Good Friday: Lamb of God

Matthew 27

In a few minutes, the choir are going to sing an anthem by Samuel Webbe, “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, dona nobis pacem.” Or, in English, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us, grant us peace”. You might recognise those words. We sing or say them at every communion service, just before we share the bread and wine. Whether in Latin or in English, The Agnus Dei has been set to thousands of different tunes over the centuries. Every self-respecting composer has composed music for them, from the simplest plainchant to the wonderful complexities of Bach’s B Minor mass. But sometimes, the familiarity of the words mean that we miss the oddness of the image they contain. 

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. We all know who is being referred to – it’s Jesus. But why a Lamb? What does that have to do with Jesus? 

These words were introduced into the communion service by a 7th century Pope , Sergius I. They were his reaction to a ruling by a rather obscure Church Council meeting in Constantinople which had banned Christians from painting pictures of Jesus as a Lamb, probably against the backdrop of a more general nervousness at the time of making images of living things at all. At least, said the ruling, if you must paint pictures of Jesus, let it be as a human being, not as a dumb animal. Sergius wasn’t impressed with this ruling, and decided that, if you couldn’t paint Jesus as a Lamb, you ought to be able to sing about him as one, and the rest is history. It was a slightly passive-aggressive work-around, but the Agnus Dei was here to stay.

Pope Sergius wanted to keep this imagery of Jesus as the Lamb because it was  deeply Biblical. John the Baptist had called Jesus the Lamb of God, pointing him out to his disciples when he came to him for baptism at the beginning of his ministry. You’ll often find a lamb or a sheep somewhere in paintings of John the Baptist for that reason. But John didn’t invent this image out of nowhere either. He was drawing on the long tradition of sacrifice which was the bedrock of Jewish faith, and in particular on the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and the last of the ten plagues God sent to try to persuade Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves go free.

When that tenth and final plague struck, killing all the first born in Egypt, Israelite households were spared, provided they had sacrificed a lamb and smeared its blood on their doorposts. Ever afterwards, lambs were sacrificed at the feast of Passover to remember that deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The Israelites rejoiced at their liberation, but, of course, the whole business looked rather different from the perspective of the lamb. Freedom comes at a cost, especially for the lamb. 

The prophet Isaiah picked up the image of the lamb led to the slaughter in the words we heard earlier. He was writing to Israelites at another difficult time in their history, when they were in exile in Babylon. He spoke of a new leader, the leader Israel needed, but he wouldn’t be a great warrior, coming in obvious strength and power. He would meet with opposition and suffering. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”  Christians heard echoes of these words in the life and death of Jesus. This was how God worked, they said, choosing unlikely people, like the vulnerable baby Moses left to his fate in a reed basket in the River Nile, or the shepherd boy David, who had defeated the giant Goliath – or, indeed, the carpenter from Nazareth, who had called his followers to love their enemies and had prayed for forgiveness for his executioners even as they nailed him to the cross, who had looked weak, a failure, disgraced by his shameful death, but whom God had raised to new life. That’s why in Christian imagery, the Lamb of God is often pictured carrying a flag of victory. We’ve probably all come across that image, even if it’s only on a pub sign – there are quite a few “Lamb and Flag” pubs around! I’ve explored some of these thoughts in the display here at the front of church.

This image of the triumph of vulnerability can be challenging, though. When we’re in trouble, up against it, our natural response is usually to try to throw our weight around, to big ourselves up, to play the strong man or woman. But the message of Christ’s death is that the light of God breaks into the world through his weakness and vulnerability, through his willingness to give up power, to serve rather than be served. 

Good Friday challenges us to follow a Lamb, not a mighty warrior, one who lovingly accepted that his death was an inevitable part of that mission his Father had called him to, and by doing so cut through the tangled knot of sin which ensnares us all, giving us that peace for which we long.  

I’d like to finish with a poem by Brian Cremer, which challenges us to think about the deeply counter-cultural idea of the strength that comes through vulnerability, and many ways that was seen in the ministry of Jesus’ ,the Lamb who wins the freedom for us all through his death. 

 

We want the war horse.

Jesus rides a donkey.

We want the bird of prey.

The Holy Spirit descends as a dove.

We want the militia.

Jesus calls fishermen, tax collectors, 

women, and children.

We want the courtroom.

Jesus sets a table.

We want the gavel.

Jesus washes feet.

We want to take up swords.

Jesus takes up a cross.

We want the empire.

Jesus brings the Kingdom of God.

We want the nation.

Jesus calls the church.

We want the roaring lion.

God comes as a slaughtered lamb.

We keep trying to arm God.

God keeps trying to disarm us.

(Benjamin Cremer)

 

 

May we be disarmed by God and learn to follow the Lamb in his way of love.

Amen