Behold the Lamb

Back in my formally religious days, one of my favorite Biblical passages was what John the Baptist said when Jesus showed up to be baptized. He said, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

To me, the most important word was the first one, behold. What was there, about a young Jesus, that might suggest that he was the Lamb of God, which you could see just by looking at him? Jesus had not yet begun his public ministry. It is very likely that John knew Jesus, knew about his character and his beliefs, but it is very unlikely that John knew about what would later be considered the essential theology of Jesus as Son of God and as King in the lineage of David. Based on evidence that Bart Ehrman has outlined very clearly in How Jesus Became God, it is not likely that Jesus even made these claims about himself. At the very least, Jesus almost certainly had not yet made such claims back when John baptized him.

So what could John see, and bid others to see, by looking at Jesus? They could see a man who really cared about his fellow humans, who noticed and championed those who are oppressed and poor, who turned away from the path of violent opposition to the Romans, who took time to notice the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. When you beheld Jesus doing things like this, you could conclude that he was the Lamb of God. As a scientist, I consider this to be a good, if primitive, application of the scientific method.

But when you behold a modern conservative Christian, you see almost the exact opposite of these things. Modern conservatives glance at the poor and oppressed and blame them for not being rich. To modern conservatives, laziness is the only reason that anyone is poor. Furthermore, to these modern Christians, armed opposition is the first choice against any power of which they do not approve. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, but modern conservatives say that we should all have as many guns as we can afford, and be ready to use them. And to modern conservatives, the birds of the air and lilies of the field are invisible parts of a countryside that is just asking to be driven over by ORVs or developed into resorts. To listen to modern conservatives, you would think that Jesus got rich by ruthless business practices, shunned the poor, had as many weapons as he could carry, and aspired to live in a big house on the hill built by underpaid and uninsured laborers.

What about the rest of the verse? Lamb of God referred to the idea that Jesus was to be the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world. The Apostle John said that “God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that through him they might be saved.” But according to conservative Christians nearly everyone who has ever lived is going to suffer unspeakable torture in Hell forever. In most cases, it will be because these people never even heard of Jesus. In many other cases, it is because these people beheld the actions of Christians and concluded that, if Christians imitate Christ, then Jesus must be evil. And in most other cases, it will be because these people did not accept the interpretation of the Bible that conservative Christians insist is the only correct one. For example, the Book of Revelation depicts 144,000 people being saved. To most of us, this is clearly a figurative number, based on holy numerology and the number seven. But conservative Christians believe that if you do not believe this number to be literally exact, then you will not be among that number. Or if you do not believe that this or that or some other specific political event is in fact the beginning of the End Times and Armageddon, then you are damned. If about 100 billion people have lived in the history of the world, and only about 100 thousand will be saved, this is a one-in-a-million success rate—or, a 99.999999 percent failure rate, for God’s announced purpose of saving the world.

No wonder conservative Christians hate us. When one of them looks at you, he or she knows that there is only a one in a million chance that you will be with them in heaven. This being the case, why should they care to treat you with any respect? Why should they hesitate to throw garbage in your yard? I wrote about this earlier, in which my former neighbor (who wears a God-and-guns-and-American-flag T shirt) trespassed into my yard to use my trashcan (or did, before I locked up my trashcan on an enclosed porch). Why not? I am just hell-fodder anyway, and so, probably, are you.

In the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, a student of religious law asked Jesus to define the term neighbor. A neighbor, Jesus indicated, is whoever you give assistance to when they need it, even if you find them out on the road. But to modern conservative Christians, even the person who lives in a house next door is not a neighbor, but is merely some biomass headed for Hell.

When I behold modern Christians, I cannot see at all the figure of Jesus as depicted in the gospels. The Jesus I love is someone I must wholly construct out of fantasy.