Our Higher Purpose in Life
based on John 1:29-42
by Frank Schaefer

When I first read through today's Gospel lesson I was thinking: Oh my Gosh, this is my calling story all over again—except I'm not Jesus and I wasn't called to be the Messiah =). Let me explain: It happened about 25 years ago, when the senior pastor of the church I attended, asked me if he could talk to me in his office.

I wasn't sure what this was about and was surprised when he said: “I see something in you; I think God is calling you to be a minister.” I wasn't so sure about that calling at first, but as it turns out he was right. It's remarkable that another person saw God's calling on my life before I myself perceived it.

I wonder if that was the same for Jesus. When two disciples of John the Baptist started to follow Jesus around, it says in Verse 38 that Jesus “turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" Is it possible that Jesus was just then fully realizing his calling as teacher, rabbi and Messiah?

Whether or not this was the case, the significant point is that Jesus' baptism certainly began a time of transformation in his life. God called him to a life devoted to ministry. I can imagine how the affirmations from John the Baptist were very important in this transformational phase. We know one thing for sure, Jesus gained his first disciples through John's proclamations.

Have you ever experienced affirmations from others at times in your life when you faced a transformation? And we all face those transformational times, don't we? Whether it's the beginning of a new relationship, a new job or career, starting a new family or dealing with a tragedy. Looking back over my life, I certainly found that God seemed to provide affirmations from others along my journey, Pastor Hodges wasn't the only voice in the wilderness for me.

But I think there is more in this Scripture text, an even deeper message. God does not only provide affirmations for us at key points in our lives. The message God has for us through those affirmations help us find our higher purpose in life.

For Jesus, this higher purpose was a momentous one: he was called to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was the One who would choose to die in place of every human being so that all of us could be forgiven and reconciled with God once and for all times.

The idea of the sacrificial lamb is rooted in the Exodus story of Israel which was remembered and celebrated in the Passover on an annual basis. The tenth plague God put on the land of Egypt was the death of every first-born male child. The only way to prevent this fate was to sacrifice/slaughter a lamb (see Exod 12:1-30). Some of the lamb's blood was put on the sides and top of the door frame of the house, and seeing this blood, the Lord's angel of death would pass by this house without doing any harm to the inhabitants.

In later history, the sacrificial lamb became a symbol for the atonement of the priests and all God's people on the Day of Atonement and for other religious feasts. By offering up the life of a lamb in a religious ritual, the sin of the people would be spiritually transferred onto the lamb and the participants in the ritual would experience forgiveness from God for the sins they had committed.

So, when John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” he was making a reference to the sacrificial lamb on a new scale. He proclaimed that Jesus would make a sacrifice so significant that the whole world, not just a few participants in a religious service could experience forgiveness of sin and redemption.

Certainly that was an amazing calling, a painful road and a momentous task. It was Jesus' higher purpose in life. I believe all of us have a calling for a higher purpose in life, albeit on a lower scale than the one Jesus was called to.

I believe there are many reasons for our existence. But instinctively most of us know that we have been put on this earth for a higher purpose. The thing is that often we don't understand our higher calling until late in life, and some of us never really find out. Think about the artist van Gogh or composer Mozart who both died in poverty and fameless never knowing the way in which they would touch and bless the world after their death.

Jesus himself only found out in the last tenth of his life; for 30 years he was a carpenter, only in the last 3 years of his life did he truly live out his higher calling.

Maybe some of us here this morning know and understand our higher calling in life, but there are probably many of us who are still wondering and trying to find out what that purpose is. And there is nothing wrong with that; the important thing is that we keep asking, searching, and praying.

And as we do, God will continue to lead us. And as we stay open to God's leading, God will send affirmations often in unexpected places like the wilderness and from unexpected people, like a locust-eating, camel-skin wearing preacher. The important thing is that we keep believing in our higher calling and that we keep searching for a better understanding of our higher purpose in life. God will use us to change the world if we're willing and open to it. Amen.