Behold the Lamb of God
One
Behold the Lamb of God
John the Baptist is the key figure of Advent, preparing the way for Jesus. When John saw Jesus he proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” What is the significance of Jesus as the Lamb of God?
When 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. That is the very place where God commanded Abraham to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice in Genesis 22. 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.”
Ultimately, the angel of the Lord stopped Abraham, and a ram was offered instead. But Abraham had foretold that God would provide a lamb. 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.”
So, around 1850 before Christ, God promised that He would provide a lamb for the sacrifice on Mt. Moriah.
Two
God promised that He would provide a lamb for a sacrifice. When did God do this? You could answer at the Exodus, or with their daily sacrifices of lambs in the Temple but those lambs were provided by the Israelites, not God.
After the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were taken away in exile to Babylon 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.
Three
God provides the lamb, and it is Jesus.
Abraham foretold that God would provide the lamb on Mt. Moriah. Now the pieces begin to come together. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Jesus is the Lamb that God provides. And where does Jesus offer his sacrifice? On Calvary, which is at the very top of Mt. Moriah. The very place that Abraham said, “The Lord will provide. On the Mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided”
Jesus 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.
Four
The End of the Temple in Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem was the only place where the Jews were allowed to worship God by sacrifice. A synagogue is a place of teaching, prayer, and gathering; 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 indicated that the time of the Jewish Temple and the Temple sacrifices and worship was over. Because 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.”
Five
The Mass replaces the sacrifice in the Temple
Jesus came to replace the worship of God in the Temple with the worship of God in the Mass. Why? Because God wanted to give everyone everywhere in the world a way to worship Him and receive Him in the Eucharist, not just on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem.
The second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. It has never been rebuilt. The historians Sozomenus and Amianus relate that the Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate offered to rebuild the Temple in 363 AD for his Jewish wife. On the first and second day, a violent earthquake stopped the work. On the third 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 rebuilt. 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 because Jesus is the Temple and the Lamb and the Sacrifice that cleanses us of sin. By receiving Him in the Eucharist, we become temples of God.