We have just concluded the Christmas season and are now in Ordinary time, which is not ordinary in the way the world defines it. In the Church, ordinary time is where Jesus teaches us how to live as his disciples, so we can be united in his mission of salvation. During this year in the Church, we would normally be hearing from the Gospel of Matthew, but we start off instead with the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel has a particular focus on the divine nature of Jesus from John the Baptist. Jesus is fully human and fully divine, but John the Baptist makes it known that Jesus is from God with a divine mission. In John’s Gospel we hear John the Baptist’s version of the Baptism of Jesus where he proclaims, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”. This phrase should be familiar to us, as we recite “Lamb of God” every Mass before we receive the Eucharist. Before receiving Holy Communion, the priest says “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who take away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.” After this we respond, “Lord, I am not worthy that you enter under my roof but only say the world and my soul shall be healed”.
What is our soul being healed from? From the sin that separates us from God. Jesus was sent from God as the Lamb of God, the suffering servant, who is sacrificed for us to take away our sins, so that we can be united with God. A little background of the Jewish tradition of sacrifice in the temple will help give some meaning of how this works. At the feast of the Passover, Jews would come to the temple to offer a lamb in sacrifice to God The person who brought the lamb would kill it before presenting it to the priest in the temple, who would then burn it as an offering to God. The killing the lamb was to signify what should happen to the person for the sins they had committed. The burning of the sacrificed lamb was done to repair the broken relationship with God caused by sin. While this offering of the lamb was done in good faith, it would never be enough to fully repair the relationship with God. The only way to completely restore the relationship as to offer a sacrifice of infinite value, which was Jesus the suffering servant, who is God. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice as the Lamb of God and Son of God who John the Baptist made known to the people.
John the Baptist also told us that Jesus would be the one who would baptize us with the Holy Spirit. Those of us who are baptized have received the Holy Spirit and have become adopted children of God. We have been born again in the Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we are united with Jesus in his mission to be a light to the nations and bring salvation to the world. This sounds like quite a tall task. How are we to do this? By simply living as a disciple of Jesus. As we go throughout Ordinary Time, we will be learning from Jesus over the next several weeks on how to be his disciple. When we come to Mass each Sunday with an open heart to receive his teachings we can be transformed as his children to change the culture one person as a time. We can do this by dying to our sinful ways and becoming a light to those arounds us. It can start with just some simple ways of being loving to others in our daily lives. As we go throughout the next several weeks we will hear from Jesus his teaching on the Beatitudes. I like to think of these as the attitudes of being like Jesus. He will also teach us about some new ways of understanding Jewish traditions.
I’d encourage each of us to sincerely receive one new idea each week and put it into practice with our family, friends, co-workers, and even those who may be a bit challenging to us. As adopted sons and daughters of God we can pray "Come Holy Spirit”, to help us live out the Beatitudes in our daily lives. By doing so we will be servants of God united with Jesus in his mission of bringing salvation to the world one person at a time.
