Sunday, January 18, 2026, Second Sunday after the Epiphany/Life Sunday
“Look! The Lamb of God!”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 40:1-17; Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-1-9; John 1:29-42a
Service Order: Divine Service IV with Holy Communion
Hymns: “When to Our World the Savior Came” #551; “Father Welcomes All His Children” # 605; “Have No Fear, Little Flock” #735
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Savior, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and from His life-giving Holy Spirit. Amen.
Which life is precious to God? All life! Every life! Every life really does matter! Who did Jesus comes to save? Who did Jesus die for? Can we make a distinction between whose life is worthy and who isn’t? God certainly doesn’t. God “knows us before we’re knit together in our mother’s womb.” He knows every life, every soul, and is present and active at the conception of every child; there are no accidents when it comes to life.
We humans are “the crown of God’s creation.” God loved us enough to die for us. He loved you enough to die for YOU, and He loves you still. And wherever you look, every fellow human being you encounter is your brother or sister, and also a child precious to God, from the smallest of human embryos, to the refugee who doesn’t look like you or speak your language, to someone old and forgotten in a nursing home. Even the lost folks out there, even if they’re still doing evil things or living in sin or are lost without Christ, are our brothers and sisters, children of the same heavenly Father. Jesus came to save even them, the same as He came to save us. Who is my neighbor? All of them; every last one, all of us in need of the same one-and-only Savior.
In our Gospel reading from St. John, there are seven names for our Savior - each one of them pointing us to who He is, each one telling us He’s the only One every human being desperately needs to know to live and be saved and enter God’s Heaven. Those names are listed for you on the back of your bulletin insert. We’ll take them one by one this morning, and may God light a fire of love and hope and grace in us as we do it.
- Jesus, “God is Salvation” – the One who has come to save our lives.
- The Lamb of God – the One who gave His life for us.
- The One on Whom the Holy Spirit Came to Rest – the fountain and source of all life.
- The One Who Baptizes people with the Holy Spirit – the One who lights the spark of life in us.
- The Son of God – the One who orders all things and holds all life in His hands.
- Rabbi/Teacher – the One who teaches us how to live and grow and live forever.
- Messiah/Christ/Chosen One – the Lord and giver of life, who came down from heaven to give life to everyone.
- Jesus, “God is Salvation” – the One who has saved our lives.
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him.” The name Jesus is an ancient name in the Hebrew language. We know Him as Jesus. The Jews in Jesus’ day would have called Him Yeshua. His name is the same as the name Joshua, a name that means “God is Salvation” or “Yahweh is Salvation.” Yeshua is the name angel Gabriel told father Joseph and mother Mary to name Him. His name points to His singular purpose, and to what He came to earth to do. Jesus is the one and only Savior, the only hope of all the world, the One who’s come to save our lives. “There is no other name in heaven or on earth by which we must be saved.” All life comes from Him and was created by Him, and every life was meant to be saved by Him. Every last one.
- The Lamb of God – the One who gave His life for us.
“Lamb of God” is another ancient name for our Savior, one that goes back to the beginning of time. Adam and Eve, when they fell into sin and were cast from the garden, were covered by God by what I and many others believe was the wooly skin of a lamb, the first creature to shed its blood and die for the sake of human sin. The Hebrews, from the very beginning of their nation, were instructed to bring for their sacrifices “a perfect lamb, without blemish or defect.” The thousands upon thousands of lambs they sacrificed over the years were never enough to take away their sin, and God told them so. Those lambs were intended to keep them awake, and aware, and looking forward, to the day when God would send that one truly perfect Lamb to take away their sin forever.
And now John points to Him and says, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The final Lamb, the last Lamb, the Lamb all those other lambs were pointing too, the One who would die to make the last and final sacrifice to take away sin. Not just the sins of some, but the sin of all. The cross of Jesus was a singular event, the center point of human history, the Lamb of God nailed to a cross for… everyone. You don’t know anyone, and you’ll never meet anyone, and there has never been anyone, whom Jesus didn’t die for, from the greatest of us to the least of us. The “universal atonement” we call that. That means there are no “least of us,” and no one we dare to think of in that way. All lives do matter.
- The One on Whom the Holy Spirit Came to Rest – the fountain and source of all life.
Jesus is “The One On Whom the Holy Spirit Came to Rest.” (I know, that isn’t really a proper name; but still a good and important name to know Him by). “Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him.’” Jesus, or Yeshua, for all the glory of the name, was a common name in Israel. There may have been dozens or hundreds of Yeshua’s walking around at time of Jesus. Which Jesus are we talking about here?
This is where it’s such a blessing to have a faith that is both historical and Creedal. John pointed to one particular Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the one he’d baptized in the Jordan River just the day before. Not just any old Jesus, not just some ordinary man, but the One whom the Holy Spirit singled out by coming to rest upon Him, and the One about whom the Father said, “This is My beloved Son,” and the One whom the Creed says was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born or the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. No substitutes, no frauds or fakes or other claimants to His throne. One man, Adam, brought the whole world into sin. One man, Jesus - the One the Spirit came to rest upon - came to take our sin away.
- The One Who Baptizes people with the Holy Spirit – the One who lights the spark of life in us.
John the Baptist says, “I would not have known Him, except that the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'” Not only is Jesus the One on Whom the Spirit Rests,” He’s also the One who gives the Holy Spirit to us, “the One who Baptizes people with the Holy Spirit.” (Again, maybe not a proper name, but one that tells us clearly who He is). This takes us all the way back to the beginning again, back to the Book of Genesis, when “the Lord God breathed into Adam the breath (or the Spirit) of life, and the man became a living being.” All life comes from God and is animated by His Spirit. (This is very Trinitarian again). The Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, formed Adam from dust and breathed the life-giving Spirit into Him. “The hands that formed Adam from the dust of the ground were already scarred by nails.”
The same God, the same Jesus, the same Holy Son, is the One who breathes the Spirit of Life and lights the spark in all of us. He’s the cause of the conception of every child, the divine spark that brings every life to be. He’s present at every Baptism, bringing the Spirit and life and faith into our souls. And He’s the One who sends the Holy Spirit, to beg and plead and bears witness to Christ, and to call people to repent and confess and come to faith. Again, a very Trinitarian thing. The Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.” No one can say, “Jesus Christ is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. It’s because of Him and that spark of His life-giving Spirit that you and I have come to saving faith today.
- The Son of God – the One who orders all things and holds all life in His hands.
“I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God,” John says. Trinity again! The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, standing there on earth in human flesh. Again, a singular event in human history, planned by God from the beginning of time, now come to be. Those who thought He was only a man would soon see Him heal the sick, the lame, the dead, and the blind, and even raise the dead back to life. He’d show His power over nature by calling the wind and waves to obey Him, and bringing great schools of fish to come and jump in the disciple’s boat. He’d show His power over demons and every evil thing, and even over the devil himself. He had all the power in earth and heaven at the tips of His fingers, and showed it to be so.
Those who would not believe Him nailed the Son of God to a cross and buried Him; and He proved His power over even death itself by standing up alive again. He is the Lord and giver of life, and the One who gives us life, and our lives are so precious to Him that He gave Himself to die for our sakes. And again, not just for us, but for everyone, no matter how lost they may be on this day. He’s the Son of God, the One who can make dead people live again, the One who can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. He never gives up on anyone, and neither should we.
- Rabbi/Teacher – the One who teaches us how to live and grow and live forever.
“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus
passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come,’ He replied, ‘and you will see.’ So they went and saw where He was staying, and spent that day with Him.”
“Rabbi - “Teacher” - they called Him. Another lovely name for Jesus, and another beautiful facet of who He wants to be for all of us. A good teacher wants us to know what he knows, and to teach us what we need to know. Those first two disciples came to Jesus, and He didn’t expect them to know everything; in fact, He knew they didn’t know much. But He loved them, and He was patient with them, and He was willing to spend the time it would take to teach them, to the point where the students would one day become the teachers, and where the disciples, the ones who were brought to sit at His feet, would become the apostles, “the ones who were sent.” But all in good time; it wouldn’t happen overnight.
Jesus is our Rabbi, our Teacher. He calls us to come and sit at His feet, to open His Word and learn from Him. And once again, it’s not just us who He calls to come sit at His feet, but everyone. Come and learn who He is. Come and learn what He did. Come and learn what a marvelous plan He has for the world, and how you can be a part of it.
Those first disciples, those beginners, those “young skulls full of mush,” heard Jesus preach and teach and speak, and they saw what He did, and they learned what it means to be like Him; and they in turn taught others, who taught others, who taught others. And that’s how we’ve come to be here. We’re here both to learn, and to grow, and to bring everyone we can to sit at the Teacher’s feet. ‘In Him is life, and that life is the Light of men.” Come and see!
- The Messiah/Christ/Chosen One – the Lord and giver of life, who came down from heaven to give life to everyone.
“Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had
said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.”
Ah, the last beautiful name for our Savior – the Messiah, the Christ, the Chosen One. Israel, at least those of them who still trusted God’s promise, had been waiting for years, for centuries, for Him to appear. You remember old Simeon, waiting in the temple for the “Consolation of Israel,” then holding the Child at last in his arms and crying, “Lord, now I can leave this world in peace, for my own eyes have seen Your salvation.” Again, not many saviors or many Messiahs, but just One Beautiful Savior in all the long history of the world.
Andrew, believing with all his heart that he’d found The One, did the first thing all of us should do when the Good News hits us like that; he went to tell his brother, and he brought him to meet Jesus. Think of it as concentric circles. Your mission begins with those closest to you, with your brothers and sisters and family. Then out from there to your friends and neighbors, and them outward from there to any ear you can put the Good News into in the lifetime God has given you.
John the Baptist saw Jesus passing by and immediately testified, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And for you and I, as we walk around in this world, that is our testimony as well, to everyone God puts in our path or brings into our lives. To every lost and hurting and suffering soul, the message of the Church has always been, “Look! The Lamb of God!”
Jesus, the Lamb of God, has come to us, bringing Good News: Hallelujah! Our sin is forgiven! We’re saved! And now He comes to us again on God’s altar, giving us His body and blood to fill us with love and light and life. May we share that precious light of life with everyone we meet when we leave this place today; there’s no better way to stand up for life than that. In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com