A Word from Joel - January 21, 2026

The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

What does it mean to be the Lamb of God? If Jesus is the proverbial sacrificial lamb, we must ask ourselves, who demands the sacrifice? One way to understand it is that God demands a sacrifice for human sin, and Jesus pays humanity’s bill to get us off the hook. But this framework has problems. Why must God demand a sacrifice for sin? Why can’t God just forgive without needing to kill someone or something? One of the great tasks of parenting is creating an atmosphere for your children in which they are safe to apologize. Imagine my son coming to me as a four-year-old and saying, “Daddy, I ate the cookie even though you told me not to. I’m sorry.” If I responded, “Thank you for telling the truth, but to be forgiven, first, we’re going to have to kill your dog,” that would be insane. Yet that’s exactly how many Christians understand God’s forgiveness to work.

What if God isn’t the one demanding a sacrifice? What if we are? After all, at Jesus’ trial, God isn’t the one shouting, “Crucify him!” The mob did that. Human beings did that. Humans still do that. What if Jesus is the lamb that God offers to the sacrificial monster that is the dark side of humanity? I love human beings. I think we are walking miracles worthy of love, dignity, and belonging, but there is a dark side to us that I don’t like to talk about but can’t deny is present. There’s something inside us that likes to see our enemies punished. There’s a tribalism in us that wants our group to be vindicated and those we don’t like exposed for the selfish frauds they are, but if we’re honest the selfish frauds aren’t just out there. They are in us too. Maybe humanity doesn’t just need a little help or advice. Maybe we need to be delivered from a tyranny that is so ubiquitous that we can’t even see it and have come to love it.

The Bible names this tyranny “sin,” which isn’t a very popular word these days. Sin is a word that has been used to shame and control, so if you don’t resonate with it, I understand, but we need some way to describe the human tendency toward self-destruction. Freud called it the death drive. Whatever we name it, Jesus comes to take it away. Strangely, we cling to our sin and don’t want it taken away.

At the time of his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s approval rating in America was 25%. 75% of this country disapproved of him because he exposed our country’s sin, and we hated him for it. He wanted to take away our love of racism, poverty, and militarism, and we killed him for it. The night before he was murdered, King said, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.” Though we cling to that which is trying to kill us, God sent the lamb to take it away, to break our delusions and our chains. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world—yours, mine, everyone’s. He’s not asking. He’s taking, and for that, we say, thanks be to God.

Rev. Joel Esala