SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A

[cappie]

In Today’s Gospel, when Jesus walked by John announced to his followers, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! “, what were they to make of such an improbable claim? If they had the slightest familiarity of their faith and religious tradition, two words stood out. They were “lamb” and “sins.”

The edifice of first century Judaism was based on two traditions. The older, the one that placed the Temple centre stage, invoked memories of their father Abraham, as he attempted to offer his wife Sarah’s only son Isaac as a human sacrifice. In the story God’s messenger instructed Abraham to substitute an available animal, a goat, for his son. The story  is the step it makes from barbarism to a more benign concept of substitution. God was going to accept an animal, as a blood offering by which the person, family, tribe or nation were “atoned,” made one with their Creator. Around this system grew the Tabernacle and then the Temple cult, supervised by an hereditary priesthood descended from Moses’ brother-in-law Aaron.

The second vital part of Jewish religion in the days of Jesus was the synagogue system. The Old Testament tells the story of Israel, torn apart, situated between aggressive world powers, conquered again and again. The conquering powers sought to cower the Jewish people by destroying its visible connection with God. Those Jewish people taken hostage “by the waters of Babylon” not only wept; they gathered together to hear their Scriptures read by authorized teachers. In first century, Palestine Temple worship, with its substitutionary sacrifices, situated in Jerusalem, jostled together with synagogue practice, hearing and receiving the Scriptures and applying them to daily life.

Servant and Son, our Lord was sent to lead a new exodus—to raise up the exiled tribes of Israel, to gather and restore them to God. More than that, He was to be a light to the nations, that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Before the first exodus, a lamb was offered in sacrifice and its blood painted on the Israelites’ door posts. The blood of the lamb identified their homes and the Lord “passed over” these in executing judgment on the Egyptians.

In the new exodus, Jesus is the “Lamb of God,” as John beholds Him in the Gospel today.

The sacrifices, oblations, holocausts, and sin-offerings given after the first exodus had no power to take away sins.  They were meant not to save but to teach. In offering these sacrifices, the people were to learn self-sacrifice—that they were made for worship, to offer themselves freely to God and to do in His will.

Only Jesus could make that perfect offering of Himself. And through His sacrifice, He has given us ears open to obedience and made it possible for us to hear the Father’s call to holiness, as Paul says in today’s Second Reading

Today’s Gospel, in a Person, Jesus is the sacrificial lamb, “who died that we might be forgiven, who died to make us good.” Jesus is also Rabbi, the authorized teacher, in whom God’s law is renewed and applied to the new citizens in his chosen nation.

Our minds are best focused on the Eucharist, rather than on theories of how Atonement works, on a Person rather than a theory.

In the Holy Mass, we re-member. We bring to life in the here and now, the sacrifice, once offered for the sins of the entire world. We eat and drink, ingest, the life of Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Before we reach that point in the service, we hear Jesus the Rabbi, the authorized teacher, expounding to us God’s law, the words Jews heard at the time of Jesus and the words Christians have heard since the time of Jesus. And we corporately confess our misdeeds, missteps and flirtations with evil.

We do so as God’s community of priests, as we stand between God and the human race, the nations, the Church, our families and ourselves.

Here this morning, look up, and with the mind of faith see the Lamb of God, and in your hearts pray, “ Have mercy on us. Grant us peace.”