that all the societies and gatherings of men were nothing more than the people who built them.  As any historian will tell you, cultures, nations, laws and policies come and go across time and space.  But what is consistent, is the people who gather together and compose them; the same being true even of churchly societies and gatherings, however nobly they were fashioned.

So what realities are in the world today?  There are people.  And these people boil down into two fundamental categories:  those who hear the Word of the Lord and keep it, and those who do not.  That’s it.  There are only two kinds of people in the world, and those two kinds of people do very different things, based upon who they are at their core.  If they have been born from above by Water and Spirit through the power of God’s Word, giving them a new life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, they live unto God in faith and repentance—turning from their evil, by faith clinging to the Gospel of salvation.  In such people the Spirit of God dwells, bringing out of them the fruits of faith, which are love and compassion which fulfill the Law of God.  If the people are not enlivened by God, they are dead in their trespasses and sins, following the inclinations of the devil, and bringing about the wicked fruit of unfaithful evil.  Faithful people will gather together to do the works of love which God inspires them to do, and faithless people will gather together to do the works of evil which Lucifer inspires them to do.  Here is the underlying machinery of human government, society, and culture, and here it is that Christ directs His Church.

Do you look out into the world, and see it awash in evil?  I do.  I see a world that promotes war for the purposes of money, pride and resources, trading the lives of men, women, and children for political and material gain.  I see economic structures and policies designed to guard oppressors while stealing from the poor and powerless, and for the sake of profit leave the souls of many to suffer and die of starvation and disease.  I see a world where pleasure and convenience is valued more greatly than the lives of children, and the law of the land provides infanticide as a solution to the consequences of irresponsible, unnatural, and illicit sexual conduct.  I see a world where children are exploited for the gratification of hedonistic adults, and sex slavery leads to the wounding and death of countless millions.  I see a world where Lucifer gathers his witting and unwitting worshippers, corrupting everything he touches, and drawing the world into the flames of hell which are prepared for him and his wickedness.

But I also see another world.  There is another world breaking into this one, by the power of God and His Word.  Through the dark and the gloom, He sends His Light and His Life to all who hear Him, turn, believe, and live.  This world gathers around its Savior and God, Jesus Christ, who in Himself has taken all the wickedness and sin of all humanity upon Himself, dying and rising again, that all who trust in Him will likewise live forever.  In this world, the Word of Christ reigns supreme, where the Law convicts of sin, and the Gospel forgives the repentant sinner.  In this world, the Kingdom of God is manifested, where the Word and gifts of Christ call and gather His people of every tribe and tongue, nation and race, enlightening them and enlivening them.  In this world, the people gather together to work the works of Jesus, knowing that for them is laid up the Eternal City through the merits won by Jesus on His Cross.  In this world, the Light of Christ overcomes the darkness of the devil, and faith, hope, and love abide forever.

I look out from this vista, and I see two worlds at war with each other over the individual souls of every man, woman, and child:  The Kingdom of Lucifer, which leads to perdition, and the Kingdom of Christ, which leads to paradise.  It is not necessary that we swipe at the devil’s shadows and vagaries, but rather that we see each soul for who it is:  a child of God, or a captive of the devil.  As we do this, we may look first upon our own soul, so that we may return in faith and repentance to the God who seeks and saves us through His Son.  Having removed the log from our own eye, we may see clearly to call our neighbor to the same repentance, faith, and life that we have found in Jesus Christ.  In so doing, we join in the Apostolic work given by Christ, making disciples—citizens of the Kingdom of God—who in turn will gather around His Word, to do in faith the works of love He has given to us.

Do you want to change the culture of death?  You cannot—but God can.  Be converted by His Word and His Spirit.  Hear and believe Him.  Turn from your sin and wickedness.  Leave your evil taskmaster behind, and embrace the Christ who has given everything to save you from his fiery grip.  As His child, alive by grace through faith in Jesus, call others into this same sweet fellowship.  Show them that there is another world, another Kingdom, another way.  Bring them to where Christ is the center and the circumference, and where life flows abundantly through His Word.

If you would see the culture of death changed, begin by leaving it yourself, and returning to Christ and His Word.  In faith and repentance, you will find life in His grace.  And here, in His Kingdom, His Word will work through you, to call other souls to faith, repentance, grace and life.  May the Spirit so move us all, to hear the Word as it calls through St. John the Baptist:  Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  Amen.