Easter: What God Offers You Through the Risen Lamb

Easter 2026 sermon · Efficient Church, central text: John 1:29; Revelation 5.

Introduction

The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. That is the sentence and the response that echo through the ages and every place, spoken this very morning and to be spoken again until Christ returns. Believing in the resurrection isn't just checking one more doctrinal box. It's letting that event change the way you see your life, your story, and the world.

So the question this Easter morning isn't just "did Jesus rise from the dead?" but "what difference does it make for you to place your trust in the risen Christ?" To answer that, you first need to ask a deeper question: what is your greatest problem? And from there, hear the word John the Baptist speaks on the bank of the Jordan: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29 WEB).

Outline

1. Your greatest problem isn't the one you think

If you could erase one thing from the world, what would it be? Disease? War? A particular leader? Your noisy downstairs neighbor? Careful though: he might think someone else is the problem too. It's hard to settle on an answer as long as you stay on the surface.

So here's a question that helps you get to the bottom of it: what is your greatest problem? That question shapes your life choices, your values, the causes you commit to. And the Bible leaves no mystery about the answer. At the root of everything is sin.

Sin is probably one of the most misunderstood words in the history of Christianity. In the Bible, it isn't just the wrong you do in thought, word, and deed. At its root, sin is rebellion against God. It's the desire to run your life without him, whether in general or in one specific area.

And that spiritual break produces death on every level. It produces relational death: our bonds breaking down. It produces existential death: that struggle to know who you are, where you're going, what your identity is. It also produces physical death. It makes sense: cut yourself off from the source of good, and you condemn yourself to evil. Cut yourself off from the source of life, and you condemn yourself to death.

2. A story stuck: the sealed scroll of Revelation

To grasp how deep this blockage runs, open the book of Revelation chapter 5. Revelation means "unveiling." God is revealing things about history.

John sees a scroll sealed with seven seals. Written in it is history itself, with God's judgments and their outcomes. And verse 3 is terrible: "No one in heaven above, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the scroll, or to look in it." In our own language, that means that if this scroll stays sealed, human history stays stuck.

Do you feel that kind of blockage? Those repeating patterns in your own story, that global sense of déjà vu, the hostility between nations, the rumors of war? History keeps going in circles because the scroll was sealed. The judgments could not be handed down. History wasn't moving forward.

Faced with this, God doesn't stay passive. He is steering history toward its rightful judgment, where every rebellion, every evil, will be judged. No one will escape it. But before that certain day, he does something else: he offers deliverance. That's the heart of the Christian message: whoever places their trust in Jesus, his Son, is saved from the final judgment.

3. "Behold, the Lamb of God"

To understand how God does this, read this short verse from John 1:29: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

On the Isenheim Altarpiece in Alsace, Matthias Grünewald painted John the Baptist at the lower right of the crucifixion scene. His oversized finger points to Jesus. At his feet, a lamb. That image sums up the whole Old Testament pointing toward Christ on the cross: behold, the lamb.

Behold. John the Baptist points to Jesus as the one the Old Testament had been announcing. Everything God had set in motion throughout history, especially through his people Israel, converges on him.

The Lamb. In Exodus 12, at the moment of deliverance from Egypt, God tells his people to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and put its blood around their doorframes. That lamb protects the people from the judgment striking Egypt. Not because the Israelites were better people. God simply offers them protection by substitution: the perfect lamb is judged in their place, symbolically carrying their sin, and they are spared.

Every lamb sacrificed throughout the Old Testament was already pointing forward to the coming of Jesus. That's exactly what Jesus himself explains to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: the Christ had to come, and the whole of Scripture was preparing the way.

Of God. Jesus isn't just one lamb among others. He is given by God. "God from God, Light from Light, true God begotten, not made," as the Nicene Creed confesses. And he is guaranteed by God. Over the greatest uncertainty in your life, your forgiveness, God himself gives the guarantee: this blood is perfect, and it opens a forgiveness that is final and eternal.

4. "Who takes away the sin"

John the Baptist doesn't say that Jesus reduces, postpones, denies, or downplays sin. He says Jesus takes it away. Compare that with what the world offers you.

• Religious systems try to balance the books. You did wrong, so you make up for it with good, and hope the scales tip your way. But you'd have to know for certain the weight is actually equal. That's agonizing. Nothing is ever settled.
• Philosophical or scientific systems try to explain. They trace things back to their causes, sometimes usefully. But explaining evil doesn't get rid of it. It's helpful; it's not powerful enough to remove it.
• Personal self-management. "Nobody's perfect, I've got this. I'll improve, read good books, surround myself with good people." That's admirable. But the issue isn't being a little less bad. It's being completely freed from sin so as to escape God's judgment.

If any of these systems actually worked, we'd know it by now. Is the world any better today than yesterday? Are you doing better than your grandparents did? Are we any better than those who came before us? These solutions just keep history spinning in circles. The scroll stays sealed.

Read again John's reaction in verse 4: "And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, or to look in it, or to see it." Don't just shrug it off as "that's how it is, history repeats itself." That helplessness should move you deeply. It's tragic.

But in his love, God chose to unlock history. He chose to have Jesus punished in the place of sinful men and women, so that instead of being judged, they could be forgiven. So that the least of their sins would be taken away, so they could be washed and brought into his presence.

5. "Of the world": enough for you

The end of the verse is decisive: "who takes away the sin of the world." There is no place, no person too low, too far off, too wicked, too isolated to be reached and saved by that blood.

That means this sacrifice is sufficient to take away the entirety of your sin, in every area of your life, from the day you were born to your very last breath. Christ carried the entirety of your sin. And covered by his righteousness, you can enter the holy place.

6. The resurrection: the sacrifice confirmed

One last, decisive question remains. How can you be sure Jesus' sacrifice succeeded? How can you be sure God accepted it?

The answer: because God raised him from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is the public confirmation that Jesus succeeded and that his blood is truly effective.

Look at what follows in Revelation 5, verse 5: "Don't weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the scroll and its seven seals." Then John sees "a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain." He still bears the marks of his sacrifice, but he is standing, alive. He has seven horns (power) and seven eyes, the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He comes to take the scroll from the right hand of the one seated on the throne.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, opens the seals of history. He unlocks the judgments. He moves history forward toward its final resolution. To belong to Jesus is to belong to the one who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Key takeaways

• Your greatest problem isn't whatever bothers you most. It's sin, that rebellion against God which produces every other kind of death.
• Without God's intervention, human history and your own personal story stay stuck, like the sealed scroll of Revelation 5.
• Jesus is the lamb: given by God, guaranteed by God, perfect and sufficient to take away (not just reduce) sin.
• Neither religious balancing, nor philosophical explanation, nor personal self-management has ever erased evil. Christ alone takes it away.
• The resurrection is the official confirmation of the sacrifice. It assures you that the forgiveness offered in Christ is real and final.

Personal application

1. If you had to name your greatest problem honestly today, what word would you use? Are you ready to let God trace it back to its root?
2. Where does your own story feel like it's "going in circles" right now? What would happen if you handed that stuck place over to the Lamb who opens the seals?
3. Which system do you instinctively lean on to deal with your faults: balancing the books, explaining them away, or personal effort? How does the phrase "who takes away sin" challenge that strategy?
4. Do you live with the assurance that Christ carried the entirety of your sin, or are there areas where you still don't believe you're forgiven?
5. How will you respond this Easter morning: with joy, with singing, with forgiveness offered to those who hurt you, or with an "I believe" spoken for the very first time?

Verses cited

• John 1:29 · "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
• Revelation 5:1-9 · The sealed scroll and the Lamb standing as though slain.
• Exodus 12 · The Passover lamb and the blood on the doorframes.
• Luke 24:13-35 · The disciples on the road to Emmaus understand that the Christ had to suffer.
• John 3:16 · "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

FAQ

Why do we talk about the cross on Easter Sunday, the feast of life?

Because the resurrection only makes sense once you understand what Jesus accomplished through his death. The cross deals with the problem of sin; the resurrection confirms that sacrifice. Your Easter joy is doubled when you hold the two together.

What exactly does "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" mean?

John the Baptist points to Jesus as the perfect lamb given by God. He takes the sinner's place, carries their sin, and removes it completely (not just partly), through his blood, shed once for all.

How can you be sure God accepted Jesus' death?

Because God raised him from the dead. The resurrection is the public, final proof that the sacrifice was accepted and that Christ's blood is powerful enough to open the door to forgiveness. All that's left for you to do is believe: "I believe in your sacrifice, Lamb of God, and covered by your righteousness, I will enter the holy place."