Perfect Sacrifice, Come

Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
—John 1:29

Every January, I follow the turn of a new calendar year by rereading the Gospel of John. It has become a familiar and needed liturgy for me, and every time I arrive at these words in the first chapter, I pause—usually with a lump in my throat. Perhaps it is the seemingly clean slate of a new year that reminds me of the perfect sacrifice Christ became on my behalf and how I’m still desperately in need of it. Or maybe it’s the relief of knowing my record of sin is truly and completely taken away. 

Those things are certainly true. Yet I think they catch me because I can picture this scene so vividly. John the Baptist had been peppered with questions about his ministry and his role in relationship to the coming Messiah, but he knew his life was always going to be like a flashing neon sign pointing to the one who was coming to rescue humanity forever. And I can almost feel the dust kicking up from the road as he looks up to see Jesus walking toward him. 

“Look!”

Finally. He’s here. The one who is fully what we need. The one God’s people had been waiting for. 

I can’t help but find some similarities to this time and space we call Advent. Longing and looking and waiting only to look up and see what we have been waiting for, finally here. But the baby in the manger would grow to be a man who had a long, hard road ahead of Him, one that culminated in His becoming our full, final, and completely sufficient sacrifice on the cross. That’s what makes it perfect—He is the only one who is enough. His is the blood that would finally do what the blood of bulls and goats never could. He is the sacrifice that ended the need for spotless lambs year after year. His is the offering for sin that finally covered all of our brokenness.

Holidays don’t do away with our needs, hurts, desires, and regrets. Sometimes all the festivity and shiny bows just make all of it flood to the surface. But Jesus does meet us right there in the midst of it all. As if He were walking up to John, He comes straight to us. Whether we were actually looking for Him or looking to anything else that might be good enough, He comes to us. His life for ours. His sacrifice for our freedom. His blood is our sufficient covering and cleansing. As we move closer and closer to the culmination and celebration of Christmas Day, may you sit a little longer today in anticipation, looking and longing for the only one who is enough.