Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR A SECOND SUNDAY - 16.1.05 Is 49,3.5-6; 1 Cor 1,1-3; Jn 1,29-34 Meant to be life-giving Gentle
as a Lamb. For
centuries, people have found meaning in symbols of sheep & lambs who need
human assistance for their food, water & defence: The insight that sheep depend on human care for survival, just as we ourselves do, has
created many charming images in our Bible: these images help us appreciate how
gentle God’s care is for us. Lambs & sheep provide an instant parallel to
describe human weakness & innocent helplessness. This nuance is strong in
Psalm 22: ‘The Lord’s my shepherd, near restful waters he leads me, my cup
is overflowing’. A lamb’s blind trust is
strong also in Gen 22,8, where Isaac is led to be sacrificed, unresisting as a
lamb that is led to the slaughter-ground. Isaac here is totally unable to tell
friend from foe, and trusts fully, as he asks:
‘Where is the lamb for sacrifice?’ And Abraham replies: ‘God will
provide’. Another powerful nuance
is found in the touching parable that Prophet Nathan told
King David (2Sam12,3): it compares the love of a young couple (Uriah
& Bathsheba) to a love that a poor man feels for his cherished lamb: ‘A
poor man had nothing but a lamb: this he fed & it grew with him, eating his bread, drinking from his
cup, sleeping on his breast: it was like a child to him’...
Today, we fail to appreciate how important sheep & lambs were in
ancient Israel, (as are in Judaism today). Real lambs were & are needed to
celebrate the great Passover, and real lambs were and are slain. In Exodus 12,
Yahweh instructed the Israelites to slay a lamb & splash its blood on their
door, so that Yahweh will ‘pass-over’ their homes and spare them from death.
And in Exodus 29+, Yahweh’s covenant states that real lambs are be sacrificed
to celebrate Passover each year... Jesus:
Gentle Lamb of God.
In Judaism, Yahweh is indeed ‘full of tenderness & com-passion,
slow to anger and rich in faithfulness’ (Ex. 34,6), but is never linked with
being himself a slain lamb. To Jews:Yahweh is a warrior, covered in glory
(Ex.15, 1). We Christians however
make a bold claim: that -in Jesus- God himself is that slain lamb. To claim this
we quote the ‘Servant-Song’ of Isaiah, whose crucial words are 53, 6+: ‘We
had all gone astray like lost sheep,... & Yahweh burdened him with the
sins of us all, harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, never opened his
mouth: like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb
before its shearers, not opening its mouth’.. For us, Jesus Crucified is more than an innocent sufferer, more than a blameless victim, he is a substitute victim, who was burdened with the sins of us all. From this conviction, we derive our compassion (= suffer with) for our Saviour. With St Paul we say: God did spare Isaac’s life by substituting a victim-lamb (ram). And God did spare the first-born of the Israelites by substituting lamb’s blood; but when it came to Jesus on Calvary, he was not spared, such was the excess of God’s love for us. There is a deep connection between the prophetic words of Isaiah (quoted above) & Christ’s death on the cross. In his death, the centre of sympathy stayed till the bitter end with the lamb, not with the unbound child (Isaac) or the unslain Israelites! Amazingly in Ps. 22, the feeling that we are cherished sheep in God’s arms is strong and enjoyable, but in Isaiah’s “Servant” there is an emotio- nal displacement: “He=Jesus” is that slain lamb, he is that shorn sheep. Only from this conviction flows our compassionate prayer & life-style: we proclaim that Jesus poured out his life ‘for us & for all’, we commit our life to be Christ-like, life-giving, a life for others. And pray: Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. ______________________________________ |
