There is a phrase heard at every Mass that should be familiar to us all. We hear the priest say it shortly before we receive Holy Communion. Before he says it, the priest is instructed to kneel as a sign of reverence, he pauses in silent adoration, and then slowly stands upright. With one hand holding the golden chalice, and the other, delicately lifting up the consecrated Body of Christ, the priest holds up the most treasured, holiest, and sacred part of the Catholic faith. Many of our ancestors went to their deaths because of this teaching, in fact many still do around the world (Christianity is the most persecuted religion on earth but I will save that topic for another day). As the priest lifts the Precious Body and Blood of our Lord before the eyes of all gathered in the church, he proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” This phrase we hear at every Mass is dense with profundity and meaning. It’s the theological version of a galactical neutron star. Luckily, the Gospel reading this Sunday allows us to scratch the surface of this phrase. 

It begins immediately with John the Baptist with two of his disciples. It’s important to recall here the mission of John. As the Gospel of Matthew tells us in chapter 3:1-12, John preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near…. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River…. I baptize you with  water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.”  His role was to bring people to confess their sins. If they did, they would be ready to receive the one who would come after him. We all know who that would be. It is Jesus Christ himself. Even though John got the people to confess their sins, he knew he could never take away the guilt of these sins. Divine justice demands hell for our transgressions. 

John understood this, as the son of a Jewish priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. He would have been familiar with the intricate religious rituals performed there, where Jews would come from all over the Roman Empire and bring animals to be killed. Around the clock, day and night, animals would be brought to the altar in front of the Temple, which represented the guilt of their sins. Then the priest would slaughter the animal as a sign of their sins being forgiven. To our modern ears, this is absolutely abhorrent and alien. In the ancient world, this was commonplace. Animals were offered up as a sacrifice in a religious act. But all of this was merely symbolic. How can sacrificing an animal truly take away the punishment that is due to me? It cannot! This is where the beauty and scandal of Christianity now shines forth. Jesus Christ is the true “Lamb of God”, whose blood will be shed on the cross. Precisely because Jesus is true God and true man, only he can pay the price for our sins through his death. The centuries of animal sacrifices have all been leading to this pivotal event. John the Baptist is the first to understand this, when he sees Jesus walking by and yells, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”