Losing my mom has made me recognize afresh that I am a child of weakness. My strength indeed is small. The loss of a loved one removes our veneer of self-confidence, our masks of self-sufficiency. C. S. Lewis said that the death of a loved one is like an amputation. So, until we meet again in that heavenly city, I’m a son without a mother—walking with a limp and leaning on Jesus.

When my mother passed away last winter, I discovered the gift of grief.
In the span of a single year, my mother went from a vibrant, constant presence in my life—through phone calls, texts, and when we could, in-person visits—to a swift decline in mental and physical health.
The first sign, for me, was an unexpected call at 5 a.m. one morning. Mom had many skills but being active at 5 a.m. was not one of them. Calls at 10 a.m., lunchtime, or late in the evening were much more likely. I immediately answered, thinking something had to be urgent.
“Mom, is everything okay?” I asked, pretending I had been up for hours while clearing the cobwebs from my mind and the frog from my throat.
“Oh, I’m just calling to see how you are doing,” she said, “but I hope I’m not interrupting dinner for you guys.”
Maybe she’s just confused. Maybe she had a bad night’s sleep, I thought. I didn’t want to believe this was what my sister, Laura, had been gently warning me about. My sister and her husband had recently moved back to Illinois to live near my parents. And in recent weeks, they had told me that Mom had forgotten how to write a check. Well, that’s not that crazy. Who writes checks anymore? I had rationalized at the time.
“Mom, you do know that it’s five o’clock in the morning, right?” I offered.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. You know, I keep getting my times mixed up, with daylight savings and all,” she replied, though we were nowhere near a time change. After talking a bit more, we ended the call. When I told my sister about it, she said these sorts of incidents were becoming more common.
A few days later, I got another call from Mom—this time more bizarre. She insisted that men were in her house, that my father had let them in, and that she’d called the police. My heart sank as a realization began to set in: I think we are losing her.
We clung to one last desperate possibility that it could be Mom’s iron deficiency, something she’d struggled with for much of her life. We were hoping against hope that with a few doctor visits and medical adjustments, Mom might return to her normal self. My sister dutifully begged, cajoled, and shepherded her to doctors and specialists, updating me every time.
My dad quit his job so he could take care of Mom as she slowly lost her memory, until we learned the hard, final, difficult news: The results of her MRI revealed significant dementia.
Dementia is still a mystery, even to the most learned minds. In the season after her diagnosis, we talked with experts and with friends who had endured this journey with their own loved ones. There was no way to predict which course Mom’s health would take. Would she, like the sweet wife of a friend in my small group, slowly decline over nearly a decade? Or would she, like my late mother-in-law, decline quickly?
When you lose a loved one to dementia, you grieve twice—once when they lose their mind, and again when they lose their life.
The early grief is like a weight on the soul. I can’t explain the heaviness you feel in realizing that the one who birthed you, raised you, consoled you when you came home crushed after a bad day at school—the one who stood on the sidelines and cheered at your basketball games, who said everything you wrote was amazing even when it wasn’t; the one who introduced you to Jesus—is slipping away.
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You see that’s how Jesus, the Lamb of God takes away sin; not by pushing it aside or sweeping it under the rug, but by picking it up and carrying it, as if it were his very own, all the way up to the cross. Isaiah saw that day so clearly: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said,“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
Since 1980, the Make-A-Wish-Foundation has been making dreams come true for children suffering from critical illnesses. One of those children was Logan, who wished to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, you can imagine his excitement when a stretch limousine pulled up to his home. The driver drove Logan and his family outside the city, down a bumpy dirt road to a secret location in the California hills. When Logan stepped out, who should greet him but his lifelong hero, the Terminator. The boy was speechless as he fell into the goliath arms of the former Mr. Olympia. Then Arnold asked, “Which will it be? The hummer or the tank?” Logan spent the next hour barreling through the woods in a tank driven by his hero. Before parting ways, Arnold looked into Logans eyes and said, “Everything is possible, if you believe it” … which is a pretty bold thing to say to a child with a terminal illness.
John 1:29 records the day John met his hero; indeed, the long-expected hero of all Hebrews! As the last in a long line of faithful prophets, John alone enjoyed the privilege of proclaiming what his predecessors only dreamed of saying: “Behold, the Lamb of God…” Except John’s hero and ours, the Lord Jesus Christ, didn’t only come to offer momentary delight and distraction; he came to save his people from their terminal spiritual illness by atoning for their sins. But why is he called the Lamb of God? Can he really take my sins away? From this single verse, we see that Jesus Christ was sacrificed by God to atone for your sins.
First, we see that Jesus is the Lamb. The events of our passage take place on “the next day,” that is the 2nd day of the Jesus’ 1st week in John’s gospel; the day after the envoy from Jerusalem came to investigate John asking, “who are you” (John 1:19) and “why are you baptizing” (John 1:25). Now, we can see John in his camel hair cloak, sinched at the waist with a leather belt, standing in the shallows or along the banks of the Jordan River out in the wilderness. The shore is teeming with people who’ve come from all over to hear John’s preaching, repent of their sins, and be baptized when, John spotted a face in the crowd, the face of Jesus.
When I was a boy, we took a family trip to Yellowstone. To make it a bit more interesting my father, who is a wildlife fanatic, promised to reward animal sightings with cash. Different animals were worth different amounts: eagles-$1, otters-$5, bears-$20, wolves-$50 & so on. So, we’d be driving through the woods when one of us would point and yell “bear!” as my dad slammed on the breaks. Or we’d be sitting by the window in a restaurant and shout “eagle!”
Suddenly, in the midst of the throng, John cried, “Behold, the Lamb!” Now why would John call Jesus the Lamb? Because John knew his Bible. He knew Ezekiel 18:4, “the soul that sins shall die” because every sin constitutes an act of allegiance to Satan in rebellion against God whose holiness is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. But John knew that the Lord is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:4). John knew that God was a good God who had promised to atone for the sins of his people and that the entire sacrificial system of Israel served as theological training wheels to show them “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22).” John knew that while the Hebrews were no less deserving of death than their Egyptian overlords, all whose door posts were smeared in the blood of a lamb were spared for, “where the paschal blood is poured death’s dark angel sheathes his sword.” John knew that every morning and evening, the bleating of lambs could be heard from the Temple from which flowed an endless river of blood that God’s people might know the cost of sin and their need for a substitute. You see, like the Wiseman who gave myrrh, a burial ointment, to a child, John recognized from the start of Jesus’ ministry, the heart of Jesus’ ministry was to save his people from their sins by dying for them as their lamb.
John called Jesus “the Lamb.” Jesus is not “a lamb,” “some lamb,” or “one of many lambs.” He is “the Lamb!” The “one and only Lamb.” As the Passover lamb had to be a male, without spot or blemish, so too, Jesus was perfect. His soul was spiritually spotless and clean without blemish or defilement. Even though the hounds of hell were unleashed by the Pharisees to sniff out any dirt on Jesus with which to prosecute him, Pilate was forced to conclude, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4). Because he had none! He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).
Since Jesus was the only good man who ever lived, the only man to keep the entire law of our Holy God, he alone is qualified to be our sin bearer, our substitute, our champion. He is The Lamb and there is no other. No one comes to the Father but through him (John14:6) and “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Have you put your hope in another hero to rescue you or another lamb to save you? There is no other! Jesus is the first, last and only hope for sinners longing for salvation. And as he came towards John long ago, so he comes to you now, promising to save you from your sins if you would only receive and rest in him alone.
Yes, Jesus was the Lamb, but he was also God’s Lamb. “Behold,” John cried, “the Lamb, of God” (John 1:29). In the Old Testament, when someone sinned, they had to bring their own lamb bought with their own money or taken from their own flock to the priest who would sacrifice it and make atonement for the forgiveness of the guilty person. And if the guilty couldn’t afford a lamb, he would bring doves. If he couldn’t afford doves, he would bring flour. But had to pay for his own atonement. Have you ever incurred a debt you could not pay?
I was a senior in high school, and it was late on a Tuesday night. I was driving home from a varsity soccer game (spectator not player). The game was away so the drive was long, and I was tired. A half mile from home, I came to a stop sign. Seeing that the roads were empty, I rolled through the stop sign and continued on my way, when suddenly a police car burst from behind the bushes, sirens blaring, pulled me over, and wrote me a $180 ticket. Well, my father was not happy when I came home so late and even less happy when I showed him the ticket I could not afford. But my dad took the ticket and said, “I got it, son.” Though I was then guilty one, my faither paid my penalty for me.
$180 for rolling a stop sign seemed like a lot of money. How much to pay for the life you’ve lived? How much to pay for a lifetime of lies, lust, slander gossip, coveting, vanity, selfishness, drunkenness, faithlessness, apathy, anger, and pride?  More than you or I can afford, friend! Psalm 49:7-9 helps us with the math, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.”
God in justice demands a price for sin that you cannot pay.  These high temperatures have made my local lap pool hot. The other morning, the pool was 90 degrees. Swimming laps in 90 degrees is like running summer sprints in a wetsuit. It’s miserable. You’re instantly exhausted. You can’t catch your breath. Time passes so slowly. In the midst of that discomfort, I thought of the incomparable, and unbearable agony of hell; of eternally drowning in the outer darkness of the lakes of fire, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is the just penalty for sin! But God in mercy pays the debt of sin we owe, just as Abraham told his son Isaac, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8). You see, Abraham remembered the night when God appeared to him in a vision and ratified his gospel promise to save and bless Abraham by passing between the rows of torn animals, graciously swearing by Himself to keep both sides of the covenant. He would reward his own imputed righteousness in us, just like he promised in Ezekiel 16:62-63, “I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.”
Recognizing that the Lamb who saves us is God’s Lamb, ought to humble us to the dirt and inspire us to give God all the glory for our own salvation which belongs to the Lord. It should make us sing with fresh zeal:
Thy work alone, O Christ, Can ease this weight of sin;Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God Can give me peace within.Thy love to me, O God, Not mine, O Lord, to Thee,Can rid me of this dark unrest, And set my spirit free.I praise the God of grace; I trust His truth and might;He calls me His, I call Him mine, My God, my joy, my light.‘Tis He who saveth me, And freely pardon gives;I love because He loveth me, I live because He lives.
Finally, we see Jesus is the sin-bearing Lamb.  John cried, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” A few years ago, body camera footage from an Arizona police officer went viral when he and his partner responded to a call made by a frantic woman. Her husband was working on her Civic when the jack failed and the car came crashing down on top of him. He was being crushed from the waist up and losing consciousness. When the officers arrived they knew what they had to do to save the man’s life. The body camera footage shows the strain on the officers’ faces as they lifted the car for off the man so he could escape from beneath the awful load.
This is the picture John is painting. The verb behind “takes away” is actually, “to lift up” or “to bear,” or “to carry away.” You see that’s how Jesus, the Lamb of God takes away sin; not by pushing it aside or sweeping it under the rug, but by picking it up and carrying it, as if it were his very own, all the way up to the cross. Isaiah saw that day so clearly: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, & he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, & like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth…  Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt” (Is 53:6-7,10).
As John called upon those gathered on that day, so God calls us through his word and to “behold him!” “Behold” means so much more than to look at him. “Behold” means to see him with your soul; to gaze at him with your heart; to look upon him in faith, hope, love and fear and be saved.
Behold him: you hard-hearted unbeliever; you who have convinced yourself that sin is a small thing; you who have believed the lie that God is not so just and so holy that he cannot be pacified by your efforts. You’re going the wrong way that leads to hell! For God requires a righteousness that you cannot attain and He is bound by his own justice to punish your sins! Why would you bear your own sin and needlessly suffer the wrath of God forever when God himself has provided a Lamb for you? Repent of your arrogant pride and run to Jesus.
Behold him you who are being crushed beneath the awful load of sin you bear. When sacrifice was made in Israel, the guilty sinner would put his hand upon the head of the lamb, signifying the transfer of his sin to his substitute. Will you not reach out the hand of faith, and put it upon the head of Christ, and call upon him to lift your burden and carry it away!  For he will.
Behold him you backslidden believer you’ve fallen away from the faith back into old sins. See the terrible price that God paid to save you for himself. When lambs were sacrificed in the Old Testament, the priests always treated them humanely. Their deaths were clean and quick. But the Lamb of God was mocked and tortured for you. Though he had the power to call down legions of angels upon his executioners and tormentors, though he could have dismounted the cross at any moment, he restrained his own omnipotence and suffered there for you until it was accomplished and your sins were atoned for. Jesus was not bound to that cross by Roman nails, but by the golden chain of his love for you. Would you then abandon him who would not abandon you to your sins?  He loved you all the way to death and hell! Would you love him so little? He denied his own life for you. Would you not deny the fleeting pleasure of sin for him?
Behold him, you weary Christian longing for the assurance of your salvation. The Lamb of God has taken away your sins! Jesus has done it and he will not undo it! God is not like a man that he should change his mind. The blood that was shed for your sins cannot be un-shed. The gift of salvation cannot be returned. His forgiveness and favor once granted can never be revoked.
Jesus Christ was sacrificed by God to atone for your sins. Hallelujah!
It’s easy to see what David meant when he wrote in Psalm 139:6 “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” That’s why such truths must be sung from the heart that has been touched by God’s grace: “Holy is the Lamb, the precious Lamb of God. Why You love me so, Lord I shall never know. The precious Lamb of God”
Jim McCarthy is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Trinity PCA in Statesboro, Ga.
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Item 6 proposes a change that would better bring the rights of the various parties into balance by requiring a 2/3 vote to suspend the rights of someone who has been accused, but not yet found guilty. Item 11, on the other hand, would have the opposite effect. Requiring a 2/3 vote to suspend someone from the Lord’s Table and/or from official functions gives too much weight to the rights of the appellant, and it overlooks the rights of the court and the rights of the Church as a whole.

The Presbyteries of the PCA are currently voting on two Book of Church Order (BCO) amendments that are very similar: Item 6 (Overture 2021-20) and Item 11 (Overture 2021-21). In their final forms, both seek to require a 2/3 vote to suspend the official functions of an officer, or to suspend someone from the Lord’s Table, but in two different settings. Item 6 deals with suspending someone’s rights before the completion of his judicial process. Item 11 deals with suspending someone’s rights after the completion of his judicial process in the lower court, but while the decision is under appeal.
In my opinion, Presbyteries should support Item 6 but oppose Item 11. My reasons for differentiating between the two proposals have to do with the balance of the various rights within a judicial setting. In church polity, we are always dealing with questions about how to balance different rights, values, and needs. Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR) captures this goal well:
The rules of parliamentary law found in this book will, on analysis, be seen to be constructed upon a careful balance of the rights of persons or subgroups within an organization’s or an assembly’s total membership. That is, these rules are based on a regard for the rights:

of the majority,
of the minority, especially a strong minority—greater than one third,
of individual members,
of absentees, and
of all these together.

The means of protecting all of these rights in appropriate measure forms much of the substance of parliamentary law, and the need for this protection dictates the degree of development that the subject has undergone. (RONR [12th ed], “Principles Underlying Parliamentary Law,” xlix)
As we consider the rights of the various parties in church discipline proceedings, we must consider how to balance the various rights of the prosecutor, the accused, the court, and the Church as a whole.
Summary Overview for Supporting Item 6 and Opposing Item 11
In brief, my reason for supporting Item 6 is simple: in considering this balance of rights, the accused has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. While there may be good reasons for suspending him from the sacraments or (if an officer) from official duties, that decision should require a supermajority (i.e., a 2/3 vote).
On the other hand, Item 11 would seek to require the same supermajority 2/3 vote after someone has had his opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, and make his case in court. Although that individual retains the right to appeal a guilty verdict or a censure (BCO 42), the balance of rights in this situation should shift to the decision of the original court. While the court may not persist with such a suspension as a censure before the appeal is heard, I believe that the court should retain the right to determine by a simple majority vote whether there are sufficient reasons to prevent the appellant from approaching the Lord’s Table and, if an officer, from exercising some or all of his official functions.
Furthermore, since the “functions” of an officer are clearly defined in the BCO as what the officer does, and not what the church does to remunerate the officer (see BCO 8-5; 34-10; 36-7), this provision could never permit a church to suspend a teaching elder without pay.
So, to require the same 2/3 vote for this decision both before and after a trial does not properly balance the competing rights of the various parties of the case. Therefore, Item 6 would improve the balance between the judicial rights of the various parties, while Item 11 would create an imbalance of those rights.
In the rest of this article, I will expand this brief summary into greater detail.
Balancing the Rights of the Parties
It is enlightening to categorize the provisions contained in the Rules of Discipline according to the various rights afforded to each of the parties of a case: the prosecutor, the accused, the court of jurisdiction, and the Church as a whole.
Let’s begin with the rights of the prosecutor. The prosecutor has the right to bring an accusation against the accused (BCO 31-3). Nevertheless, when it is an individual making out charges against another person, this person’s rights are very limited. An injured party is required to have sought the means of private reconciliation from Matthew 18 in the case of personal offenses (BCO 31-5). Furthermore, the court is to exercise great caution to consider the character of the accuser (BCO 31-8), and every voluntary prosecutor must be warned that if he should fail to show probable cause of the charges, “he may himself be censured as a slanderer of the brethren” (BCO 31-9).
The accused, on the other hand, has many more rights protected by the BCO.Read More
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