John, the Baptizer, in our gospel today calls Jesus the Lamb of God. When we think of lambs, we tend to visualize pictures of wooly white lambs frolicking on a green hillside—a sweet pastoral scene. John’s audience of devout Jews, however, would have had a very different picture in mind. They would have recognized the Lamb of God as the sacrificial offering killed and eaten at Passover to celebrate their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. When Jesus calls us to follow him, it is not to play in the meadow, but to give ourselves up to liberate those who, today, are in any kind of bondage, mind, body, or spirit. That was his mission, as he told the folks in the synagogue in Nazareth (Lk.4:16-21), and it is ours now.

Andrew proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One, anointed to do God’s work in the world. With our baptism, we are anointed for the same task, to be God’s hands and feet and voice here and now in our suffering, sin-sick world. As daunting as that sounds, our message from the apostle Paul through his epistle to the Corinthians is that we have all the spiritual gifts we need for the challenges and opportunities that come our way. God has chosen us to serve as the incarnation of Love in this place, and the Holy One is faithful to equip us with the skills, and strength, and courage we need to follow Christ Jesus’ lead.

It has been my experience, and I’ll bet it is yours too, that we can trust God to provide whatever we need to share with others. The more we give, the more the Divine replenishes. There is always more than enough. We don’t have to fear scarcity. God’s bounty never runs out. The Holy One blesses all those who generously take on the Lamb’s role, who companion others to venture out of the darkness of their bondage and bask in the redeeming light of Christ’s glory.