Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, January 16, 2011

(Isaiah 49:3, 5-67; 1 Cor. 1:1-3; John 1:29-34)

John’s unique version of the “encounter” between John the Baptist (hereafter
JB) and Jesus is as interesting for what it does not say as for what it says. This is the
Gospel of John’s account of what really amounts to JB’s testimony about Jesus
rather than a direct encounter between the two. So we have ask is it JB’s reflection
or is it John’s?
The text notes that JB “saw Jesus coming toward him,” but it never actually
says they met. Even when JB tells what he saw, it seems to come more as his
private revelation than as a public encounter between him and Jesus.
We have to remember that to see is to believe in John’s Gospel. So when JB
saw Jesus coming toward him it could imply that JB came to believe. This is
certainly a possible interpretation of what follows.
“Look” (or behold) is the Greek imperative used as an interjection here to call
attention to the first of JB’s observations about Jesus. He is the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world. Scholars generally agree that “sin” here in the
singular, means sin as a condition. It suggests that being the Lamb of God is
connected with removing the condition of sin. But neither John explains how.
“The Lamb of God” is an expression unique to John which gives way to many
different interpretations, some more satisfactory than others. It only occurs here and
in 1:36 in the entire New Testament. That may surprise people because we know it
so well from its use in the liturgy prior to receiving Communion (“This is the Lamb
of God etc.”).
Already at this point in John we know that the Word was God and that the
Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We also know that John has
referred to Jesus as the Christ (1:17). Here, we are left to wonder in what sense he is
called Lamb of God?
Some think the term refers to the idea of sacrifice and thus Jesus is the lamb of
sacrifice offered to God in atonement for sin. Many think in terms of some kind of
apocalyptic figure much like the Lamb of the Book of Revelation becomes the
symbol of victory, especially for those who wash their robes in the blood of the
lamb. Others think of the Passover lamb used at Passover, which actually marks the
beginning of salvation from slavery in Egypt, rather than as some kind scapegoat
slaughtered for sin. And Jesus is not a scapegoat. He has done this freely. “No one
takes (my life) from me. I lay it down freely (as the Good Shepherd! Jn.10:18).”
Of course, we must ask the questions about the meaning of the lamb on
different levels. We rightly wonder what JB might have meant and even more
important what John the evangelist thought. It is after all the evangelist who wrote
all this.
It is unlikely that JB had in mind such an image of Jesus, because JB dies long
before the events of Holy Week transpire. And it is far too early for JB to have had
personal knowledge of what would happen to Jesus. But as participants in a kind of
“cosmic drama acted out in history rather than as an historical event with cosmic
implications (Sandra Schneiders, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Jan. 2011, p.4) John’s
Gospel can and should be understood in a radically different way. And trying to
figure out the meaning of even small snippets of John (like today’s Gospel) is the
work of a lifetime.

Fr. Lawrence L. Hummer