John doesn’t even both to begin with a human birth story as Mark and Luke do. He doesn’t begin with a family tree that traces Jesus’ lineage back to King David, as Matthew does. The Gospel of John begins at the very beginning of time when Creator God and God’s Son, Jesus, made all that is.

John’s first verse reads: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word (meaning Jesus) was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.”

The boldest possible proclamation of the eternal divinity of a man some knew as Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew’s Gospel may have traced Jesus lineage back to David, but John says none came before him. Jesus the Christ from the beginning of time sitting at the right hand of Creator God. Many called this claim blasphemous and outrageous.

Whoever wrote John at the end of the first century was both inspired and ready to take on all comers. Its author had been inspired to clarify for all time Jesus place and meaning. The timing of John’s incendiary proclamation was interesting, hastening as it did the great divorce between Christian Jews and traditional Jews. Towards the end of the first century, before Rome destroyed the temple, Christian Jews had already been expelled from temple worship. As John wrote, the schism had widened further and his language reflects the acrimony. You can count 71 anti-Judaic references in this Gospel. And by proclaiming that Jesus had been divine from the beginning of time, that Jesus had co-created the world, that he had come as a lamb sacrifice to take away the sin of the world, John threw more fat on the fire. Unfortunately, John’s frequent bursts of anti-Judaism have been used by Christians ever since to justify abuse and persecution of the Jews.

Getting back at the Jews at a time of religious dissension was not really why John proclaimed Jesus’ Sonship, nor did outraging the Jews adversary diminish the truth of what John dared to say. Whoever he was, this mystery author, he was a man on fire with a truth he could not contain - whatever the consequences. That’s when you know the Spirit is at work. When people say and do what they feel they must, come what may... “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” “Son of God” or “Messiah” - all these claims in this morning’s short gospel lesson. Just as John’s heart was filled with the Spirit, his pen proclaimed God’s Word to us. Over time these explosive proclamations that both inflamed and inspired early Christians have become almost too familiar to us - part of our accustomed language as Christians. Each Sunday as we profess our creed, as we do our liturgy and sing our hymns, these amazing propositions are completely familiar, and may no longer move us. But can we possibly step back and grasp the scandal they once produced? The hope they once inspired?

John’s voice could not be ignored then, nor ever, or we, as Christians, lose our moorings in the eternal meaning of our lives as baptized children of the living God. Christ is Lord, and we have been adopted by God in Christ’s name.

John the Baptist’s ministry was one of calling sinners to repent and be cleansed of their sin. They came in droves to the riverside where the Baptist preached. But when Jesus came to be baptized, the Baptist saw such singular perfection, that John saw in him one who could take away the sin of the world - the very lamb of God.

And yes, the lamb was indeed sacrificed. Three years after his baptism, Jesus died on the cross while sin bloomed at his feet and in the byways of the holy city. Sin still thrives. Who won anyway? The lamb who came to take away the sin of the world or sin?

The man Jesus died, but not the Spirit of God he embodied. For the Spirit of God that Jesus embodied (sometimes called the Christ spirit) is eternal. It could not be crucified. It could not give up the ghost. It continues its encounter with sin in this world, and we have been baptized to be its agents.

At the time of our baptism we received the Spirit of God...the living, empowering emblem of our baptism. As was said last week, as we reclaimed our baptism, “you are a child of God, marked with the cross of Christ forever..” Marked with the cross of Christ, commissioned to cleans this world from sin - sin in our own lives - sin in our society - sin in our world. Are we ready? Are we willing? More willing that ready, I suspect.

Most of us want to do what is right. Most of us want to be Christians in more than name only. That’s what brings us here today. To be fed, to be led by the word from God, readied to return to our many different worlds and witness, somehow witness to Christ’s goodness through our own choices and behaviors. But there are so many traps waiting our good intentions. Pride, blindness, self interest - whatever. Yet one of the most deceptive traps is in believing ourselves good and the other, whoever he or she may be, less than good. One of our enemies to witnessing, as Christ would have us witness, is self righteousness - that kind of pride that distorts reality and puffs one up. It divides people between them and us - racially, nationally, socially, economically. Them and us, and we are good battling those who are not. This is a trap for people with good intentions. People wanting to help cleanse the world from sin. Onward Christian Soldiers - the language of battle, not the language of love.

Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, but not as a Christian soldier, nor as judge without compassion. It is the language and practice of love, grace, humility and forgiveness that are to be our hands in spiritual struggle.

Governments fall into this trap when they demonize the enemy so as to energize their own to do battle with the other. Meanwhile, the enemy does the same and people on both sides feel righteous even as they take life. The power of sin wears many disguises, but know this. In this world, who wins has nothing to do with who is righteous. You can see that on the cross, the might of Rome, not the righteousness of God prevailed on Calvary.

The struggle in which the Lamb of God engaged was a spiritual struggle, and it still is a spiritual struggle. It is a struggle in which people of good heart and love for God must engage all their lives, generation after generation, for sin does not give up, nor does it play fair. It was a spiritual struggle, not an economic or political struggle in which Jesus engaged, seeking to enlighten people’s lives with eternal truth, with eternal hope, and seeking to show them the power and the freedom that comes from being spiritually grounded in the power that cannot be ultimately subdued. The power that is God, the power that is eternal, the power that is love.

The Lamb of God came into this world in all his perfection to show us the way, and to teach us with his body and blood that there are choices worth living and dying for - endowing our days with spiritual meaning, empowering and guiding us with His Spirit. Pointing the way to the road to holiness, the road to wholeness, the road though often rough, which is the way to inner peace, meaning and joy.

Amen.