Behold the Lamb of God

 

2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time    

Behold the Lamb of God

Jesus’ baptism was one of the defining events of his life and his public ministry. We just celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord last Monday, so it is also a major event in the life of the Church. This story is one of the few that are recounted in all four gospels. Mark actually begins his gospel with this story, and Matthew and Luke’s accounts are very similar. And we know the story well. Jesus appears at the Jordan River where John is baptizing and is baptized himself. Upon leaving the water, the Holy Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven says “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. And something powerful happened to Jesus at that time. It was as if the Holy Spirit had invaded Jesus and drove him forward in his public ministry. He begins here and does not stop until Calvary.

As usual, John’s account is different than the others. John does not say that Jesus was actually baptized. All we hear today is that Jesus was walking along the banks of the Jordan and John saw him and exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!” That’s a curious statement, isn’t it? Why didn’t John say something like, “Hey, there’s my cousin Jesus! Look everybody, he’s the one I’ve been telling you about.” Instead, John uses some strange reference to the Lamb of God.

But John’s disciples knew exactly what he was talking about. They had an image and understanding of who the Lamb of God was to be. The Lamb of God referenced the messiah. They had been waiting for him for centuries, and their anticipation of the coming messiah was at a fever pitch at this time in history. At first they thought that John himself might be the one, but he spoke of someone else, someone so great and powerful that he was unfit to even untie his sandals. John’s baptism with water was one of repentance in preparation for the coming of the one who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. This coming Messiah would bring forgiveness of sin and salvation to the entire world, not just to the Jews. It was as Isaiah foretold in our first reading today, “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

We hear constant references to the Lamb of God during every Mass; we know that it refers to the role of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who died on the cross to take away our sins, but to the Jews of Jesus’ day the Lamb of God meant something different.

We think of lambs as being submissive creatures who are easily led about. We even use the term derisively. Don’t be a sheep, don’t follow blindly, think for yourself. Sheep are weak, sheep are docile, sheep are creatures to be used by the strong. But to the Jews, the Lamb of God was someone strong. Their image of the Lamb of God went back to the prophet Isaiah, who prophesized about the coming messiah, the Suffering Servant. “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.”

To the Jews, the silent strength of the Lamb was to overcome the evil of the world. Even though the Lamb had the ability to overpower the kingdoms of the world he would choose not to. Instead, he would meekly submit to the will of God and his death would be the vehicle used to bring salvation to the world.

Another image the Jews had of the Lamb of God was that of a powerful liberator. During the third century BC, the Jewish liberator Judas Maccabeus, Judas the Hammer, led a rebellion against the Greeks that established the free rule in Judea for over a hundred years. Judas’ symbol was the lamb and he was called the Lamb of God. These two references, in Isaiah and in Maccabees, were to a strong leader who would free Israel from oppression and restore her to her rightful place among the nations. To John’s disciples, the Lamb of God meant the messiah. This lamb is not a docile victim. This lamb is a hammer. This lamb is an active victim.

The role of the lamb was central to Jewish worship and their understanding of their relationship with God. Lambs were used as the primary sacrifice to God in the temple. But not just any lamb. It had to be a pure white lamb, unblemished, with no spot or imperfection, preferably the first born. The lamb had to be given and sacrificed with no reservation; you had to give it willingly and not under duress.

The lamb was slaughtered on the altar of the temple and its blood was collected into bowls, to be sprinkled on the altar and on the people as a sign that their sins were forgiven.  The symbolism of the lamb’s blood was very powerful. The life force of the lamb was in its blood, and when that blood was poured out and sprinkled on the people they shared in its power.

Can you see how John the Evangelist and Jesus’ disciples would view the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God, especially after they had witnessed his passion, death and resurrection? They would look back at Jesus’ life, teachings, and actions and see so many signs pointing to the Lamb of God. Jesus was the first born son, without blemish, perfect, who willingly gave himself up to be sacrificed for the people’s sins on the cross. St. John even places the time of Jesus’ death on the day before the Passover at the hour when all the lambs were slaughtered in the temple. Jesus’ blood was shed on the cross in sight of the temple and sprinkled on all mankind for the forgiveness of sins.

The Lamb entered Christian tradition not bleating but roaring. St. John in the Book of Revelation uses the term in reference to Christ twenty-nine times in twenty-two chapters. We shall speak of Jesus as the Lamb five times in today's Liturgy. See if you can spot each one. Recall the number of canvases, frescoes, stained glass windows, and vestments on which you have seen the Lamb drawn. It is among the most popular symbols in Christendom. 

And the images of shedding blood and baptism are so closely linked in the scriptures and in the life of the church. Jesus himself exclaimed to his disciples when they asked him for positions of honor in the kingdom of heaven, "You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" St. Paul told the Romans, “Don’t you know that when you were baptized you were baptized into his death?” Dying to self and sin is what baptism is all about. Can you see how and why John the Baptist would call Jesus the Lamb of God at the time of his baptism?

Immediately following this passage from John’s gospel is the calling of the first apostles. You could say that John the Baptist was one of the first disciples himself. He himself had been searching for the messiah and had been having a hard time identifying him. When John finally received his sign from heaven that Jesus was the one, the first thing he did was point Jesus out to his own disciples, and told them to follow him instead.

John was a man searching for the messiah and when he found him, he gave him away to others. He was not in it for himself but told his disciples to leave him to follow Jesus. John knew that Jesus had to increase and he had to fade away. As soon as John gave away all his disciples to Jesus he was arrested, imprisoned and then killed. That was John’s role in the plan of salvation, and in a way, it is our role also. We may not be called to suffer as John did, but we too must die to self and give Jesus away to others. As St. Paul said, we must decrease and Christ must increase. And we do this in so many ways in our daily lives.

How many times are you the herald of Jesus to others who are desperately searching for Him?

How many times have you been searching in the wilderness for God and found him only when someone else pointed him out to you?

How many times do you ask for something from God and don’t recognize that your prayers have been answered until someone else points it out to you?

And when you find Jesus, do you hoard him or do you give him away like John did?

Have you found your own personal Jesus and want to keep him to yourself? Jesus is just too big for us to keep all to ourselves.

Can you see Jesus in others, especially in those who suffer?

How many times have you seen someone poor and downtrodden and exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

John’s disciples followed Jesus because they trusted John. How many times have people trusted God because of you and your discipleship?

Now we to have seen and testify that He is the Son of God.

 

 

 

The 3 Cs

 

32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14

2 Thess 2: 16-3:5

Lk 20: 27-38

 

There are some things worth dying for.

 

We hear a story today of great courage based upon strong faith and conviction. The story of the Maccabees isn’t read very often in our liturgy, and in fact, is not even included in Protestant bibles, so you may not be very aware of it. Our first reading today is pretty gruesome, and we only hear the middle of the story. There were actually seven brothers and their mother, and the mother was forced to watch all of her sons be killed before she herself was killed. Why were these poor people being tortured and killed, and what had led them to make the decision to resist so stubbornly?

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, there was a struggle for control of Israel, Egypt and Syria. Eventually the Seleucids from Syria gained control and began a program of Hellenization that sought to force the Jews to abandon their monotheism for the Greek’s paganism. They erected a shrine to the Greek god Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem, outlawed circumcision, and forced the Jews to either eat pork as a sign of abandoning their law or be tortured and killed. That is the choice that faced the seven brothers in today’s reading.

To the Jews, this was more than just a religious struggle. This was a struggle for their identity as a people. They saw the Law as being both a sign of their fidelity to God and a symbol of themselves as a nation. It is easy to see why they would resist the Greek’s effort to assimilate them. They could not in good conscience go against the Law. They chose death over assimiliation.

They were willing to die for their faith. They had such strong conviction that they were able to withstand horrible pain and suffer death rather than go against the central tenant of their being – faithfulness to God. Do you have such a conviction about anything in your life? Is there anything you would be willing to die for? I think most of us would give our lives for those we love, especially for our family. At least we like to believe we would. But most of us will never be faced with that choice. I know I haven’t and really don’t ever want to be. I have a thing about pain. I can relate with the quote from Flannery O’Connor, “I don’t think I can be a saint, but I think I could be a martyr if they kill me real quick”.

Hopefully we will never face that ultimate choice. Deliver us from evil, we pray. But life is full of thousands of less dire decisions that by themselves probably won’t tip the balance but taken together over our lifetimes actually affect how we will be judged by God. And the driver of all our decisions is our conscience.

When we consider questions of faith and morals, we always refer to the primacy of our conscience. We must follow our conscience. That is true, but that doesn’t absolve us from responsibility, in fact, it increases it. We are each responsible fully for our own decisions and actions. All our actions have consequences and therefore we shouldn’t make decisions, especially important decisions, lightly or without weighing things carefully. All the doctrines and dogmas, rules and regulations of the Church and society are there to inform and guide us, but we are responsible. We are the ones who will be judged by God for what we have done in this life, and so I guess ultimately it is our conscience that is the final arbiter of our decisions. But then our consciences are the final determiner of the consequences, too.

So many people use this reasoning as a rationalization and excuse to do whatever they like, because their conscience tells them it’s ok. You may follow your conscience down the wrong path. And sincerity has little to do with it. You might be very sincere in your beliefs, but you might be sincerely wrong. This is especially the case in today’s society where we believe that there are few or no immutable truths. All is relative to what I believe my conscience is telling me. That is not what we believe as Catholics. While we do believe in the primacy of conscience, that conscience must be formed correctly. It isn’t up to us what is right and what is wrong.

You will form your conscience whether you do it consciously or not. If you don’t do it yourself, it will be done for you by all the outside opinions and pressures of the world.  It is formed by your life experiences, your moral upbringing and belief, and your faith, or lack of faith, in God. As faithful Catholics, we are called to constantly be forming our consciences. It is not that right and wrong are constantly changing, it’s that our understanding of right and wrong develops and grows as we do. As Catholics, we are required to form our consciences within the teachings and guidance of the Church. Not because we blindly follow the law, but because, like the Maccabees, our faith defines who we are. Our relationship with God is central to our lives, because we are all called to build up the kingdom. We can abide by changes in thought and practice in society to a certain extent, but eventually we will be called upon to make a choice. It seems that more and more society’s norms are in direct opposition to our consciences. Some choices are easy and obvious, others are actually between life and death.

Just as conscience is not developed in a vacuum, it does not exist by itself. It should always be accompanied by courage and conviction. Conscience is what we turn to to make decisions, but we are then called to act on those decisions. Many times it is easier to make the decision than to do something about it. Where do we get the courage to act? Remember that decisions have consequences. Courage comes into play when we are aware of what might happen if we act.

Some things are worth fighting for.

There are two consequences to every action. One is the immediate consequence and the other is the eternal consequence. In today’s world, acting morally or in accordance with your faith has a real chance of getting you canceled, banned, ostracized, fired or even killed. There seem to be no more private actions. Everyone seems to be in everybody’s business. Even a simple comment to a social media post can destroy you. It takes courage to speak out and live the calling you received at your baptism to be a prophet, to speak truth to power and stand up for the oppressed. But that is what we are all called to do because of our baptism.

What gives courage its power and purpose is hope. Courage lives or dies based upon hope. We weigh the risks against the benefits and decide to act. Just as there are eternal consequences to our immoral choices, there is hope of eternal life in our moral choices. The thing that gave the Maccabees the courage to resist was their hope in what was to come. They believed that they would be raised again by their God to a glorious future. It was that hope that drove them to resist. It was that hope that gave them their courage. It was their courage that led to their conviction. We share that same hope in the resurrection. But do we share their conviction? Is our hope in eternal life with God enough to guide all our decisions, all our actions, even when faced with hardship and suffering?

Some things are worth living for.

Keep your eye on the prize. Our goal is no less than eternal life. All else in this life pales in comparison. Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his soul? Or what should a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Brothers and Sisters, may the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father,

Who has loved us and given us lasting encouragement,

And good hope through his grace,

Encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.

 

Finish Well

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Ex 17:8-13

2 Tim 3:14-4:2

Lk 18:1-8

 

Jim Redmond died two weeks ago at the age of 81. He was the father of Derek Redmond, the British sprinter who tore his hamstring in the 400 meter qualifying race in the 1992 Olympics. Upon Jim’s death the media ran clips again of that emotional moment in Barcelona when Derek pulled up limping early in the race. He fell to the ground and writhed in pain, but what was really excruciating to see was the agony in his face, the crushing disappointment that all those years of struggle, pain, training and preparation had come crashing down in an instant. He would not fulfill his dream of an Olympic medal after all.

 

Derek could have just laid there, but he struggled to his feet and began limping around the track. That determination to finish would in and of itself have been an heroic example of drive and perseverance, but suddenly a middle aged man came running onto the track. It was his father, Jim, who ran up behind his son, put his arm around him, and helped him limp along towards the finish line. You can imagine he had been there throughout his son’s entire track career, from high school through college, sacrificing alongside Derek, supporting him in his goal of winning Olympic gold. But for Jim it was more than just disappointment. Like any loving father he also felt the pain of his son’s agony. Like any good father he needed to be there to console his son, but even moreso, to continue to support him in the face of disaster. Jim could have told his son to stop, to make the pain go away, to give up. But instead he put his arm around him as he wept and they limped down the track together.

 

Several officials tried to stop him, because helping Derek would disqualify him from the race. Jim kept pushing them away. It was not just Derek’s race; it was Jim’s as well. It didn’t matter if they were disqualified. They had to finish. That was all that mattered. They had started this race years ago together and they had to finish it together. Jim had been there to celebrate all of Derek’s wins, now he was there also at the lowest point in his life. All you heard Jim say was “He’s my son, he’s my son.”

 

Derek never competed effectively again, and if he had won that race you probably would not remember his name today. But his heroic drive to finish, his persistence in the face of terrible disappointment and pain, made his performance, and his father’s actions that day, immortal. So much so that 30 years later his father was remembered for it on the day he died, and the inspiration millions of people have received from that moment in time is his legacy.

 

It’s not how you start that matters, it’s how you finish.

 

Excellence in anything requires hard work, sacrifice, preparation and practice. We believe this, it’s in our DNA. We have something deep within us that drives us and inspires us to win. It’s more than just a competitive spirit; when we have a worthy goal or purpose we can achieve amazing, unbelievable, heroic results. We see it in all areas of our lives, in sports, in our work, in our relationships, and we idolize our heroes who reach the pinnacle of their dreams, especially if they have had to overcome overwhelming obstacles.

 

There’s a reason why that drive is so much a part of human nature. It’s not just so we can succeed in our earthly goals. God put that drive in us to help us achieve the ultimate goal in life of our own salvation. Never, ever, ever give up on your faith. All other endeavors pale in comparison. Never cease to pray, to study, to train, to practice your faith. It doesn’t matter what setbacks you encounter in life. Keep your eye on the goal and persevere to the end. It’s all about finishing the race.

 

When Jesus told the disciples how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they threw up their hands in frustration and asked, “Then can anyone be saved?” Jesus gives us the key today. Be persistent in your prayer to the point of annoyance. Pray always and everywhere, pray constantly, make your entire life a prayer, never stop asking your Father for what you need, never stop praising him, never stop asking for forgiveness, never stop thanking him for his mercy. Never stop serving others. Never cease to love.

 

And if you tire, get your friends to help you. Like Moses in our first reading, when you just can’t keep doing it, when the battle seems lost, when there is no hope, surround yourself with people who will hold up your hands for you and keep you steady. Stay faithful together around the common goal and help each other get to heaven. Help each other be faithful. Faith cannot be experienced or lived outside of a community of believers. One person is not an army. Just as top athletes require coaching and support from others, you cannot be saved alone.

If we are truly to live the Kingdom of God, our faith cannot be something we just think about on Sundays or when we sit down at the dinner table. Our awareness of the presence of God must be foremost in our thoughts and in our actions. And so often it is the simple, mundane actions of our lives that can be the most heroic.

Be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient. We lost another hero this week. Fr. Gally died unexpectedly on Friday. You probably don’t know him, he was an immigrant from India who had served in our diocese for x years. One of his main ministries, other than being a pastor, was to visit the sick in the hospitals in Salt Lake City. My main experience with him was that each and every time I was looking for a priest to visit someone, especially someone who needed the anointing of the sick or last rites, Father Gally was the one who went. Immediately. No matter the time of day. He would drop everything and go. Whether it was convenient or not.

 

We usually expect that sort of devotion from our priests, don’t we? I mean, it’s their job, right? But they have the same busy lives as we do, they are pulled in so many different directions, they get tired and frustrated, too. Do we hold ourselves to the same standards? It’s inconvenient to drop everything to be by the side of a sick friend. Do it anyway. It’s hard to tear yourself away from your computer to listen to your teenager complain about what her friends did to her that day at school. Do it anyway. Never cease to do good. Never take your eye off of the people around you. Anticipate their needs. Never expect anything in return. Forgive one another constantly. Never hold back your love because you are not shown love in return. Never say it’s someone else’s job to care. It’s yours. Never rest on your laurels. Never give up on God because He has never and will never give up on you.

 

Image Jesus Christ who was persistent until the very end, giving his last ounce of strength and last drop of blood for your redemption. Even on the cross, he forgave those who were torturing him. Even if you run the race poorly you can finish well. He promised paradise to a criminal who at the very last moments of his life repented of his sins. Victory is yours for the taking if you never give up.

 

The story of Jim Redmond is a perfect metaphor for God. God is with us throughout our entire race. He coaches us, guides us, inspires us, and admonishes us. He rejoices with us in our victories and shares in our deepest disappointments and suffering. God doesn’t care how many times we fall and fail. He is there to pick us up from the ground, put his arm around us and limp along with us to the finish line. Like any good father would do.