January 20, 2008

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

January 20, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 1:29-34

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” These words from today’s Gospel ought to be familiar to those of us who assist at Sunday and daily Mass each week. They are familiar because they are the basis for the Agnus Dei, the hymn we pray with the Celebrant as we prepare to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know how it goes: “O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.” All of us should understand what we are saying when we repeat these words, as well as what John the Baptist was talking about in today’s Gospel. So this morning, I am going to explain what it means to confess that Jesus is the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.

The first thing we must do to understand the term “the Lamb of God” is to look at the Old Testament and the significance of the lamb. The lamb, we will recall, was the required sacrifice of each Jewish family in Egypt on the night of the Passover. Each family slaughtered a lamb which they were to eat in haste, with their loins girded, sandals on their feet, and with staffs in their hands (Exodus 12:11). But the blood of the lamb they were to put upon the doorpost as a sign to the Angel of God that a Jewish family lived therein. The blood was a sign to the angel to PASS OVER the Jewish house, to spare the first-born son who lived in the house and to strike down the first born in only those houses that lacked the lamb’s blood on the doorpost.

At the end of Passover night, the Egyptians who held the Jews as slaves woke to find that God had indeed struck down their first-born sons. With this last devastating sign, the Pharaoh at last agreed to allow the Jews to leave Egypt and journey to the Promised Land, the land God had pledged to the Israelite forefathers. In short, the lamb’s blood saved the Jewish people from their Egyptian overlords and spared them from the death and destruction that the Egyptians had had to suffer.

Every Jew of Jesus’ day would have recognized the significance of the lamb. Observant Jews today would recognize the significance of the lamb. And here is John the Baptist calling Jesus “the Lamb of God”. We see immediately then that the sacrifice of Jesus is being predicted. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb whose blood will spare people from the wrath of God. By the blood of Jesus, God will pass over those for whom Jesus has been sacrificed.

But John makes clear that Jesus is not just any lamb. He is the Lamb of God, and he takes away the sins of the world. Whereas the Passover lamb of the Jews was sacrificed for God, Jesus is THE Lamb of God, God’s own lamb. And, whereas the Passover lamb of the Jews was sacrificed to preserve them, the chosen people, Jesus is sacrificed for the sins of not just the Jews, but of the entire world. In Jesus, the Passover is not simply to save the Jews from those who oppress them. In Jesus, the Lamb is sacrificed to save all those who are oppressed by sin. That is, God Himself provides the Lamb whose Blood will save everyone from what oppresses all mankind, sin and its consequence, death.

Herein we see a massive expansion of the scope of God’s plan, at least as it was understood up to that time. Jesus is to save not only the Jews but the Gentiles also. Quite simply, the Messiah is for everyone.

But what of His Blood? Do we smear it on the doorpost as a signal for God to pass over our houses and spare us? Obviously not. We see that the title, the Lamb of God, is profoundly Eucharistic. The Blood that spares us is no longer merely a symbol, a sign to indicate that we have made the requisite sacrifice to warrant the mercy of God. The Blood of Jesus is indeed a sign, but it is so much more, as well.

The Blood of Jesus that spares us is the Blood we consume in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Not only does our consumption of the Blood indicate that we desire God should spare us. Our consumption of the Blood of the Lamb of God is the very means by which we are spared. We learn later in John’s Gospel the words of Jesus himself, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall have no life in you” (John 6:53). This Lamb of God is very different from the Passover lamb of the Jews. In eating the Passover lamb, they prepared for their journey to the Promised Land. When we eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood, we are made ready to inherit our eternal home: we are made ready to journey to Heaven, to stand before the Lamb who dies, but who lives again. This is why, when a Catholic is sick and dying in the hospital, the priest comes to his bedside and administers to him the Viaticum, the Holy Communion that will give him the strength to pass from this life through death to the life to come.

Holy Communion with the Lamb of God then is so much more than a symbol. The Lamb’s Blood has the power to cleanse us of our sins, and in Holy Communion we consume this Blood, and it cleanses us.

This hymn we sing before we receive our Lord’s Body and Blood is thus a confession. We confess that we are sinners, that we require the Blood of the Lamb of God if we are to be made ready to journey to our heavenly home. Therefore, we say, “have mercy upon us.” But this is also a confession that this same Blood is the means by which we will be made ready. Because the Blood of the Lamb of God has the power to accomplish the purification we require, we do not end the hymn begging for mercy. Instead, we say, “Grant us peace.” Therefore, we express our faith, our confidence, that the Blood we are about to consume will remove the stain we have just admitted is ours. The mercy we ask for is the peace that comes in having received forgiveness by the Blood of the Lamb. The Christian Passover is hence more, much more, than that of our Jewish brothers. By their Passover, they avoided death. By ours, we not only avoid death, we receive eternal life.

I hope that today you will sing the Agnus Dei as you have never sung it before, with gratitude for the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and who, in the Holy Eucharist, gives us his own Blood that the mercy we require and the peace we hope for will be ours both now and forever.