A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on January 18, 2026 by Revd Dr Sam Wells
Reading for address: John 1: 29-42
Once upon a time there was no YouTube. YouTube began on February 14, 2005. Three months later the first cat video was posted. There are now billions of cat video views per year. Research says people adore cat videos because they’re emotionally uplifting, universally relatable, and inherently entertaining. They’re a visual equivalent of a bar of chocolate.
The curious thing is, cats aren’t simply cute and cuddly. The cat I know best is snarly, scratchy and surly. She does a good job of ensuring I don’t think too highly of myself. And in the days when she used to have a garden handy, she would bring in mice and mercilessly tease them before murdering them in unspeakable ways I’ve yet to see represented on YouTube.
The story of John the Baptist’s encounter with Jesus features two creatures you can well imagine featuring on a YouTube video. One is the lamb. There are billions of YouTube sheep videos, a disproportionate number devoted to Baa Baa Black Sheep. The other is the dove, which is only in the millions on YouTube, many of which are fruit doves, and a troubling number of which also feature pigeons.
But the two creatures divide up quite neatly. The Lamb of God refers to Jesus. The dove refers to the Holy Spirit. There’s something comprehensive about both of them appearing within the same story. Lambs occur 200 times in the Bible, and like the cat videos, their primary meaning is gentleness and innocence. Think of the words of Isaiah made famous by Handel’s Messiah: ‘He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms.’ So when you hear John the Baptist say, ‘Here is the Lamb of God,’ the first thought is he’s identifying Jesus as a young, callow, gentle, kind presence.
Likewise with the dove. It may be difficult to believe, but in Old Testament times, they were yet to produce a poster of a white dove carrying a leafy twiglet with the word ‘Peace’ written in capitals underneath. Nonetheless from the story of Noah onwards, where a dove returns with an olive leaf, and when sent out again doesn’t return, having found a place to nest, indicating the end of the flood, the dove has been a sign of hope and new life. It’s reasonable to suggest the sense of the Spirit hovering over the deep at the start of the Genesis creation story is language hinting towards the flight of a dove. The most evocative language about a dove in the Bible is the six references in the Song of Songs to the dove’s softness, affection, beauty and faithfulness. So these are the associations that first figure when John talks of the dove descending and remaining on Jesus.
But rather like the cat videos, there’s a catch. There’s one thing a lamb and a dove have in common that would have been familiar to the writer of John’s gospel and his first readers that’s obscure to most people today. Both lambs and doves were integral to the system of temple sacrifice on which the Jewish faith of the first century depended. The central role of the lamb in the Old Testament surfaces in the Exodus story, where at the first Passover, the blood of the lamb on the doorposts steers the angel of the Lord away from slaying the firstborn of the Hebrews. Hence at a Passover meal, even to this day, a lamb represents a death that opens the way to life. But perhaps the most influential text in the Old Testament for the early church’s understanding of Jesus’ identity is the song of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, where we read that the servant is silent like a lamb led to the slaughter. Meanwhile the tradition of presenting a burnt offering of turtledoves goes back to Abraham, and it becomes clear in Leviticus that offering a dove is a bargain concession to those who couldn’t afford a lamb. So the central theme that ties the lamb and the dove together is the notion of sacrifice.
And it this point we recall that the most frequent appearance of the term the Lamb of God in our life as Christians is in the song sung just before we receive the sacrament: which goes, ‘Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.’ Now this is where it gets difficult. Because if you put the sacrificial associations of the lamb and the dove together with the words ‘Take away the sin of the world,’ as John the Baptist does in today’s gospel, you’re coming out with a sense that, from the very outset of the gospel, Jesus is understood to be a sacrificial victim who somehow appeases and assuages God’s looming judgement. Which jars with the image of a lamb as a kind, warm, gentle presence and dove as a symbol of beauty, faithfulness and peace.
The reason all this matters is that it begs the question of whether the central imagery of the gospels makes sense outside the sacrificial imagination of the Jerusalem temple. And, even more serious, whether we can understand why Jesus came without committing ourselves to a picture of God that seems bent on punishing us and is somehow diverted into punishing Jesus instead. Do we have to choose between a bloodthirsty, punishing God of ritual sacrifice and a sentimental God of olive branch twiglets? Or are the gospels pointing us to something beyond?
The key to finding such a God lies in a curious place: the interstices of grammar. It may give you a shudder, but I’m going to ask you to recall the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb. We can use ‘sacrifice’ as a transitive verb – something one does to others. You take a lamb or dove to the temple to be burnt, you blow up a building and the people in it to make a political statement, or you send your son to the cross to take away sin. Or we can speak of sacrifice as an intransitive verb. It’s an offering one makes, not of others, but of oneself. It’s the sacrifice of the firefighter, the honest bystander, the selfless colleague. It’s a sacrifice that is prepared to lay down its life that others may live. It’s a gesture that takes us back to the root meaning of the word sacrifice – to make holy.
If we wish to understand the role of the lamb and the dove in our faith, we need to recognise that sacrifice is not something one can make another person do. It cannot be imposed. Sacrifice is something you can only do yourself. Someone who sacrifices another – transitive – is a murderer. Someone who sacrifices themselves – intransitive – is a martyr.
In 1665 a bale of woollen cloth arrived in the remote Derbyshire village of Eyam. It came from London, where thousands of people had lately died of the plague. The wool of the cloth was damp. It was infested with fleas. A tailor’s assistant opened the bale. Within 48 hours he was dead. Over the next four months, 42 more villagers died a swift and horrible death. The newly appointed rector, William Mompesson, was unpopular, because he’d supported the restoration of the monarchy five years previously, while his predecessor was a Parliamentarian. But Mompesson realised there was only one way to save the inhabitants of nearby Bakewell and Sheffield. And that was to quarantine the village. If no one left, the plague could not be transferred. But that would mean many in the village would die. Mompesson only succeeded in persuading the villagers of his plan by gaining the support of the previous rector. In June 1666 the quarantine began. The Earl of Devonshire, nearby at Chatsworth, promised to send as much food as was needed. Within two months there were six deaths a day. Elizabeth Hancock buried six of her children and her husband close to the family farm. All had perished in the space of eight days. But after five months the disease had passed. 260 had died. Amazingly, Mompesson himself survived; although he lost his 27-year-old wife.
This is a story of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Not by being sacrificed; but by voluntarily opening their lives to danger at the severe risk of death. There was nothing sentimental and cat video about the people of Eyam. But neither were they embodying a God of punitive judgement. Like Jesus on Good Friday, they faced the cost of the tragedy of the world, and took into their own body the agony of what it meant to be in solidarity with humankind. It was an intransitive sacrifice. It was a moment when the Lamb of God absorbed but did not transfer the sin of the world. When John the Baptist said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, that was what he was anticipating.
But how does that apply to the dove? Here’s another story.
One morning in December 1917, a French cargo ship was hit by a Norwegian vessel in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The French ship was full of high explosives. It caught fire and detonated, devastating the town. 1800 people were killed, and 9000 were injured. Vincent Coleman was a train dispatcher working in the nearby railway station. He knew two things. The French ship was on fire and was about to explode. And there were trains coming into the station any minute, one of which had 300 people on board. So he remained in the telegraph office sending warning messages until all the trains were warned. His last message said, ‘Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys.’ Not only did his messages prevent countless deaths; they hastened the arrival of disaster relief from Canada and the US.
Vincent Coleman’s sacrifice imitates the dove because like the dove he was a messenger. The dove in the Noah story brought good news. Vincent Coleman brought bad news. But like the people of Eyam, he made an intransitive sacrifice that took into his own body the tragedy and agony of the world. And in his case, like the Holy Spirit, he communicated a message that saved many hundreds of people from a terrible death.
So when we ponder the figure of the dove, we don’t have to settle for the twee image of a peace poster; but neither do we have to buy in to a whole imagination in which killing a bird somehow makes our foolishness and failure go away. We can think of Vincent Coleman, and ask ourselves, ‘What is the message that only I can give that may cost me everything but will give life to many?’ And when we reflect on the image of the lamb, we don’t have to imagine a video of gambolling baby sheep in a meadow; but neither do we have to assume that killing Jesus somehow made everything all right. We can think of the village of Eyam, and ask ourselves, ‘What sadness or sorrow am I being called to contain within myself and not pass on, so I can be a lamb of God that refuses to transfer the sin of the world?’ Maybe you are called to be a lamb of God. Maybe you are called to be a dove of deliverance.
O lamb of God, in Jesus you hold within yourself the tragedy of our lives. Have mercy on us. O dove of God, in the Holy Spirit, you show us how to make our messages ones that let others live. Give us your peace.