When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking toward him, he said something to his followers that still echoes through history: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 NIV).
In one sentence, John summed up the greatest story ever told.
Yet this is a story that growing numbers of people today don’t think applies to them. When asked directly, between 10% and 16% of Americans deny the existence of sin — a number that has risen with the growth of “nones.”
Still, most people know something is wrong with them — sensing deeply that something is broken in us and the world.
We feel it in our shame, the self-critical voice that haunts us, in our failures, and in the wounds we try to hide.
Whether or not we recognize it, sin depletes us and leaves us compromised emotionally.
This isn’t just something we do. It’s a dark force that fractures our souls and separates us from the God who loves us. It’s like we can’t get rest because our hearts are not resting in the arms of God, who longs to hold us.
The answer is there, even if we miss it for a while — even if it takes us time to see clearly.
And when we do recognize the truth, it may take even more time to truly accept God’s solution.
But that’s the tension of the human story. We eventually recognize that something is wrong, but we have no human solution to fix the deeper problem.
This is why the Son of God put on human flesh and came to Earth. He came to fix the problem you and I could not.
In the first century, Second Temple, Jewish world of Jesus, unblemished lambs were sacrificed in the temple as a reminder that sin carries a cost (Lev 16).
In the Jewish sacrificial system, sins could be forgiven only once a year. But even those sacrifices were temporary. The slaughtered lamb pointed forward to something greater.
When John saw Jesus walking toward the Jordan River, he didn’t say, “Look, a teacher.” He didn’t say, “Look, a revolutionary.”
He said, “Look, the Lamb.”
Jesus is the Lamb God provided to once and forever deal with the true problem that separated humanity from the love of God.
On the cross, Jesus carried our sin, our shame, our rebellion, and our brokenness. His sacrifice offers to erase the barrier between us and God. This stunning truth can save us from sin and death for a life of forgiveness and love.
Allow me to ask: Have you experienced the joy and peace of forgiveness?
If not, John’s words remain a timely invitation to any of us today: “Look.”
He does not say, “Look after you have become worthy of His grace.”
He does not say to “look after you have conquered every weakness.”
He simply says, “Look at the Lamb of God.”
As we look to the Lamb of God, we can look away from our shame and our exhausting efforts trying to fix ourselves. We can instead simply look to grace — and to the one who is able to “take away” our sin.
During this Holy Week, take a moment and do what John invited the world to do: Look to Jesus. Trust the Lamb of God. And receive His grace — a peace and sweetness you will find in no other way.
This Easter, may we rejoice that the Lamb who took away the sin of the world has made a way for you and me — all of us — to experience the love and forgiveness of God.