Saturday, January 06, 2007
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD
January 16, 2005 Homily by Fr. Robert Altier
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading I (Isaiah 49:3, 5-6) Reading II (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)
Gospel (St. John 1:29-34)
In the Gospel reading today, we hear a line that we have heard so often that most of us do not think much about it. Saint John the Baptist, standing there with a couple of his disciples, sees Jesus walking past, looks at Him and says, Behold, the Lamb of God; Behold Him Who takes away the sins of the world. We hear those words, of course, at every Mass that we attend right before receiving Holy Communion, and we have become so accustomed to those words that perhaps we have never really stopped to ask, “Why do we say that,” especially when you look at it in light of what comes at the end of today’s Gospel reading. After Saint John the Baptist gives testimony that he saw the skies open and the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and rest upon Him, he says, Therefore, I have testified that He is the Son of God. If he recognizes that He is the Son of God, why did he not look at his disciples and say, “Behold, the Son of God,” instead of saying, “the Lamb of God”?
Well, the reason has to do with the understanding for the Jewish people of what it meant that He was the Lamb of God. It hearkens all the way back to the Book of Exodus, when we are told that the father of each family had to procure for his family a lamb. The lamb had to be a male without blemish and it was to be sacrificed at the evening twilight. The blood was to be sprinkled upon the doorposts and the lintels of the house, and they were to eat the roasted flesh of the lamb. It was the Passover of the Lord, and in those homes the angel of death would pass over. Now if we look at what happens with Our Lord, we hear in the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, as God, once again speaking of His servant, tells him, It is not enough for you to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations. All the peoples are going to be brought into one. All of the peoples, not only those people of Israel, but all the people of the nations who will believe in the Name of Jesus Christ will be children of the heavenly Father. And so if the father of the family is to procure a lamb for his family, that is precisely what our heavenly Father has done. He has procured a Lamb Who was a male without blemish. When we look at Saint John’s Gospel, where he gives to us a timeline that is based on the lunar calendar instead of the solar calendar, we see that the time at which Our Lord was sacrificed was exactly the same time that the lambs would be sacrificed in the temple. He is showing that Jesus is the Passover Lamb, that He is the sacrifice that God our Father has made on behalf of His own children.
We can also look further in Scripture to be able to understand the meaning of calling Jesus the “Lamb of God”. For instance, we look at the Book of Revelation and we hear about the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the One Who is victorious, the One Who is found worthy to open the book that was sealed with the seven seals. It is exactly what you see in the middle of the altar if you look at it carefully, the Lamb who is upon the book with the seven seals. But in this vision of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Saint John suddenly sees a Lamb Who had been slain. So the Lamb and the Lion are one and the same in this particular reading. This fulfills what had been prophesied regarding Judah all the way back at the end of the Book of Genesis. It also fulfills what God had promised through Abraham.
Recall the day that Isaac was walking toward Mount Moriah – which, by the way, is the exact same mountain upon which Jesus was crucified –
Continue reading...
