Communion With the Christ:: The Season of Advent: In Jesus, God's Love is Come

“Behold the Lamb of God” John: 1:29

The people of Israel were a people who were living what many of them felt was an oppressed life. They, as a people were not living the life which they had hoped for, the life which many felt was promised to them in the words of the Holy writings of the Scriptures.

Many knew only uncertainty in their daily lives, some felt hopeless and marginalized by the society of their day, forgotten and overlooked.

Anticipation of Something

Some in the religious establishment of the day were remote and offered little comfort, yet in spite of all the prevailing conditions which existed in the collective lives of the people there was an anticipation that something was about to occur, something which would changes all things forever.

John Comes

It was into this climate of hopelessness and anticipation that John the Baptist emerges there in the wilderness on the banks of the Jordan and begins to boldly proclaim to the people that God was about to move in their lives, individually and collectively and tells them that their God has not forgotten them and was about to intervene in their lives.

“The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way”—

“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.’ ”

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mk 1:1-8

The Baptist was different than many of the religious leaders of the day. John, in his proclamation gave the people who came to him there on the banks of that Jordan, he gave them the assurance of God’s love and his comfort. John the Baptist declared that God was about to reveal his love to them and to all.

More Powerful

John declared that God was about to reveal his love to them and to all in a highly personal way, that God’s intervention would be found in “one” whom they could see, touch and have a relationship with, one who John tells us had the power to transform their lives.

“After me comes the one more powerful than I,”

The Baptist’s word tells us that the one to come could and would do what neither John, nor any other could do. This one enters the wilderness of the lives of the people and would change their lives forever and bring comfort them.

Comfort My People

This comfort which God would bring to the people was foretold by Prophet Isaiah, this comfort would reveal God’s gentle love for Israel and for all humanity.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass,

and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” Isa: 40:1-9

We are told in the pages of the Gospel accounts that John was this the messenger who lifted up his voice to point to the revelation of the love of God has come and is revealed in the person of his Holy Son Jesus, the one who comforts any and all not just Israel.

Behold the Lamb of God

John stood upon the banks of the Jordan and declared to any and all “here is your God”. This is the one who comforts you with his love. John saw himself as a messenger to point others to the very revelation of the love of God to humanity so that we could be comforted and know who God is, that God has moved in our lives that he has brought redemption to us.

John, there upon the Jordan directed others to find this revealed love of God in Jesus, as he declared to his very own disciples when he saw Jesus. That Jesus, out of the love of God, has come and has accomplished what none other could accomplish.

“behold the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world John: 1:29

Jesus is the self-revelation and divine disclosure of the love of God which gives us comfort , knowing that our God has come to us and dealt with anything which could separate us from the Creator of all things.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that it is in Jesus that we see our God and through which the love of God is made manifest to us.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” Heb: 1:3a

Jesus is the perfect revelation of who God is and to whom we, like John, are to point others to declaring "Behold the Lamb of God".

God is Love

St. John the Apostle tells us that “God is Love”, that love is not a law, or set of regulations which compel God to act, but rather, love is God’s perfect, holy divine nature. Love is who he is, it is not merely an attribute of his nature. It is his very self and is relational.

This divine love of God is reveled in Jesus and is shown us that we might be comforted. This is why Jesus has come, that we all might know God’s very love, the love revealed in his Holy Son, and that we like John the Baptist are called to point others to.

We, that is all believers, are to declare that very love of God is come to us, that we might be comforted. This is a lesson of the Advent Season; God’s love has come in Jesus.

Benediction: May we each and all live lives which declare to any and to all that God’s love is come in the person of his Holy Son Jesus Christ, today, tomorrow and forevermore. Amen