Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Fr. Ben Riley

This Sunday we return to the liturgical season of ordinary time, and the Church gives us a rather extraordinary reading. It’s taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. And it has to do with John the Baptist.

Now every time the gospels give us John the Baptist, we are compelled to see Jesus through him. He provides a kind of interpretive lens for understanding Jesus. So, whenever John is speaking, we should pay very close attention. And here’s what he says. We repeat this, at every single Mass. “John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” We Catholics hear that all the time. It’s said that every single Mass, but I would suggest that a lot of us, a lot of Christians in general, even those who were pretty Faithfull, don’t really know what that phrase means. “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” Jesus is a lamb, he’s an animal. Well, outside of the Jewish context this sounds kind of odd. Some might say it means that Jesus is innocent and gentle like a lamb. And yes, fair enough, Jesus is innocent and gentle. But john is saying much more than that.

John, remember, is the son of a priest. That means he grew up in the temple. That means, he was very familiar with what happened in the temple, and the temple was, above all, a place of animal sacrifice. If we could get into a time machine and could go back to the ancient world, we would be very surprised by the prevalence of animal sacrifice. Not just in the Jewish cultural, but in almost every ancient culture. Animal sacrifice was a basic religious practice.

How then, does the killing of an animal, and the offering up of its body in a fiery sacrifice, how does the pouring out of the animal’s blood, deal with sin? Well, this runs like a golden thread through the whole scriptures. Who are some of the people that performed sacrifices?

Abel, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha. All of them performed sacrifices. Why? Because God commanded them to. We make reparations for our sin by penance, and what a profound penance, what a profound sacrifice, in the ancient world especially. To offer to God an animal, your very sustenance. The temple was a place of sacrifice for centuries. Think of the millions of animals that were slaughtered in the temple. They say that you could smell the temple before you saw. It would have been like some combination of a slaughterhouse and a BBQ.

So again, what’s the point? How does this even make sense? How does it work? That sacrificing of this Lamb of God will take away the sins of the world? Well, before I try to explain it, let me give just one more point.

We Catholics, we come to Mass, and we do indeed hear the Word of God proclaimed, but at the heart of the Mass is not a pulpit. At the heart of the Mass is the altar. That’s where the sacrifice takes place. That’s where the priest, not just a minister or a proclaimer of the Word, but the priest. Someone who performs a sacrifice is doing the work at that altar. This idea, of the Lamb of God is central to the basic worship in the church.

Okay, so John the Baptist says it. The whole Jewish tradition anticipates it. The Mass embodies it. So what exactly is it, and how does it work? Well, there’s many things we could say about it. But as always, an analogy in this instance could be helpful.

So, I don’t know much about cars. Other than changing a tire and jumpstarting the battery, if something was broken on my car. I would not know how to fix it. I would take it to a mechanic. He may order a needed part or pull parts off of another car. But it doesn’t matter how many other broken-down cars the mechanic has, it doesn’t matter how many spare parts. Eventually, someone who actually knows how to fix the car, is going to have to open up the hood and get their hands dirty. Maybe they are going to have to get under the car. Eventually, someone is going to have to, make a sacrifice. If he’s going to fix the problem with that car, it doesn’t matter how many spare parts he has. That’s not enough. And it’s not enough just to know what the problem is. He’s got to make the sacrificial move, by which he enters into the dysfunction to fix it.

Now think of the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes as savior, healer. He comes to solve a problem, to fix something that’s broken. Well, what’s broken? We are. Were broken. We are off kilter, due to sin. We remain fundamentally good, because we are creatures of God made in His image and likeness. Yes. But there’s something the matter with us. We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. The Bible says “there’s not one righteous man, no not one.”

And what’s not going to solve our problem. Let’s line up all kinds of broken people, like extra parts for a broken car. Let’s get all the philosophers, all the psychologists, sociologists, historians. Are they gonna solve the problem? Well no. Because they are just as broken as anybody else. Let’s get all the politicians. Have the right social reforms and system of Government. Well, how has that worked out? The car can’t be fixed by having a bunch of spare parts. You need somebody, first of all, who knows the problem, and how to fix it.

Might I suggest, that the maker of human life, the creator of all existence, the one who fashioned your soul, might be the one who best understands the problem, and how to fix it. How is it fixed? Well, someone’s got to come from outside of the dysfunction, take that next step, more than just knowing what to do, and He has to get down into the muck, into the mess, into the blood and the guts of that sacrifice. All the pain, all the suffering, all the sorrow. Into the dysfunctional of the human heart.

What happened on that cross? Christ, God Incarnate, entered into human depravity, and sin, and dysfunction, cruelty, and hatred, violence, and injustice and corruption, all of it. He entered into it, so He could fix it from the inside.

To bring the divine love precisely where it’s most needed.

A sacrifice had to be made. A sacrifice had to be performed by someone above the sin. The sinless son of God. But the sinless son of God couldn’t remain isolated in his heaven, making pronouncements. No. God so loved the world that he sent his only son. Into our humanity, into our brokenness, accepting even death, death on a cross. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”