{"id":2450,"date":"2014-01-01T14:30:46","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2014-01-01T14:30:46","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T14:30:46","slug":"behold-the-lamb-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/behold-the-lamb-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Behold the Lamb of God"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"lamb<\/a><\/h5>\n
January \u00a020, 2008<\/h5>\n

John 1:\u00a0 29 \u2013 34<\/h3>\n

The scriptures use images to try to tell us who God is and who Jesus is. In today\u2019s Gospel we receive a very important image. When John the Baptist sees Jesus coming towards him he says, \u201cBehold the Lamb of God.\u201d Now what does this image mean? Why does John call Jesus a lamb? It seems like such a soft symbol. Is John saying Jesus is cute and cuddly? Not at all. Anyone at the time of Jesus would know immediately the significance of a lamb. Lambs were associated with sacrifice. In the temple of Jerusalem lambs were killed to atone for the sins of Israel. So when John calls Jesus a lamb, he is pointing to Jesus\u2019 sacrifice on the cross. A sacrifice which we believe atones for our sins and reconciles us to God. But what makes Jesus\u2019 sacrifice effective is not that it is bloody but that it is motivated by love. And so calling Jesus a lamb is pointing to Jesus\u2019 sacrificial love by which we are saved. We are called to imitate Jesus’ action, to live with sacrificial love.<\/p>\n

He was eight years old and in a hospital room anticipating a serious operation. He was afraid. He asked his doctor, \u201cWhat is it like to die?\u201d His doctor said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to die, don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d The nurses and the medical staff assured him there was nothing to worry about and that he should put his fear out of his mind. But no one would speak to him about death. So he continued to be afraid. One night a woman on the maintenance staff came in to mop the floor of his room. The boy asked her, \u201cAre you afraid to die?\u201d \u201cYes I am,\u201d she said and she put down her mop and pulled a chair up to his bed. \u201cI am afraid but I believe that God is with me.\u201d She spoke to the boy as an equal not as a superior. She told him of her belief of God and the comfort that she took in the words of Jesus. The two of them spoke for some time. When she left, he was at peace because someone had hear his question and listened to his fear.\u00a0Behold the Lamb of God.<\/i><\/p>\n

You had a tough day at school and yes today you have homework. Before you get to it, you are spending some time at the computer surfing the net. You notice through the window that your mother has just pulled into the driveway and opened the trunk. The trunk is filled with groceries. Funny, but you never reflected before on how many groceries it takes to feed your family. The bags look heavy, and your mom looks tired. Exhausted would be a better word. She gets that way after running around for hours. You turn back to the computer screen, but then you stop and you make a decision. You put on your coat and go out into the driveway and help her carry the heavy bags into the kitchen. Then you say to her \u201cI\u2019ll put these away. I know where they go.\u201d\u00a0Behold the Lamb of God.<\/i><\/p>\n

She was only 27 and in the last month lost both her father and her mother. Her husband and she did not know how to cope with the loss. They never faced anything like this before. She was devastated and found it difficult at times to make it through the day. Her husband for his part felt keenly inadequate. He could not figure out what to do to lift her grief. Then the evening came for them to go and see the musical\u00a0Wicked<\/i>. They had bought tickets months ago. Two of the leads sang a song that reminded her of her mother and she began to weep. Suddenly her husband realized what his role was\u2014to hold her hand, to have the Kleenexes ready, and to let her know that he would still be there when the music ended and the lights came back on.\u00a0Behold the Lamb of God.<\/i><\/p>\n

Every day you and I have opportunities to act with sacrificial love, to set aside our agenda and our priorities and to reach out to someone else in generosity and compassion. Every time we take up one of those opportunities, the Lamb of God continues to walk in our midst. Christ uses our actions of sacrificial love to continue to bless and heal. When we seize the opportunities that are presented, Christ continues to save the world through us.<\/p>\n

More homilies for A: The 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Lamb of God, Jesus\u2019 sacrifice is effective not because it is bloody but because it is motivated by love. We are called to follow Jesus’ example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5879,"featured_media":2452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homilies","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33","resize-featured-image"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/files\/2014\/01\/lamb-of-God.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5879"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buildingontheword.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}