Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
January 18, 2026
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Epiphany 2A
Behold!

“On the next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Behold! God’s Lamb who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29)

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We all know that some people are less structured or more structured than others. Churches are the same. Lutherans reside on the structured end of the spectrum and it shows in our worship, our surroundings and in how we mark time.

In order to do so we pattern our worship according to the church year. Following the Advent and Christmas seasons the church enters the season or Epiphany. Epiphany means to show or reveal or to make something manifest. In this season the church expresses exactly WHO the long-awaited Messiah is. He is Jesus, the Son of God.

So far this Epiphany season we celebrated the 12 year old Boy teaching the doctors of theology in the Temple; his baptism in the Jordan where his divinity was unmistakably announced by the voice emanating from heaven that said: “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” It was an incomparable moment where we found out that our Lord is “God in Man made manifest,” as we sing in the hymn. (TLH #105)

And today we have yet another of the most famous and well known descriptors of Jesus, when John the Baptist exclaims to the ends of the earth, “Behold! The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

This brilliant exclamation is the essence of the Holy Christian Religion. Should this ever change there would be no more church! No more hope. No more heaven. No remission of sins. No cure for guilt or shame. No such thing as prayer; and no future worth contemplating.

But with it men and women over the centuries, and to this very day, courageously suffered the loss of all things – their money, their property, their freedom and have patiently given themselves over to cruel death rather than deny Jesus, God’s sacrificial Lamb.

On the other side of the coin without the Lamb the world would be terribly impoverished because the gospel has inspired men to frame just laws, to promote high and noble education, to build hospitals, care for orphans and those who are utterly disabled. Until very recently the Holy Family Cancer Home in Parma took patients in free or charge so that they might be comforted and well-cared for in their last hours. This is to say nothing of unparalleled music, art and architecture that the Lamb’s love for us has inspired.

This verse: Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is so near and dear to our hearts that the world’s liturgical churches have incorporated it into their liturgy. We chant it at every Eucharist, and will again today,

“O Christ Thou Lamb of God
that takest away the sin of the world,
have mercy on us.”

And so let us consider this verse in greater detail, beginning with the word “Behold.”

Behold is a word largely unappreciated in Scripture. We think that it simply means: “pay attention,” or the Spanish “Mira Mira.” Which it does, but there is more to it. Usually whenever the word Behold is used in the Bible it is not followed simply by an IDEA or a THOUGHT. But by an incarnational reality – “incarnational” meaning someone or something that you can see and hear and touch and feel and smell.

Case in point: John the Baptist begins his majestic announcement with the word Behold. And as he does so he points to Jesus the Son of God, in the flesh walking towards him and says: “The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

What happens here is just one more example of the fact that the Holy Christian Religion is always expressed and manifests itself via flesh and blood realities and spectacular realities such as The Flood – and is NOT merely a philosophy, or a set of talking points. But it is hylic and real.

The Christian religion is Jesus crucified for our sins, and raised again for our justification. (Rom. 4:25) And still today it is he himself who baptizes in the font, and feeds us with his own flesh and blood in Holy Communion so that we can truly know that Jesus doesn’t just dwell “in our hearts” as a notion. But his living flesh enters our dead flesh to irradiate our transgressions, and render us fresh as the driven snow.

Moreover this same Jesus is “the Lamb of God,” or said another way “God’s Lamb,” which means that he is the sacrificial Lamb that the Heavenly Father himself supplies, to take away our sins, our judgment, our condemnation, our fear of life and fear of death. As our God provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his own son; and a Passover Lamb to save his own people. Now he provides his own Chosen Lamb who as a polished arrow and shining sword makes war against the devil, and all of his minions, setting us free!

Now men have always sought to make some acceptable sacrifice to the gods they created in their own image. They invented religious rituals usually consisting of drugs, and “sacred prostitution” as it was called. And when they became truly desperate they went as far as sacrificing their own children.

Now as regards the phrase, “takes away,” the original Greek says “lifts away.” That is to say he picks up our burdens and rescues us from the crushing load so that we can breathe free air again. And with them he takes away sins toxic effects which infests on everything and everybody
– and which is otherwise inescapable. Where did they go, our sins? They went to Him! And in exchange he gave his holiness to us! The case is as we sing in the hymn (TLH #105)

“7. He serves that I a lord may be;
A great exchange indeed!
Could Jesus’ love do more for me
To help me in my need?”

On the cross Jesus encountered the full justice of God, the mighty rage of the devil, and the jam-packed rebellion of humanity. He looked it in the eye, and then absorbed it – losing his Sacred life in the process, but leaving us as free as could be. Free to live holy lives. Humble lives of devotion to our great God and Savior. Pure lives of unfeigned love and service to one another. O how true it is when Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.” And so we are.

And so as we chant: “O Christ Thou Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy on us,” we are saying a mouthful. We are both praising God and His Lamb, Jesus for unbounded love towards us. And offering the perfect prayer that covers all our needs of body, soul, relationships and whatever other things we need:

O Christ Thou Lamb of God;
that takest away the sin of the world;
Have mercy upon us.

He has, he does and he will continue.