In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Thus the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying,
On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. …
Exodus 12:3, 5–6, 8, 10–11
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. …
Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. …
You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Pascha.
Christ is without blemish, having no fault found in Him, (see John 19:4, 6) and is our Pascha Lamb, “For indeed Christ, our Pascha, was sacrificed for us.” (First Corinthians 5:7) So when the beloved disciple tells us,
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Pascha, and about the sixth hour. And [Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’
John 19:14–15
But they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!’
Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’
The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’
This should point us back to today’s Gospel reading. The blessed Forerunner, “standing with two of his disciples … looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’” The greatest of all the prophets (Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28) is telling you and he is telling me, “Behold! Listen to what I tell you.” And in listening, in attending, we hear,
Here is the One who fulfils the Passover, the Pascha.
Here is the One through Whom we may be freed not solely from the captivity of Pharaoh and Egypt but from the captivity of all spiritual powers.
Here is the One Who offers Himself for us that we may eat and live.
Behold, the Lamb of God!
And we hear the friend of the Bridegroom, his voice full of joy, (see John 3:29) and what is our response? For the two disciples they went and followed Christ, and perhaps we do the same. We discover something and look to discover more. And He turns back to us and says directly to you and directly to me, “What do you seek?” We have discovered a little, we have found a trace of something—though perhaps we could not describe what—we have been told that this is, perhaps, the way to Truth the and the way to Life, but we must make this our own. While others may have brought us to Christ we must ourselves make this relationship our own; “What do you seek?” says Christ to each of us.
And their response is strange, they reply to a question with a question, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” They do not quite know for what they look, they do not already have all the answers, they cannot give a reasoned response what they are seeking, but they have discovered something, or rather Someone, Whom they would follow, Who will guide them, Who will lead them. So, at a loss for all else, they say, “Where are you staying?” And Christ replies, “Come and see.” The Lord replies to each of us, if only we would ask Him,
Come and see. I will not describe to you what I offer, I will not give you reasoned arguments, sophistries nor tricks. I will not tell you, I will let you see for yourselves, I will let you encounter, I will let you experience reality, experience Truth, experience Me.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, “Behold! The Lamb of God.” And if only we would follow Him, if only we would take up our crosses daily, (Luke 9:23; compare Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34) then He will stay with us and be enthroned in our hearts. Let us take up this challenge, let us be a part of the Marriage Banquet of the Lamb arrayed in fine linen, (Revelation 19:6–8) let us feast on Life, that we receive Him, that the words of the beloved disciple be applied to us,
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
John 1:12–14, 16–17
who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. …
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
That we may offer true praise, glory and worship to our crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who leads us to Life, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labour, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the off-scouring of all things. I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
— First Corinthians 4:9–16
At that time, John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “Where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! ” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
— John 1:35–51