Sermons 2026

Text: John 1:29-42a 

Theme: Behold the Lamb of God 

Outline 

1. Behold the Lamb 

a. OT: Bore sins of the world on behalf of people 

b. Christ bears our sins, dies our place to forgive us 

2. Lamb abides with us forever 

Sermon 

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Holy Gospel according to Saint John the first chapter verses twenty-nine through the first part of verse forty-two. 

Beloved lambs, I pray that you are doing well today. 

Have you ever had to carry something really heavy? If I asked you to carry these books, how long do you think you could hold them for? You might be able to hold them for a little while but eventually you would get tired. You would not be able to hold them for very long. In our text for today, John the Baptist points to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What does Jesus carry on our behalf? How does Jesus take away our sins from us forever? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you. 

1. Behold the Lamb 

Immediately following our Lord’s Baptism, the Holy Spirit sends Jesus out into the desert to be tempted by the Devil for forty days. After enduring every temptation, our Lord departs the desert, victorious over our old Foe forever. It is at this time that Jesus walks past John. John takes this opportunity to wondrously and lovingly proclaim what he saw happen at Jesus’ baptism. That here in the flesh is the One whom John was waiting for that would come after him and be greater than he was. Here, John proclaims, the Messiah, the One on whom the Spirit of God rests and remains with. Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

2. OT Illustrations 

The people of John’s day would have known a lot about lambs removing the sins of the people. They would know that John is drawing upon what the Old Testament laws prescribed had to be done when someone sinned for their forgiveness and their salvation. 

Every Passover, a lamb without spot or blemish was slain. The lamb’s blood was painted over the doorpost of the house. The blood literally saved the people of Israel from death as the angel of the Lord saw the blood and passed over their houses, slaying instead the firstborn of the Egyptians that the people of Israel would have salvation (Exodus 12:1–13). 

According to Exodus 29:38–41, every day, at dawn and twilight, two lambs a year old, were sacrificed as a daily offering for the sins of the people. The Lord describes this aroma as a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire. These daily offerings signified that Israel was to consecrate its daily life to the Lord. The Lord, in turn, promised his abiding presence with his people. Here the Lord would also manifest his glorious presence to his people. In Leviticus 1:10 the burnt offering—“without defect”— is prescribed. It is burnt wholly upon the altar that the one offering it would be forgiving of the sin for which they are offering it. 

There is also the yearly sin offering on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, through which the people of Israel received forgiveness as prescribed in Leviticus 16. 20“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. 22The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert. . Though it should be noted that this is a goat rather than a lamb. 

3. Christ as true Lamb 

In Christ, all these Old Testament commands and laws find their fulfillment. Every single sacrifice, every lamb slain upon a Jewish altar and yearly goat pointed forward to the great work that Christ Himself would bear in His holy flesh. As Luther writes “The paschal lamb of the Law was, indeed, splendid child’s play, as well as a ceremony instituted to remind you of the true Lamb of God. But you exaggerate its significance and assume that such butchering and sacrificing were done to remove your sins. Don’t give way to that illusion! Your lambs will never accomplish that. Only the Son of God will. Those lambs in the Law were merely to be the people’s toys, to remind them of the true Paschal Lamb, which was to be sacrificed at some future time.” But they had nothing but contempt for all this and supposed that a lamb slaughtered at Passover sufficed. Therefore John, as it were, juxtaposes Moses’ lamb and Christ, the true Lamb. The Law was not to extend beyond Christ. John wishes to say: “Your lamb was taken from men, as Moses commanded in the Law of God (Ex. 12:3–5). But this is God’s Lamb. The Easter lamb is a Lamb from God, not a lamb selected from the wethers. The lamb of the Law was a shepherds lamb or a man’s lamb.” John wants to say: “This is the true Lamb, which takes away the sin of the people. With your other lambs, sacrificed on the Passover festival, you did try to remove your sin; but you never succeeded. In this Lamb, born of a virgin, you will. It is not a natural lamb or wether referred to in the Law, and yet It is a lamb.” For God prescribed that it was to be a Lamb that should be sacrificed and roasted on the cross for our sins. In other respects He was a man like all other human beings; but God made Him a Lamb which should bear the sins of all the world. 

In the God-man, Jesus Christ, we find the true Lamb of God in the eternal Son of God. We find a lamb not of our own making or imagination, not of our own choosing and bringing. We see One picked and chosen by God Himself. Jesus identifies with us in every way. Jesus was baptized and tempted as we are, and yet without sin. He is perfection itself. Jesus is the perfect Lamb without any spot, wrinkle, or blemish of His own, sent by God to bear the sins not of a single person by of the entirety of the world across all of time and space. Yet, like the Yom Kippur goat, Jesus carries the heavy load that you are under of your sins, eternal death, and damnation forever before God. Jesus takes that heavy weight off of your shoulders and lays it upon His own. He takes the wrath and punishment of your sins in your stead, going to the Cross. There, to die your death and mine once and for all. By dying Jesus destroys the power of death. He covers you with His holy and precious blood, reconciling you to God and giving you His peace and strength forever. Rising again from the dead, Jesus gives you His perfection, righteousness, and life forever with Him. 

4. Lamb abides with us forever 

If this is not enough, we have Jesus Christ abiding with us forever. Death has not stopped Him for He lives forever for us. As John sees Christ in Revelation, he describes our Lord as a lamb, looking as thought it had been slain, alive and sitting upon the throne. Christ rules and reigns at the right hand of the Father. As we confess in the Creed, “From thence, He will come to judge the living and the dead.” He lives and reigns to all eternity. Because we have His Holy Spirit living within us, every aspect of our lives shows what Jesus has done for us. Through our thoughts, words, and deeds, we praise God for what He has done for us through Jesus Christ. We confess in the face of an unbelieving world that there is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. People do not need to walk about in the darkness of sin and death. There is hope. There is life forever found in the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.