Sunday 15th January 2023 - Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 49:3,5-6/ Psalm 39(40)/ 1 Corinthians 1:1-3/ John 1:29-34

Just a week after we celebrated the baptism of Jesus, we get further details given by John. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke give accounts of the ministry of Jesus in a generally chronological order. They include incidents and parables which Jesus used to convey deeper meanings than simply the basic story being told. John’s gospel is a gospel of theology which is the study of the nature of God. As we heard on Christmas day John had a very clear idea of who Jesus is. He is the word of God that had become fully human. It is the theme of who Jesus is that runs throughout John’s gospel.

It was John the Baptist’s mission to make the way clear for the coming of the promised Messiah and to announce this pivotal moment in the relationship between humanity and God. John points Jesus out to us proclaiming, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world…’ The priest makes the same proclamation at every Mass when he holds up the body and blood of Christ just before we receive it in Holy Communion.

The encounter the evangelist John describes between Jesus and John the Baptist does not describe the actual baptism, but it does allow the Baptist to testify to seeing the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove signifying that Jesus was the chosen one of God who would baptise not with water but with the Holy Spirit. We use water in baptism as an outward sign of what is inwardly happening. The sacrament of baptism leads us to become temples of the Holy Spirit, joining us with the Body of Christ which is the Church. In baptism we are chosen by God in the same way that the servant in the first reading was chosen for a mission. This theme of being called to mission is found in Paul’s account of being appointed by God as an apostle. Our mission, and that of the Church itself, is the same, to be a light to all nations so that God’s salvation will reach the ends of the earth.

Why does John the Baptist and the priest at Mass point out Jesus to us as being The Lamb of God? In the writings of the New Testament Jesus is identified as a lamb. This might seem strange because a lamb to us might appear to be a weak defenceless animal. Not at all something we would associate with being the powerful King of Heaven. This theme of the lamb comes to us from the Old Testament and follows two distinct paths. It was said by the great thinker St Augustine that ‘In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed.’ In referring to the Lamb this statement has real meaning. The promise of Jesus as Messiah is hidden in the Old Testament referrals to the Lamb, and he is revealed as the Lamb of God in the New.

In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we hear about the suffering servant who appeared as a lamb led to slaughter, silent and not opening its mouth. Jesus fulfilled the part of the suffering servant when he was led to his death. Jesus kept silent in front of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court, and refused to speak to the Roman Governor Pilate as recounted in John’s gospel. This is what John the Baptist was alluding to when he proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The other Old Testament path referring to a lamb comes from the escape of the Jews from Egyptian captivity. When God decided to rescue his chosen people from Egypt, they were told to sacrifice a one year old male lamb, to eat it at night dressed ready to travel and to mark the lintels over their doors with its blood. This sacrificial blood was an indication to the avenging angel to pass over the homes of those living under this sign. Through this event, which became known as the Passover, the chosen people of God were released from captivity.

Our Christian tradition sees Jesus as Isaiah’s lamb that was led to the slaughter and the sacrificial unblemished lamb of the Passover by which we are released from the captivity of our sin. The Jewish people celebrate the Passover and Christians the Paschal feast of Easter. Throughout his suffering and death Jesus quoted from the suffering servant passages of Isaiah drawing our attention to the prophesy he was fulfilling as if he was acting out a script to a play. The link between Jesus and the true Paschal Lamb goes back to the earliest days of the Church. Within the first fifty to sixty years AD Paul was writing to the Church in Corinth saying, ‘Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed, let us celebrate the feast…’ This is what we celebrate at Easter and each time we attend Mass.

The theme of the lamb continues in scripture into the final book of the bible. In the book of Apocalypse, also known as Revelation, there is a dramatic difference between the quiet, passive lamb dumb before its executioners and the Heavenly Lamb to which the whole of heaven gives adoration. Through following the will of God his Father, Jesus is invested with ultimate divine power becoming King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When we are invited to behold the Lamb of God who takes away our sins it is the triumphant heavenly lamb that we are kneeling before and worshiping. Our only response to that can be our profession of unworthiness but because Jesus took on all our sins and died for us, we are able to approach him and receive him in Holy Communion.

In Jesus we find both the sacrifice and the priest who offers it. Jesus is our High Priest offering himself to take away all our sins. Through our baptism we share in the priesthood of Jesus as well as his kingship and his role as prophet. We are called to bring those aspects of our Christian life into the world in which we live, a world of diminishing and changing values. In our homes, our workplaces, our places of leisure we, like John the Baptist, should point out Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

God Bless Brendan