by Pastor Douglas Brauner

The Importance of Signs

Some signs name and others point. Two of these signs pictured name the streets that formed an intersection and one sign names an organization that helps maintain it. Instead of naming something, the large yellow sign points in the direction a driver must go.

John the Baptist acts in both ways: he is a sign that names Jesus, and he is sign that points the direction to Jesus.

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”
John 1:29 New English Translation

Earlier in the chapter, John the Baptist denied that he was God’s Messiah sent to save the world. John was an imposing character given his proclamation, dress, and diet. He spoke with conviction and power. We are not surprised that people believed he might be the Messiah. But he will have none of it.

On the next day he sees Jesus coming to him and he names him. He is the Lamb of God. He is the One sent from God to be present among his people. However, it is not enough for John to simply name him, he tells us what Jesus will do. He is the only One who can take away the sin of the world. In naming Jesus, he also points us to Jesus as the One who can do what we have struggled to do but cannot. Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes away our sin. He takes away your sin.

Jesus takes away from us the one thing that stands between us and the Father, his Father, our attempt to be the god of our lives. Jesus deals with the core problem of our lives.

The world has done a decent job of denying the existence of sin. But we feel it. We know it. We are intimate with it. Jesus deals with sin by becoming sin for us. It is sin that dies on Jesus’ cross. We are forgiven. You are forgiven.

And like John, we now point to Jesus and we declare, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado