Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
John 1:29 (NIV)
John Testifies About Jesus
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
In 1 John 1:7-9, John encourages us to take off our masks, and freely admit our brokenness and confess our sins to God. This is hard, because none of us want to be reminded about how messed up we are. That’s why he points to Jesus, and explains the Jesus’ blood covers our sin, and Jesus can be trusted to forgive us and cleanse our sin. In his Gospel, John teaches this same thing in another way. He shares the words of John the Baptist, who, when he first saw Jesus, said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” This is a way of saying that the first thing we need to know about Jesus is that he is going to take away our sin. Until we believe this, we will never have the courage to admit our sin, and let the Holy Spirit heal us and change us. Take time to think about your regrets, failures, and the things of which you are ashamed — and then rejoice that Jesus has taken this away.