The old church building on the edge of town is getting new life. Soon it will house families in transition—people starting over, people in crisis, people who need a roof and a chance. This is good work, and we should be glad for it.

But the new landlord isn’t Christian. He’s Bahá’í—a faith that teaches all religions are essentially the same, different paths up the same mountain. He’s open about this on his Facebook page. And Jeff, if you ever read this: I’m not writing to pick a fight. I’m writing because I respect you enough to be honest about what I believe, and I think you’d want me to be. This raises a question our town will eventually have to face: What do we point people toward?

When someone is rebuilding their life, what do we invite them to see? A general sense of the divine? The goodness within themselves? Or something—someone—specific?

John the Baptist had an answer. Watching Jesus walk toward him, he said three words that still echo: “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). Not “behold the light within.” Not “behold the universal spirit.” Behold this man.

Climax, this is what we believe. And I want to explain why—warmly, honestly, without picking a fight.

The Temptation of Vague Spirituality

We’re tempted to point everywhere and nowhere at once.

Modern spirituality speaks of “the divine” and “universal light” and “the good in all religions.” This feels generous. It feels tolerant. Nobody gets offended when you say everything leads to the same place.

But vague spirituality asks nothing and promises nothing specific. It cannot say “Behold!”—because there’s nothing particular to behold. You can’t introduce someone to “the divine in general.” You can only introduce them to a person.

Isaiah knew this. When God called his Servant, he didn’t commission him to be one light among many. He said, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). The light. Not a light.

I’ll be direct: this pluralism isn’t just something “out there” in the culture. It’s here in Climax. Some of the folks at Sand Hill believe the same thing—that all paths lead to God, that Jesus is one option among many. I don’t say this to pick a fight with neighbors I respect. I say it because love requires honesty, and pretending we all believe the same thing helps no one.

We hesitate to speak clearly because we don’t want to seem narrow or judgmental. So we stay quiet, or we speak in generalities that mean nothing at all.

But think about John’s disciples. They didn’t follow a vibe. They followed a person. When Andrew met Jesus, he ran to find his brother Peter and blurted out, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41). No careful hedging. No “this works for me but maybe something else works for you.” Just plain testimony: we found him.

Our hesitancy isn’t humility. It’s a failure of love. If we’ve truly found the Messiah—the one who takes away the sin of the world—why would we keep that to ourselves? Pointing everywhere is the same as pointing nowhere. And pointing nowhere helps no one.

The Lamb Who Takes Away Sin

So what do we point to?

John stood at the Jordan, watching Jesus walk toward him, and said something that still echoes: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say “consider the Lamb.” He doesn’t say “here is a lamb, one option among many.” He says the Lamb. Definite article. This is the Passover lamb whose blood marked the doorposts in Egypt. The temple sacrifice offered morning and evening. Isaiah’s suffering servant, “led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). Everything Israel had rehearsed for centuries in blood and smoke and fire—it all pointed here, to this man.

The specificity isn’t the problem. It’s the gift.

We live in a culture that loves options. More choices feel like more freedom. But spiritually, endless options mean endless searching. If all paths lead somewhere good, then no path leads anywhere in particular—and you’re on your own to figure it out.

The Lamb of God cuts through that. God himself has done the pointing. You don’t have to guess. You don’t have to sample every religion and hope you picked the right one. The Father sent the Son and said look.

And notice how Jesus welcomes those first disciples. When they start following him, he doesn’t launch into a lecture. He asks a question: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38). They stumble over their answer—“Rabbi, where are you staying?”—and Jesus says, simply, “Come and see.”

No sales pitch. No arm-twisting. No argument to win before they can take the next step.

Just invitation: spend time with me and see for yourself.

This is how faith works. We cannot argue people into the Kingdom. But we can invite them to meet the King. And when they meet him—when they see how he looks at them, how he speaks, how he bears burdens not his own—the arguments tend to sort themselves out.

One more thing. John says the Lamb takes away the sin of the world. Not just Israel. Not just church people. Not just folks who have their lives together. The world. Isaiah saw the same thing: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

That includes whoever ends up in the transitional housing down the road. It includes our neighbors at Sand Hill. It includes the skeptics and the spiritual-but-not-religious and the people who haven’t darkened a church door in years.

The Lamb’s work is universal in scope. But it’s accomplished by one particular Lamb.

This is the scandal and the comfort of Christianity: universal salvation comes through a specific Savior. Not many roads up the mountain—one road down from heaven. God coming to us.

How the Lamb Takes Away Our Sin

But how does this actually happen? How does the Lamb take away the sin of this community—not just the world in the abstract, but Climax?

Through his Word dwelling richly among us.

Paul tells the Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16). Notice that “admonishing.” The Word doesn’t just comfort—it also corrects. It tells us where we’ve gone wrong. This is the Law doing its proper work: exposing sin so we can repent of it.

And we have plenty to repent of. I do. You do. We’ve been silent when we should have spoken. We’ve hedged when we should have confessed. We’ve loved our comfort more than our neighbor’s soul. We’ve let the culture set the terms and then wondered why our witness grew weak.

The Law names these things. It doesn’t let us hide behind “I’m basically a good person” or “at least I’m not as bad as so-and-so.” The Law strips that away. Luther called it a mirror—it shows us what we actually look like.

But the Law isn’t the end. The Gospel follows: you are forgiven. The Lamb has taken it. All of it. The silence, the hedging, the cowardice, the comfort-seeking—nailed to the cross with Christ. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

And then the Spirit enters. This is what makes Christianity different from self-improvement. We don’t white-knuckle our way into holiness. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead takes up residence and begins the long work of making us new. Theologians call it sanctification—the road from who we are to who we will be. We stumble on that road. We fall. But the Spirit keeps picking us up, keeps pointing us back to Christ, keeps working faith in our hearts.

This is how the Lamb takes away sin in Climax: through a community that hears the Word together, repents together, receives forgiveness together, and walks the road together. Not perfectly. Not impressively. But faithfully.

So yes, we welcome everyone who comes through town. We feed the hungry and shelter the homeless and help our neighbors without strings attached. That’s what love looks like with hands and feet.

But we also tell the truth about what we’ve found. Andrew’s first response after meeting Jesus was to find his brother Peter and say, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41). No careful pitch. No waiting for the right moment. Just plain testimony: we found him.

“Come to church with me” is a complete evangelism strategy. “Come and see” doesn’t require expertise—just honesty about your own encounter. You don’t have to have all the answers, but you do have to know where to point.

The old church building will soon house families in transition. Good. We should be glad for any good work done in this town.

But the best thing we can offer anyone—housed or unhoused, settled or searching—is not a program or a philosophy. It’s a person.

John stood at the Jordan, saw Jesus walking toward him, and said three words that changed everything: Behold the Lamb.

Climax, this is what we point to. Not ourselves. Not a generic spirituality. Not the polite fiction that all paths lead to the same place. We point to Jesus—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Yours included. Mine included.

Come and see.