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The Gospel this Sunday recalls Jesus’ Baptism but also His manifestation as the Lamb of God.
As the Gospel of John makes clear, John the Baptist’s whole existence is that of being a witness to Jesus (1:7-8). He is a finger pointing to Him. John decreases so Jesus and His glory may increase (Jn. 3:30). John’s witness unfolds in a further epiphany of Jesus to the world in our Gospel this Sunday, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). This title captures so much of Jesus’ identity and mission. And it captures much about our Christian Faith.
“Lamb of God” brings us into the realm of liturgy. It looks back to Israel’s sacrificial system and looks ahead to Jesus’ Cross and the Eucharistic celebration, then even further ahead to the eschaton with the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, as the same Apostle John describes in the Book of Revelation. There, John will take it a step further by speaking of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8, cf. Jn. 1:30).
The mystery of the Lamb of God is stamped into the heart of reality. Even nature bears witness to it, as in the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies only to rise and bear much fruit (Jn. 12:23-26). We too experience the same mystery being played out in our own lives as we are drawn more deeply into the Cross, as we are called to go with the flow of God’s Love in trustful surrender.
All in the Old and New Testaments that has to do with sacrifice and the Lamb culminates in Jesus (allegorical interpretation); it spills over into our own Christian existence as we share in the mystery of Jesus, both in our lives and in the Eucharist (moral sense); and it also looks forward into eternity to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (anagogical). These Scriptural passages about sacrifice help us see the details of our lives as part of this sacrificial offering of love (moral sense). Seeing it all in light of eternity and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (through the anagogical sense) can help us taste and savor the final victory of Love, even now. It helps us to rest in the self-giving love of the Lamb and indeed of the Blessed Trinity in the midst of our day-to-day life and its trials.
So let us rest our contemplative gazes upon the slain Lamb of God who manifests the very heart of the Trinity as self-giving Love. The fruitfulness of our share in this offering is not just for ourselves but for the salvation of the world. Thus, the eschatological vision so frequent in Isaiah, as in Sunday’s First Reading, inspires us to broaden our gaze: “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Is. 49:6). Our mission is to be a witness to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, through our words and lives, as He increases, and we decrease. Being rooted in the storyline of the Word, which has Jesus crucified and risen at its center, helps us articulate the Gospel in a way that meets people in their own struggles and manifests to them the light of God’s love.
Editor’s Note: This is the third article of a CE series on “Exegesis of the Word” by Fr. Ignatius Schweitzer, breaking open each Sunday’s readings for 8 consecutive weeks. Catch up on previous articles here!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
