NRS John 1
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel." 32 And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."
35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed).

Dear Friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

God has made us for eternity. God has fashioned us to dream dreams and see visions. God has created us to be partners in creation, to exercise dominion and share in God's own inventive powers. In the words of Psalm 8, God has made us just "a little lower than the angels" (KJV), crowning us with glory and honor. And not just the few, not just the so-called "gifted and talented," not only the well-educated and well-to-do, but God has made all humankind, every child of earth to soar, to rise up on eagles' wings, to run and not be weary, to walk and never faint (Isaiah 40:31). God has made us to slip the "surly bonds of earth," to "dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings" and "touch the face of God" (John Gillespie Magee, "High Flight").

"Fearfully and wonderfully" (Psalm 139:14), God has made us to roam the universe, but what do we do? More often than not, we bury our heads in the sand. God has destined us for greatness, and we occupy ourselves with trivia. God has given us minds to reach across galaxies and probe the mysteries of sub-atomic particles, but God only knows how many days we spend glued to the boob tube. God has blessed us with hearts to love and compassion to feel for others, and still we anesthetize ourselves with food and drink. God has endowed us with a sense of justice, the knowledge of right and wrong, and the capacity for moral outrage, and yet we often go days, weeks, and months without once weeping over our inhumanity. God has granted us the very Kingdom of heaven and with it the promise of life everlasting, and still we worry ourselves sick over this ache, that pain, what we shall eat and what we shall wear (cf. Matthew 6:25).

Too often, we're like the man who inherits a glorious, magical castle, but lives in a shack against the outer wall. On one level, it's comical. The Lord God of heaven and earth spreads the entire cosmos at our feet, and we can't be bothered because "Wheel of Fortune" is coming on. The Lord holds before us the white robe of salvation (cf. Revelation 6:11), and we hesitate because it might make our hips look too big. The Lord hands us the keys to the kingdom, and we lock ourselves in the bathroom. It would all be really funny, if it weren't so completely, utterly tragic. Instead of living the great, grand life that God intends for us, we trap ourselves in lives of perpetual busyness, blurred and shapeless. And rather than taking our place at the table of the Lord in the feast without end, we eat our bread by the sweat of our soiled faces, preoccupied with who's ahead, who's behind, who's got the bigger house, the better car, the deeper pockets, the higher status.

How is it that we get so far off track? How is it that we so consistently confuse minor with major and take the little stuff for the big? How is it that we continually exchange our God-given birthright for some fast food junk (cf. Genesis 25:30 ff.)?

Some people say it's Hollywood. It's all those trashy shows and dirty movies that are turning us around. And some people say it's the economy. It's money and the love thereof that's driving us to rack and ruin. And some people say it's us. It's the weakness of our characters that shows through in the mindless obsessions and inverted values of our everyday lives. And some people may be right. It may be this or that or all those things together. But even if you add up all the bad deeds and evil inclinations of our souls, there is, I think, still something more at loose in the universe that we can't explain away or correct in 12 easy steps. That something more is what the Bible calls the Devil.

Now, please, don't mistake the father of lies (John 8:44) for the little fat guy in the red suit trying to convince you to eat the 61 grams of fat in the super burger value meal. Don't confuse the prince of this world with the cartoon characters we see in the movies. What St. Paul called "the cosmic powers of this present darkness" (Ephesians 6:12) is truly "like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8), but this power does not destroy with tooth and claw. This Enemy destroys with distraction. This Adversary distracts us from our destiny with the naggings of our impoverished egos. The Devil is like the villain who comes sowing weeds in the master's wheat field (Matthew 13:24 ff.), so that instead of bringing forth good fruit, acts of mercy and works of justice, our lives become a tangled mess of trash and treasure.

You know, I really would prefer not even to mention the Devil. I know how easily we externalize evil and how desperately we want to blame someone or something other than ourselves for the evil we perpetrate. But when I look at the world, or for that matter, my own heart, I don't see any other way to speak about our human condition. Who else but the Devil could persuade us to sacrifice a perfectly good night's sleep over what somebody said or might say or could possibly think? Who else but the Devil could tie us in knots over how we look, what we drive, where we live? Who else but the Devil could seduce the Church, the very People of God, into spending more time sitting on our hands than praying on our knees? Maybe it's not the best way, but it's the only way I know to explain how we come to exchange our God-given greatness for such small, petty meanness.

Jesus is the God-appointed colossus come to deliver us from the Devil's death grip. Jesus is God's Man, God's Chosen, God's Son who comes to restore us to the majesty and dignity God so freely gives and we so freely compromise. Jesus is, in the testimony of John the Baptist, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world. This Lamb of which John testifies is not the cute, little furry animal of nursery rhymes. This is the Lamb who conquers. This is the Lamb who serves, suffers, and triumphs. This is the Lamb who overcomes evil and beats hell underfoot. This is, in other words, the Lamb who takes the Devil off our backs and turns us from laying up treasure that moth and rust will consume to laying up treasure in heaven. This is the Lamb who transforms us from keepers of things, vain, empty, and fleeting, to seekers of what is true, right, and eternal.

After we've sold our souls and convinced ourselves that whoever dies with the most toys wins, it's the Lamb, Jesus, who reawakens us to a life that is so much more than what we eat or what we wear. And when Jesus calls us to follow, he's not laying on us some impossible demand, one more thing to do, job to finish, worry to hassle; but rather, Jesus is calling us to freedom. Jesus is calling us to come out of the prisons we make for ourselves with the Devil's help. Jesus is calling us to reclaim the glory and honor for which God has created us, and to find our true identity not in what we do or where we work or how many toys we have, but in whose we are.

Many people wear bracelets with the letters "WWJD" -- "What would Jesus do?" It's an interesting question, and I know it's a question that's led to many deep discussions about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. But there's another question that makes me look even harder at my life as a whole: "Did the Lamb of God come to suffer, die, and triumph for me to lead the life I'm living?" It's not a question that boils down to a few letters, but it is something to make us look at how we spend and are spent, what we consume and how we are consumed, and looking, ask: "Is this a life worthy of the Lamb, his innocent suffering and glorious victory?"

The Devil is sure to answer, "You're fine, you're great, you're wonderful." Jesus' voice will be the small, still word that says, "Follow me."

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.