JESUS, THE LAMB OF GOD
This Sunday’s Gospel starts with a strange proclamation about Jesus, made by John the Baptist. Seeing Jesus passing by, he told the two disciples with him: “Look, there is the lamb of God.” (Jn 1:36).
This is a proclamation of faith, and the Church considers it so important that she repeats it three times during the Eucharistic celebration. This proclamation is an affirmation about Jesus’ mission of salvation.
The words “lamb of God” bring to our minds two passages of the Old Testament:
The Passover lamb
In Ex 12, each family is ordered to get a lamb “without blemish” to be slaughtered, and to use its blood to mark the doorposts and lintel of the houses, so that those houses are passed over, remaining untouched by the destruction that is going to fall upon the Egyptians. In remembrance of that night of liberation, every year, in the great feast of Passover, the Israelites sacrificed lambs in celebration of their redemption from slavery.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter
In Is 53:7, the Servant of the Lord is compared to a “lamb that is led to the slaughter”, suffering in silence, without opening his mouth. However, “Moreit was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured”; in fact, “he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.” (Is 53:4-5).
Jesus is the true lamb who offered himself in sacrifice. He is the sacrifice of the new liberation from the slavery of sin; he died for our sins, in order to reconcile us with God and with ourselves, setting us free and enabling us to be recognised as God’s children. Jesus is the new Passover sacrifice; he is a sacrifice of reconciliation and peace, and a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.
“Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us and bring us peace”.
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