John 1:29-42 (Year A, Epiphany II)
The one where John sees a Lamb
The gospel reading for Epiphany II comes from John 1:29-42. Last week, we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Baptism; this week, we read John’s. John reflects differently on the event than Matthew does and, if you’re a slow reader, you’ll notice that John’s cadence is entirely different than both Matthew’s and Luke’s.
John 1:29-42
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).”
It helps to know
That John is preoccupied with the process of knowing. His language reflects this. Watch his use of language about our sensory faculties (“see”, “hear”, “touch”), his use of language about our intellectual faculties (“seek”, “know”), and the order in which he uses these words. John knows God, and his stories are about how humans come to know God.
How to understand John’s words. In other books, the best way to understand a key word or phrase is by understanding its meaning in the Old Testament, its meaning in other New Testament books, or its meaning in contemporary Greek literature. And so background knowledge helps. John’s words, however, are often best understood through attention to the ways in which John uses them himself. And so my comments will pay attention to how he uses his words.
What I noticed
In Paragraph 1, John explains how he knows Jesus.
The text begins with a visual fact: “He saw Jesus coming towards him” (v. 29).
Evidently, John recognizes Jesus, identifying him correctly. But, he says, “I did not know him” (v. 31; the ESV adds an over-explanatory “myself” that is absent in John’s language). This begs the question, If John didn’t know him, how did he recognize him?
John’s answer: He says he “saw” the Spirit descend and remain on Jesus (v. 32). Note, another seeing experience. This “seeing” matters because of what John had “heard”: “[God] said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain…” (v. 33). Concluding his remarks, he says, “I myself have seen… that this is the Son of God” (v. 34).
Here, then, is John’s first lesson on the vocabulary of knowing, distilled: John’s sense of sight alone cannot identify Jesus. But, having been equipped by hearing God, his sense of sight has become able to perceive and recognize Jesus: “I myself have seen.”
Even briefer: Hearing God makes seeing work.
In Paragraph 2, John’s disciples have an experience of knowing which parallel’s John’s.
Paragraph 1 (vv. 29-34) was about what John had heard and seen in Jesus. Paragraph 2 (vv. 35-42) is about what the disciples heard and saw in Jesus. Paragraph 1 began with John “seeing” Jesus as he comes toward him (“seeing” is blepō, v. 29, a verb used 15x in John); Paragraph 2 begins with John “looking at” Jesus as he walks by (“looking at” is em-blepō, v. 36, a verb used 2x in John, both times in this same paragraph: John looking at Jesus and Jesus looking at Peter). Here, John is seeing what he already knows. He repeats his testimony: “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
The next verse offers gives a succinct account of the disciples’ knowing: “The two disciples heard (akouō) him speak, and they followed (akoloutheō) Jesus” (v. 37). You can hear the resonance in the two verbs. The disciples hadn’t heard God speak, but they had heard John speak—and John had been “sent by God… to bear witness about the Light… that he might be revealed to Israel” (vv. 6; 7-8; 31).
The pattern holds: Hearing God-sent testimony makes seeing work.
Seeing this movement from hearing to following, Jesus asks a question: “What are you seeking?” (v. 38) Seeking—unlike the bodily actions of seeing and hearing and touching and following—is an intellectual action, an action of the Soul or, if you prefer, of the Mind. When people transition quickly from “hearing” to “following”, it’s because they were ready. Seeking is what Souls do; Following is what Bodies do. Seeking is the Soul making the Body ready.
Here is John’s second lesson on the vocabulary of knowing, distilled: Those who “seek” will “find” when they “hear” a “witness” to what they have been seeking.
This attention to the vocabulary of knowing links the two paragraphs, but so do a few other things:
The witness of John. Before this passage, the text has introduced John as being “sent by God to bear witness about the Light” (vv. 6-8). In Paragraph 1, addressing no other “characters”, Johns reflections are purely for the readers’ benefit. He tells us what he has seen. In Paragraph 2, he addresses his disciples. Having spoken to them, he now directs their eyes. This is his program: Hear me; Seek Jesus; See Jesus; Find and Follow Jesus. What John has successfully done is cultivate the activity of “seeking” in the souls of his disciples, the kind of seeking that enables them to temporarily attach to him until they may permanently attach to Jesus. This is a lesson!
The name, Lamb of God. This is the name by which John recognizes Jesus both times (vv. 29, 36). More on this below.
The keyword, menō. The word menō is a common one, translated “stay”, “remain”, and “abide”. In Paragraph 1, it describes what the Spirit does: John seees the Spirit descending and remaining (menō) on Jesus (vv. 32, 33). In Paragraph 2, the disciples use it to ask Jesus their question: “Where are you staying (menō)?” (v. 38) After an answer loaded with knowing words—“Come and you will see” (v. 39)—the text uses the word twice more: “They came and saw where he was staying (menō), and they stayed (menō) with him that day” (v. 39). It’s not a 1:1 comparison, but John wants us to see (!) that, as the Spirit stayed on Jesus, so the disciples stayed where he (and the Spirit!) was staying.
This has me thinking about…
Why John calls Jesus the “Lamb of God”.
Well, first, here is a different question which is far easier to answer: Why is Jesus rightly identified as the Lamb of God? Answer: all of the Old Testament passages and legal institutions that describe “the lamb”, the expiatory sacrifice institution, and suffering service point to Jesus.
But why does John call him this? Why “Lamb of God” instead of, say, “Messiah” or “Prince of Peace”?
I have ideas, but they are all speculative, and John Calvin says to be ye careful with y’all’s speculations.
All I have right now is another observation. John recognizes Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (v. 29) and then he tells his disciples what he knows: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (v. 36) They find the same person, but they call him by a different name: “Rabbi (which means Teacher)” and then “We have found the Messiah (which means Christ)” (vv. 38, 41).
In finding Jesus, every man found what he sought and testified to him by the name by which they knew him. John, the Lamb. The two disciples, the Teacher. Andrew, the Messiah. This coheres with the way John describes finding and knowing God, and bearing witness to him:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
There is a fitting subjectivity to our witness. We know God as we have experienced him, and that’s what he have to tell people about.
Epiphany is a season which raises the question, For What are you seeking when you seek Jesus? Jesus, who is All in All, will make himself known to us in more ways and by more names than we could predict, more than preachers could anticipate in their sermons.
About how to know God.
The heart of this passage, for me, is that those who seek for God will find him. Seeking looks like attaching oneself to a teacher who bears witness to God and then point him out. I’m grateful not to have to reinvent the wheel.
The Scriptures bear witness to God. We can hear them proclaimed at Church, and read and study them in a variety of settings.
The stories of saints—living and dead—bear witness to what God does in the world as we know it.
Spiritual directors—official and unofficial ones—can help us identify where God is working in our lives.
Churches have their programs, which are as helpful as we make them.
The operative action underneath all of our bodily activities—our small group attendance, our reading, our giving to the poor, our sharing prayer requests, our reading the Scriptures, our asking questions—is seeking. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do seekily” (Eccl. 9:10, my mistranslation).
Those who seek will attach themselves to helpful guides of all kinds, “sent by God”, so that we can find Jesus Christ at the tenth hour and remain with him all day whenever we find him.
Lectionary Resonances
The Old Testament passage is Exodus 12:21-28. Of the many OT references to “the lamb”, this is the key text, instituting the liturgical concept of the “Passover Lamb”, whose blood becomes the signpost that protects one’s household from the Destroyer. All Israel that year experienced the Passover Lamb as figure of mercy. Those who sought mercy in the midst of future destruction sought “the Lamb”. Many “lambs” came, and Jesus was the greatest lamb of all, who delivered the True Israel from the greatest enemies: Sin, Death, and Hell.
Psalm 40 is the testimony of one who sought God in hard times: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry” (v. 1). “Waiting patiently” and “crying” are modes of seeking. The psalmist found God. He found God to be a faithful deliverer who multiplies his thoughts towards us. And he describes himself as a testimony-bearer: “I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation” (v. 9-10). His logic is lovely. As he has not “restrained [his] lips”, he charges God to reciprocate: “you will not restrain your mercy from me” (v. 12). Bear testimony! Why? Reason 1: It helps seekers see Jesus (John 1:29-42). Reason 2: It gives you leverage to ask God for mercy (Ps. 40:10-12).
Starting this week, the New Testament epistle for the Season of Epiphany is 1 Corinthians. This week, we get 1:1-9, and we’ll only get as far as 2:16 by Epiphany V, the final week of the season. In these introductory verses, Paul uses three words we’ve already seen: He gives thanks that God has filled them with all “knowledge… as [they] wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Knowledge helps us wait for Jesus. The cycle of seeking and knowing continues until Jesus comes in finality and is revealed in full. Until then, in the “Age of Christian Ethics,” knowledge helps with discernment and the increase of love (Phil. 1:9-11). Knowledge helps us not to jump the gun, and to attach ourselves to the right guides rather than the wrong ones (cf. all of 1 Cor.; most of the NT epistles).
I feel that Advent and Epiphany are crystallized in the mundanity of John 1:29. Jesus comes towards people (Advent), and they see him (Epiphany). Happy seeking, friends.