Behold the Lamb of God

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When John the Baptist saw Jesus he proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And soon after, as John stood with two of his disciples, Jesus passed, and John stared hard at him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ What is the significance of Jesus as the Lamb of God?

Normally at this time of year I lead a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We always go to the Temple Mount where the Jewish Temple used to be, until it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 and never rebuilt.

The Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are on top of a Mountain, Mt. Moriah. The very spot where in Genesis 22, Abraham brought his son Isaac to offer him in sacrifice. God told Abraham, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering…So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son who carried the wood up the mountain for the sacrifice. It was then that Isaac asked a provocative question: “Father, I see the knife, the wood and the flint for fire; but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham gave a prophetic answer: “God will provide the lamb for the sacrifice, my son.

Then angel of the Lord stopped Abraham, and a ram was offered instead, not a lamb. Now Abraham had foretold that God would provide a lamb. and that was yet to happen. And this is subtle but significant: “So Abraham called the name of that place: The Lord will provide, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Around 1850 BC God promised that He would provide a lamb for the sacrifice on Mt Moriah.

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God promised that He would provide a lamb to take away the sin of the world. When did God do this?

After the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were taken away in exile in 586 B.C. God gave an astonishing prophecy through Isaiah that the Messiah would be the Lamb of God:

Isaiah 53:2 Like a sapling he grew up in front of us…a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering…he was despised and we took no account of him. And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried….Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh burdened him with the sins of all of us. Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers never opening its mouth…They gave him a grave with the wicked, a tomb with the rich, though he had done no wrong and there had been no perjury in his mouth…By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself…for surrendering himself to death and letting himself be taken for a sinner, while he was bearing the faults of many and praying all the time for sinners.

The only person who fits this description is Jesus and it was  written more than 500 years before his birth.

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This helps us to grasp the significance of the title that John the Baptist gives Jesus when he seeing Jesus he said: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

Jesus is the Lamb of God, who offers his sacrifice on the Cross to take away the sins of the world. Calvary, where Jesus died sits on Mt Moriah, the very place that Abraham said, “The Lord will provide. On the Mountain of the Lord it shall be provided”

At the heart of every sin is a turning away from God and a refusal to live him. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by stepping into our place and substituting his infinite love of the Father expressed through His death on the Cross that atones for all of refusal to love God by our sin. In this way Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.

John 13:1 says that Jesus loved us to the end. He is the one and only Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Without Jesus, there is no salvation and no hope of heaven. Let us reflect in gratitude for his love to the end for us.

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The Temple in Jerusalem was the only place in the world a Jew was allowed to worship God by offering the prescribed sacrifices.

A synagogue is a place of teaching, prayer and gathering; but not a place of worship through sacrifice. When Jesus, the Lamb of God died on the Cross there was an earthquake that caused the veil of the Temple to be torn in two. The rending of the Temple vail signifies that the time of the Jewish Temple and the Temple sacrifice and worship is over. Jesus came to REPLACE the worship of God in the Temple with the worship of God in the Mass. When Jesus cleansed the Temple he said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. But he spoke of the temple of his body.” The time of the Temple is over. The Body of Jesus is now the Temple of God (Rv. 21:22).

And where is the Body of Jesus made present? In the Eucharist at Mass. That is why the priest says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those called to this supper.”

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Jesus came to replace the worship of God in the Temple with the worship of God in the Mass because God wants us to be able to worship Him everywhere, every day and receive Him in the Eucharist. Not just on Mt Moriah in Jerusalem.

The 2nd Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and the historians Sozomenus and Amianus relate that the Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate offered to rebuild the Temple in 363 AD. On the 1st and 2nd day – a violent earthquake stopped the work. On the 3rd day – fire came up from the ground and consumed the workers. So they quit.

Islam conquered the Holy Land in the 600s and the Muslims built the Dome of the Rock in 692. They have controlled the Temple Mount virtually ever since preventing the Temple from being rebuild. That is why the Jews go to the Wailing Wall: to mourn the loss of the Temple and to pray for its return. One day their prayer will be answered with the return of Jesus, who is the Temple of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But we do not have to wait – Jesus is still the Lamb of God who wants to take away our daily sins – 

CCC 1393 teaches us that receiving the Eucharist separates us from sin…For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins:

And St Ambrose concludes: Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy