Second Sunday Ordinary

Year A

Isaiah 49 : 3, 5-6 ;

Psalm 40 (39) : 1, 3, 6-9 ;

I Corinthians 1 : 1-3 ;

John 1 : 29-34

“The next day, as John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him, he declared, 

“This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”(John 1: 29): Jesus removes the guilt of sin as if it were something heavy weighing down upon man. The imagery used by John points to the liberation that Jesus brings to man who is limited in his thought and in his action by the heavy fetters that hinder him from progressing towards the goal of his destiny. This is why we have chosen the declaration of the Roman centurion as our response to the invitation for communion. The priest says, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”, and we reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say a word and I shall be healed”.

It is generally admitted that the representation of the Messiah as the Lamb of God who atones for our sins has its roots in the Old Testament. But there have been discussions about whether this imagery refers directly to the Paschal Lamb of the Exodus or to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah who compares the Messiah to the lamb that is silent before its shearers (Isaiah 53: 7).

Christ, the Lamb of God, evokes in an eminent fashion the Passover Lamb whose blood protected the children of the Hebrews in the nation of Egypt when the Angel of Death struck the country. Ever since, each year, the Passover lamb is sacrificed and eaten at God’s order in commemoration of the Exodus event, that is, the passing over of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt into the freedom of God’s children. John the Baptist sees in the person of Christ the true Lamb who will bring that liberation to its fulfilment.

As Jesus died on the cross, thousands of lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple and were then taken to the families for the Passover supper. At the Exodus, the blood of the lamb was soaked in hyssop and was sprinkled on the lintel and on the doorposts of the Israelites to save them from the exterminating plague in Egypt. In the same way, as the branch of hyssop was lifted up to Christ’s mouth, his blood marked the beams of the cross (Exodus 12: 22 ; John 19: 29).

Besides, in the astronomical calendar of the Mediterranean Region, the emerging of the constellation of the Ram into a domineering position in the heavens marked the beginning of the New Year. With the Ram acting as the chief of the constellations, there was one more element at hand to point to the sacrificial lamb as the Winner in the heavens, despite his humiliation in the death on the cross. It is the Ram who crashed through the supposedly impassable wall of death, and life sprang out of it. 

The image of the Paschal Lamb was linked to that other equally eloquent image of the Old Testament, that of the Suffering Servant of the prophet Isaiah who compares the Messiah to a silent lamb that is led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53 : 7, 10): a mysterious Servant of God humiliated and disfigured, giving his life in expiation for all. “He was wounded for our transgressions and by his bruises we are healed”.

As the early Christian communities read back the Scriptures in the light of the death and resurrection of Christ, they discovered in the person of Jesus and in his salvific mission the fulfilment of these images of the Old Testament. “The Son of man goes as it is written” (Luke 22:22). “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (I Corinthians 5: 7). “You were ransomed not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ” (I Peter 1: 18-19). This is what we too can decipher in faith as we receive Christ in the Eucharist. May it be given to us to listen to the testimony of our forerunners and invent ever new ways of telling the world:“This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. Amen

(See Tiburtius Fernandez, Homilies for Year A, Second Sunday Ordinary, © St. Paul’s Publications, Bandra, Mumbai, India, 2022, pp. 137-142).