2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

VIDEO

John the Baptist, 
who featured so prominently 
in our Advent liturgies,
returns to us today as we embark 
on what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.”
Only now the word he speaks to us
is not “prepare the way of the Lord,”
but “behold the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sin of the world.”
The time of preparation has passed
and we are told to cast our eyes
upon the savior 
for whom we have 
been preparing.

But the life of a Christian
doesn’t really divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
as if, after a period of preparation
we are now ready to behold.
For what we are bidden to behold
is a mystery so profound
and a love so immense
that our minds fail in comprehension.
We are called to behold the Lamb 
who bears not simply our sins,
but the sin of the entire world,
the servant to whom God says,
“I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach 
to the ends of the earth.”
In beholding, we find ourselves
pitifully unprepared, 
totally incapable of receiving 
the one whom we behold,
not simply because of our sins
but because of the surpassing greatness of his love.

Think of how the words of John the Baptist
feature in our liturgy each week.
Before communion we are invited 
to behold the Lamb of God,
to behold the one who takes away
the sin of the world.
And how do we respond?
“Lord, I am not worthy…”
I am not worthy even though
I have confessed my sins 
and acclaimed your glory.
I am not worthy even though
I have listened to your word
and professed my faith in response.
I am not worthy even though 
I have offered my prayers 
and gifts at your altar
and cried out to the Lamb 
for mercy and peace.
I am not worthy even though
I have spent the entire liturgy
preparing for this moment,
because when now confronted 
with the reality
of the mystery of God’s love
present body and blood, 
soul and divinity,
in the power of the Spirit,
all my preparation seems as nothing.
I am not worthy to have you 
enter under my roof
not because I am sinful,
but because your love is so great
that the house of my soul cannot contain it.

We might be tempted to think 
that what is called for
is more preparation, 
more work to be done
before we can receive him,
more earnest effort on our part 
to enlarge the house of our soul.
But this is not the word
Christ speaks to us at that moment.
Rather, he says “blessed are those
who are called to the supper of the Lamb.”
Blessed are those called to feast on the one
who takes away the sin of the world.
Blessed are those to whom he says “come,”
to whom he speaks the word that is healing 
for our cramped, little souls.

For when Christ enters us sacramentally
the walls of our souls are pressed outward
by a love exceeding every human love,
the love that encompasses all,
the love that takes away the sin of the world.
The book of Sirach (24:21) says,
“He who eats of me will hunger still,
he who drinks of me will thirst for more.” 
The supper of the Lamb,
expanding our souls, 
only makes us hungrier—
hungrier to love him
and hungrier to love as he loves:
loving the enemy and the sinful,
loving the outcast and the stranger,
loving scandalously and without measure.

The life of a Christian
doesn’t divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
but there is a kind of rhythm to it.
We prepare,
we behold,
we receive,
and in receiving we are drawn into
a more rigorous kind of preparing,
a more perceptive sort of beholding,
a more profound way of receiving.
We confess our sins, knowing that,
despite our firm resolution of amendment,
we must still strive not to sin again.
We hear God’s word, knowing that, 
because we see still dimly, as in a mirror,
we must always listen to it anew.
We receive God’s grace, knowing that,
if God’s Spirit is to lodge in us,
then the house of our soul 
will once again have to be enlarged.

Becoming a Christian is not 
a one-and-done affair
in which, having prepared,
we now behold and receive.
The life of a Christian is not a straight line
but a kind of forward-moving spiral,
in which preparing, beholding, and receiving
are recurring moments along the way
of our pilgrimage into the mystery of divine love.
Thanks be to God that Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of our faith
joins us on that spiraling journey 
to the supper of the Lamb.
Lamb of God, 
who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us and grant us your peace.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

“If you see something, say something.”
This is the vaguely Big Brother-ish
post-September 11, 2001 slogan
of various U.S. security agencies,
encouraging Americans to keep
a suspicious eye on each other.
But, in a very different sense,
it might also serve
as the slogan for today’s Gospel:
“John the Baptist saw Jesus
coming toward him and said,
‘Behold, the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.’”
John saw something
and he said something.

A prophet is someone who is gifted
with a keen eye and a persistent voice.
And John the Baptist—
the last prophet of the Old Covenant—
has a particularly sharp eye.
He reads the signs of the times
in the light of Scripture,
and he keeps his eyes open,
looking not for potential threats,
but for the savior
whom God has promised to his people.
He also speaks out persistently,
crying out in the wilderness of fading hope,
“prepare the way of the Lord,”
unafraid of the religious and political leaders
who would silence him.
The prophet sees something
and he says something
so that others can see what he sees.

And what John the Baptist sees is the Lamb of God.
Others might have seen simply a young man
of undistinguished background
from an unimportant northern village,
who had no particular potential or promise.
But the keen eye of John, the eye of faith,
sees in Jesus the fulfillment of the promise of God.
John sees something and says something
so that we can see what he sees:
“Behold”—look! see!—“the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.”

In acclaiming Jesus as the “Lamb of God,”
John evokes a host of images from the Scriptures of Israel:
the Passover lamb whose blood marked the doorposts
of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt,
sheltering them from the angel of death;
the lambs sacrificed every morning and evening
in the Jerusalem temple to offer honor to God;
the servant of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah
who would be “led like a lamb to the slaughter”;
even the scapegoat that symbolically bore
the sins of the Israelites out into the wilderness.
John says what he sees in Jesus
so that we can see it too:
here is one who would bear away
not just the sins of the people Israel,
but the sins of the entire world,
who would rescue us
from the ancient curse of death
that afflicts the human family,
so that, as God says in our first reading,
“my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

A prophet has a keen eye and a persistent voice,
and John’s voice persists even today,
in the words of our liturgy:
when we sing the Gloria, John still acclaims Jesus
as “Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father”;
when the bread of Christ’s body is broken,
John still implores the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world
to grant his mercy and his peace
to us and to our troubled world;
when the priest invites us to communion,
John’s words still invite us to see what he saw:
“Behold the Lamb of God.”

Do we see it?
Do we see the Lamb of God,
the bearer of all our sins and sorrows,
present in his gathered people,
present in his word proclaimed,
present in the gift of himself in the Eucharist?
Perhaps it takes the keen eye of the prophet
to be able to see the Lamb here present
within the motley assembly of the Church,
within the often puzzling words of Scripture,
within the simple gifts of bread and wine.
But John tells us that Jesus has come
to baptize us with the same Spirit
that descended on him at his baptism,
to give us the eyes of a prophet,
eyes of faith to glimpse the Lamb
now present here in mystery.
This is what the gift of God’s Spirit does:
makes us able to see the Lamb of God
who is here with us now,
veiled in sacramental signs.

So if we see something,
do we say something?
Do we keep to ourselves
what we see with the eyes of faith,
or do we, like John, speak out,
perhaps at cost to ourselves,
so that others can see what we see?
We, no less than John,
have been given a prophet’s eyes
to see what is hidden
and a prophet’s voice,
to say what we see.
We, no less than John,
are called to be,
in fear and trembling
and with all due humility,
Christ’s heralds to others
so that they too might praise Jesus
as Lord, Lamb, and Son;
so that they too might implore his mercy and peace
on our broken and warring world;
so that they too might know themselves
graciously invited to the banquet of life.
If you see something, say something,
because the world waits to know
what can be seen with the eyes of faith.
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Click here for the video of this homily.