[Sermon] Behold the Sign

Hector Garfias-Toledo, Lead Pastor

January 18, 2026 + Second Sunday after Epiphany

On the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Pastor Hector invites us to notice the signs God places before us—signs that point toward Jesus and toward one another. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is named the Lamb of God, not as a transaction to settle a debt, but as a sign of God’s restoring and relational love. Pastor Hector explores how barriers such as assumptions, prejudice, and power narratives can blind us to what God is already doing. We must challenge substitutionary views of faith that stop at the cross and move instead toward a living, participatory relationship with Christ. Discipleship, we are reminded, is not about heaven later, but about transformation and mission here and now. The call is to become signs ourselves—living witnesses of God’s reckless love in the world.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from God: Abba, father, mother, creator, our parent, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our savior, our lord, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And we say, amen.

Signs. As we were talking with our young worshippers, things that prevent us from seeing the signs in front of us that point us to God, to Jesus, and to one another. What may be some pillars, columns, walls, prejudice, prejudgments, assumptions, repostures, positions that we take that prevent us from seeing the full sign that God brings to us, to be able to follow, to live, to speak, and to act in the ways that Jesus invites us to live.

In the Gospel according to John, the signs, the illustration, the imagery of signs, is extremely important. John the Baptizer is a sign that points and reorients. As I just told our young worshippers, we do not know much. The people, I believe, didn’t know much about Jesus. They knew a few things. It seems that, as I was saying last Sunday, they knew about Jesus’ ID.

He is the son of a carpenter. How can this man be the Messiah? He comes from Nazareth. What good can come out from that town?

People knew the identification of Jesus. There was probably, as it is now in our communities, in our society, a narrative that was out there among people. There was the propaganda the dominant powers were spreading throughout the community. People who felt threatened by the ordinary people who were talking about Jesus for years. As I told the young worshippers, the little people in society that nobody should be looking at, listening to, and caring for. They were talking about a messiah, a liberator, a person who was going to change things forever, and that was going to tear down the structures that were oppressing and that were pushing people away, robbing them from their God-given dignity that they had already received.

The shepherds, the carpenters, Mary, the Magi, the neighbors of Mary and Joseph, Zachariah, Elizabeth, and all those who were the little people in the community. But that day, someone—someone—had to speak truth to power and call things by name.

John, as a prophet, points to the truth and challenges the narrative, calling Jesus by who he is, naming his identity: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” This title, or this description of Jesus’ identity, is multi-layered. And if you notice, it evokes images of the Passover story, images of sacrifice, sacrificial rites in the Old Testament. But John the Baptist—John the evangelist—focuses on a revelatory sign of God’s restoring and saving action for people and all creation.

And I believe that this is an important shift in how this passage invites us to look at this story, or to listen to this story. Because traditionally, when we read this passage, we hear the words that Jesus takes our place.

That Jesus takes our place. That we were supposed to be the ones on the cross, suffering and dying. But because Jesus is there, because God, in obeying God, he went to the cross, you and I are now safe. This, in other words, would say that Jesus substitutes for us on the cross, and therefore you and I are free and happy, that you and I have gotten a ticket to heaven and salvation.

This passage, I believe, invites us—and it was a radical passage that bothered the authorities and those in power—because it moves from the lamb as sacrifice to the lamb as a sign, and telling us that this is not a substitutionary or legal transaction of a god: “I give my son; you are free; go and live your life.”

We move from a transactional view of atonement—the idea of substitutionary sacrifice for me—to a transformational and participatory relationship: a sign of God’s relational bond with you, with me, and with the entire creation.

You can see how the passage evolves as we are reading. It starts with John identifying Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t say everybody was saved, Jesus went to live his life, the disciples lived their lives, all the people who were talking about him lived their lives. It moves right away into a relational moment in the life of Jesus with the disciples who were following him.

And how do we know that? Because, if you notice, Jesus changes the name of Simon to Cephas. The changing of the name—the knowing by name—is an intimate relationship. It means an intimate relationship with the person. It means, “I am one with you.”

So it moves from that transactional idea of Jesus, the sacrifice, does his thing and us doing our thing, to an intentional connection with each one of us at a deeper level that is transformational and that gives us that identity that we have been talking about for the past two Sundays in First Corinthians.

Paul points out to the early church that the true identity of the church is a fellowship with the Son of God. The koinonia, again, is not just a club. It is not just people who get together—a bunch of individuals who come under a roof and then kind of do something that looks like they are together, but actually they are individuals, and as soon as things happen, we just go and disappear, living our own lives.

Koinonia. It is a fellowship that is nurtured by the Spirit to be a witness and a sign in the world of what God has been already doing through the life, through the ministry, of the Lord Jesus—and yes, through his death.

The church’s identity is koinonia, a fellowship of God’s Son. It is not just about heaven later, but it’s about participation in the mission of Christ right here, right now.

In this relationship, I want to use the image of the moon and the sea, because there is this invisible power, this invisible energy, this invisible force over us—just as the bonding of two people who care for one another; the bonding of peoples in the world; the bond of a child with a parent; a partner with another partner; a spouse with another spouse; the bond of a longtime friend with another friend. These relationships in our lives, these bonds that we do not fully understand sometimes,

disrupt our normal rhythms of life and change us.

If I could—and we had the time this morning—if I would ask you how your relationship and your partnership with your spouse, your child, and your friend who is next to you has changed you, it probably would be very difficult to fully explain it and understand it. But in your heart, you know it is happening, because you and I are not the same.

I was not the same toward this congregation when I came seven years ago. But the life, the journey, the bond that has grown between us as partners in this ministry has changed me, and has changed you.

The Lamb of God is a reminder, my siblings, that a connection is real and is not to be explained. It is to be felt, and experienced, through and in every dimension of our lives.

To me, that is where the radical and reckless love of God is made tangible.

It goes beyond the idea that Jesus went to the cross for me so that I do not need to deal with punishment. Jesus helps us to understand that the reason that Jesus decided to show us with his life how far, how bad, how cruel our systems in this world can be if we follow them—he gave his life so that you and I can focus and follow the fellowship with the Son of God, to be transformed and to be a transforming presence in the communities where God has called us to be God’s presence.

Being part of such fellowship is transformative. It is not a passive, but an active, seeking journey into the reality of a new order revealed in Jesus.

You may remember that years ago, as a congregation—and we are still doing it, and it is still on your bulletins—we ask God to help us to be a community where everything that we do can foster, strengthen, and help us thrive in being a place where we build one another up, and build a community where this fellowship of koinonia is experienced: a place where we belong and live in this bond with one another, with God, with those around this community, this congregation, and with those who we do not know yet, but God will bring to this koinonia.

And that you and I are not done yet. We are always becoming, because that is what a relationship is about.

I don’t know you, but I know that Jade, my wife, will continue to find out things about me that I don’t even know about myself.

In the same way, you and I will continue to find things about us, and about who God is in Jesus for each one of us.

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Here is the true sign of God’s intent. The world’s way of sin, violence, exclusion, selfishness, and power—all of that leads to death. But God, in faithful love, has called you and me, and the entire creation, into the fellowship of God’s Son.

So what are we looking for? If we are looking for life, Jesus says, “Come and see. Come and see. Follow me.” Says Jesus, “Follow me into a community that practices a different way. Remember the way.”

Partner with me in the courageous daily work of taking away the sin of the world. Partners with Jesus, extensions of the welcome, extensions of the healing, extensions of the wholeness that God can bring to this world. Come to the daily work of taking away the sin of the world in your heart, in your relationships, and in your public life, trusting that God, who raised the Lamb, is faithful and will finish what God has already started—that of which you and I are part.

Go and be signs of that reckless love of God. Thanks be to God.