Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Vigil

January 18, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/1.17.20_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3

 

The following text guided the homily: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday.

* This Sunday we revisit the scene that we marked last week, celebrating the feast of Jesus’ Baptism. Last week we heard St. Matthew’s version, which focuses mainly on the facts of what happened. Today we hear St. John the Evangelist’s account, which concentrates more on the perspective of St. John the Baptist. And we see something surprising if not shocking. The Baptist says that that the whole reason for his mission, the point of his life, the purpose for which he was baptizing with water at the Jordan, was so that he would be able to point out the one who was coming after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. And when that long-awaited person came, the Baptist didn’t cry out, “Behold the Lord!,” “Behold the Messiah!,” “Look! The Son of God!,” “Here is the Savior, the King of Jews and King of Kings, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life,” — or any of the other fitting titles that would have filled his listeners with awe at the incredible majesty of the One whose sandal strap John was saying he wasn’t worthy to untie.  Instead he used an expression that was not majestic at all: “Behold the Lamb of God!”

* We have grown so accustomed to the phrase “Lamb of God” — which we use in the Gloria, sing or say three times in the prayer called the Lamb of God, and hear the priest say when, echoing the very words of John the Baptist, he holds Jesus in his elevated hands as tells us to behold him — that many of us no longer sense what the Jews would have felt when the Baptist referred to Jesus in this way. Imagine, however, that someone said to you, “Look! There is the pigeon of heaven! Or behold the squirrel of the Almighty! Or welcome the chihuahua of God!” Your reaction would be something similar to the first reaction of the Jews to Jesus when they heard the term lamb. Lambs aren’t high on our list of beloved and admired animals. They’re not noted for their strength, or looks. They’re not impressive like elephants or tigers, stallions, bulls or eagles.

* Jesus, however, identified with the humble attributes of the lamb. He identified with the lamb sacrificed by Abel that was pleasing to God; with the lamb that God provided for Abraham’s sacrifice so that Isaac wouldn’t die; with lambs whose blood was placed on the lintels of the Jews during the Passover; with the lambs that were offered each day to God in the Temple in atonement for sins. Jesus assimilated in himself the identity and sacrificial purpose of the Lamb in Jewish mentality to become precisely the acceptable sacrifice offered to the Lord to take away the sins not just of the Jews but of the whole world. Beholding Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Jews were invited to see something far greater at work than just a carpenter from Nazareth, but the fulfillment of all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant, the realization of the much-prophesied work of the long-awaited Messiah. They were challenged to see in him something far greater than met the eye. And through the Baptist’s words and work, God was calling all of them to relate to Jesus under this title, to allow him to take away their sins and, later, to eat him, just like the Jews needed to eat the Passover lamb to be freed from Pharaoh and ...