Homily Notes: Jan 19 2020

Readings: 

• Isaiah says the "servant" will be a light to the nations

• Paul's opening to 1st Corinthians... for some reason.

• John says, "Behold the lamb of God!"

Homily: 768 words
Length:  6 minutes

I want to start off with a couple of questions.  They are simple questions, but in the Catholic world we often don’t address them very well.  First, what do we mean when we say that Jesus died for us?  What is the connection between the Godman dying on the cross and our salvation?  And second, what are we doing at Mass? 

Keep those questions in mind as we explore the readings. 

Today we begin by continuing in Isaiah’s discourse on the “servant of God”.  In previous weeks we’ve talked about how the servant could be taken to represent Israel corporately.  He is, after all, identified as such.  But in chapter 49 we start to see a change.  Yes, he’s identified as Israel in the opening of the chapter.  But soon thereafter we’re told the servant is supposed to raise up the tribes of Israel.  This is where the text starts pointing us more toward a single man being Isaiah’s suffering servant.

Now we fast forward to John the Baptist seeing Jesus and reflecting on what he saw when he baptized the Lord.   Specifically, he refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God.  And that’s what we’re going to focus on today; why is Jesus called the “Lamb of God”?

Is it because Jesus is meek and humble?  Well… He was, but that’s not the primary motive.  In the Old Testament we see that a lamb is sacrificed in numerous rites of the Jewish religion.  You have the Passover lamb.  The lamb which is roasted and eat in commemoration of the Hebrews escaping slavery in Egypt.  You also have lambs being sacrificed as a sin offering on behalf of the Hebrews.  A person having committed some sin would approach a priest with a lamb and then offering it to Lord in atonement.   

Well, Jesus is the lamb of God in both of those senses.  First, because Jesus is the definitive sacrifice of atonement for sins. On the cross Jesus offered up His life, His love for the Father, His love for humanity, and His endurance through unjust treatment as a sacrifice to the Father.  That sacrifice was the divine plan for atoning for all the sins of the world. Now, in the Old Testament it describes having to offer animals again and again.  But Christ puts an end to that when it mounts the cross and makes an offering of infinite value.  As it says in Hebrews 7, He has no need to make more than one sacrifice, because Jesus – whose life is of infinite worth and majesty - offered himself.  Thus, He is “the lamb of God”.

Jesus is also the lamb of God because He is the Passover lamb.  In the rite of Passover, found in Exodus 12, it says that if a Hebrew family wanted to be spared the 10th plague, they would roast and eat a male lamb whose limbs had not been broken.  Fast forward to the Gospels and Jesus institutes the liturgy at the Last Supper as the official form of Christian worship.  It was based on a Passover meal, and Saint Paul writes in 1Corinthians that Jesus is our Passover.  Saint John, in his Gospel, recognizes that Jesus’ unbroken bones was a fulfillment of the Passover requirements for the lamb.  But how do we eat this lamb?  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke over the bread, “This is my body.”  So Jesus is also the lamb of God because He is the Eucharist.  He is our daily bread during this time of exile.

The letter to the Hebrews says that Christ is today in the heavenly sanctuary with the Father, making intercession on our behalf.  The book of Revelation presents Jesus as a lamb standing on an altar.  The sacrifice was done outside Jerusalem in 33AD, but the presentation of that sacrifice to God is something ongoing.  That same Jesus, the risen Jesus, is the one who makes Himself present on the altar.  That way, we can come alongside Jesus in offering Him to the father.   And not just that, we offer ourselves too.  Our lives, our love, our trials.  That’s why you, the laity, say, “May our sacrifice and yours be acceptable to the Father.” 

So as we approach the altar today, let’s keep in mind what it means for Jesus to be the Lamb of God.  And let’s be in awe of this great mystery of God’s generosity that we’re invited into during the Mass.  The Son of God becomes the servant of God, the servant of God becomes the Lamb of God, so we can become children of God.