THE MISSION OF THE LAMB.

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January 14, 2024.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – B.

Readings: 1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19; Ps 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10; 1 Cor6:13c-15a, 17-20; Jn 1:35-42.

"Behold, the Lamb of God." Jn 1:36

A Kenyan proverb says: “It is not the lamb that should go and ask the lion if it has had dinner.” A Bantu proverb adds: “It is when one holds the sacrificial lamb that he begins to seek the gods.”

Baptism not only confers unto us an identity, but it is an identity that comes with a mission. So, Baptism gives us a mission. Last Monday, with sobriety, but with joy as well, we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord. That marked the end of the Christmas season and the time of the infancy of Jesus. It was also the beginning of his ordinary and public life. We are today, the 2nd Sunday in the Ordinary Time B, and through the Prophet John, Jesus is introduced to us as the Lamb of God. It is an image that bears a very singular and significant meaning. He is the "Lamb," the sacrificial victim, the one whose mission is to die for others, to be killed in expiation for others' faults.

In the Jewish tradition and old Judaism, the lamb was sacrificed at the first Passover, on the eve of the Exodus from Egypt, the most momentous event in Jewish history. The lamb stands as a sacrificial victim, a victim of expiation. Through the offering of the blood of the lamb, God's mercy was obtained for people's sin and their protection (Exodus 12). The lamb stands also as an oblation, a covenantal sacrifice. We have, for example, the episode where Abraham was asked by the Lord to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice. When he showed his firm faith in the Lord, instead of Isaac being sacrificed, God offered him a lamb to be offered, and this sealed forever God's covenant with Abraham and his house. (Genesis 22)

Borrowing from this Jewish meaning, Jesus is introduced at the start of his public ministry as the Lamb of God. Let us not forget another aspect of the lamb. It is a quiet, helpless animal. It is also very sensitive; wherever it receives a knock, the lamb feels it in every part of its body. So, Jesus is given this identity of sensitivity, docility, and simplicity in order to share truly in our humanity.

The words of John have turned into a refrain that we repeat at every Eucharistic celebration: "Behold, the lamb of God..." The Catechism says: "Jesus is the Father's Emissary. From the beginning of his ministry, he "called to him those whom he desired; ... And he appointed twelve, whom also he named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach." From then on, they would also be his "emissaries" (Greek apostoloi). In them, Christ continues his own mission: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." The apostles' ministry is the continuation of his mission; Jesus said to the Twelve: "he who receives you receives me."" CCC 858

So, here we are at the beginning of Jesus mission. And yet, the end of this mission is already foreseen. He will be offered as a sacrificial victim of expiation for the sins of all.

The Word of God tries to make clear to us how we arrive at Jesus. In the first reading, we have the beautiful message of the vocation of Samuel and the mediative word of the old man Eli. Samuel will get to know that it is God calling him through Eli's advice and guidance. “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Like the young Samuel, each one of us vocation's is made clear to us through human mediation.

In the Gospel, this mediation is made quite clearer. John played the mediation for Andrew and his companion, and Andrew for Simon his brother… Through the help of others, we get to know the Lord, and we also get to understand our calling. No one can become a saint alone and by himself. Holiness is a journey we do together with others. It is by living as a community that we build the perfect body of Christ, of which each one is a member. We should, thus, learn to journey as a community with a concern for the needs and the holiness of each other.

And St. Paul, in the second reading, comes with another exhortation and warning. He invites us to live as completely new people with new life. To embrace Jesus or to answer his call requires categorical change, live holy and irreproachable life, aware that our body and our whole beings belong no longer to us, but to Christ. And that change goes even to the embracing of a new identity: “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas…” Ordinary time, therefore, is the time par excellence of renewal, the time of change and of daily and continuous conversion. With Jesus, let us embrace our mission day by day and become those lambs ready to offer their lives for others.

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