2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Vinner)

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

Jesus is our Lord! John the Baptist gives this testimony but it also reflects the testimony of the whole of Jewish scripture, which we call our Old Testament. Jesus is God with us, Emmanuel. Jesus comes to take the burden of our sins on himself and becomes the Paschal Lamb. All of this simply reflects the fact that God loves us and give himself to us and for us. And we can respond: thanks to be God. The first reading: Bible Scholars have called this and three similar passages from this section of Isaiah (chapters 40-55), the “Songs of the Suffering Servant.” Today’s selection is from the second Servant Song. In the original author’s mind, the servant was probably a figure for the people of Israel, or for a faithful remnant within the people. The Gospels clearly show that the “suffering servant” is Jesus. The early Church, saw aspects of Jesus’ own life and mission foreshadowed in the Servant Songs, and the Church today refers to all of them throughout the liturgical year.

The second reading is the beginning of Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, with heading, inside address, and salutation, all in sentence form. The letter is for all members of the Church at Corinth. Corinth was a bawdy seaport in cosmopolitan Greece. The vices of every seaport, plus the philosophical ferment of ancient Greece, were part of these peoples’ lives and gave rise, in part, to the need for this letter. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are “sanctified and called to be Holy,” like all who call on the name of Jesus in Faith. Jesus is the Lamb of God. “Look there! The Lamb of God”, said St. John the Baptist. Yes. The Lamb went to his slaughter in silence but in strength, for the redemption of many, which he does even today. As you know when a tiger dies, it leaves only its skin and when we die, many of us leave only our ashes: but when Jesus died, he left his name. Therefore, in the name of the Lamb of God, his followers even today continue to take away the sins of many and continue to sacrifice their very lives to liberate those who suffer as victims of poverty, injustice, oppression, racial bigotry and appalling human conditions.

A wealthy young couple walked into a large orphanage one day to ask to adopt two children. The director, beaming with satisfaction, said, “now we’ll show you two of the nicest children in the orphanage.” The wife turned quickly and then remarked kindly but firmly: “oh, please, no! We don’t want the nicest children; we want two that nobody else would take.” That was a sacrifice, upon which even the gods would throw incense. The Lamb of God challenges us to make sacrifices similar to his for love of our neighbor. If the heart is denying sacrifice, it means love is dying.

Christ as Lamb of God is a title familiar to us. In the Eucharist, at “the breaking of the bread” we proclaim in word or song what the Baptist said. Our traditional fraction anthem is the Agnus Dei – “Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us/grant us peace.” In this prayer we give expression to our deepest understanding of the identity and purpose of Jesus Christ as our Lamb and Lord. By His life of love and sacrifice, we believe and affirm that He is the One Who came and continues to come into a broken world to take our sins upon Himself.

We need to rebuild broken lives: Like the missionary call of the servant in Isaiah (Is 49:1-3) and “those called to be saints” in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth (1Cor 1:2ff), we are informed that God’s call is trustworthy and true. Therefore, we can believe from the depth of our hearts that our God is faithful. And our faithful response to God is to rebuild broken lives, reconciling them with God’s love and justice through Christ Jesus our Lamb and Lord. Through Baptism into the Body of Christ, we are empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit to build up the oppressed. Through the love of the Lamb of God, we are called to better the lot and improve the broken spirit, of all who have been exiled from the possibility of hope and from God’s righteousness or who are burdened by the yoke of spiritual, social, economic, and political dislocation. In other words, through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the glorified Lamb, we are called to empower the human spirit with a sense of identity and purpose.

We need to be witnesses to the Lamb of God: Today’s Gospel reminds us that being a disciple of Jesus means that we grow by Faith to become witnesses for Him. And bearing witness to Christ is an active, not passive, lifetime enterprise. One cannot be a disciple of Jesus at a distance any more than one can be a distant lover. To love Christ is to be drawn close to Him, to know Christ personally and experience Him through the Bible, through prayers and through the Sacraments, and to inspire others to want to know him. To help Christ is to share the Good News about Him with others. Blessed are we when we bring to others the gifts of love, peace, justice, tolerance, and mercy, thus becoming witnesses for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

God bless you.
Fr.vinner HGN.