Second Sunday of Easter; 7 April 2024; Easter 2B (RCL); Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1 – 2:2; John 20:19-31.
This passage in John’s Gospel is one of the richest and most consequential in his Gospel, and I would argue, in the New Testament. The narrative portion of John’s Gospel begins (after the Prologue) with John the Baptist seeing Jesus walk by, and declaring, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In the OT, there is no lamb that takes away sin. That office belongs to the goat on the Great Day of Atonement, so John is inventing a new category of sacrifice here. And we see Jesus die at the exact hour that the Passover lambs are being sacrificed in the Temple court, so the evangelist ties up part of that declaration by showing Jesus as the new Passover lamb. But no mention of sin in the crucifixion narrative.
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