Thursday, December 25, 2025

 

Christmas 2025

Some of us have become so tired of electronic greeting cards that they have blocked their reception.  E-cards are invariably cute and, no doubt, most often well-intended. But their limited selection may result in tedium after we view the same card more than twice.  The other day, however, I received one that moved me to watch it time and again.

The card shows a newly born lamb idling into an empty country church on Christmas.  The lamb frolics in wonder as he senses the decorated pews.  As he comes to the manger in front of the altar, he notices the Christ-child sleeping.  The animal reposes next to the manger as a beam of sunlight shines on the altar’s small cross.  The presentation ends with a dove flying onto the scene. The bird takes a sip from to the baptismal fount on the side before perching herself on the manger of the sleeping child next to the lamb.

Is this just a sentimental Christmas greeting more appropriate for children than for adults?  I don’t think so.  It appears to me more like a parable making a profound theological statement.  The lamb does not come to adore the Christ like the shepherds in Luke’s gospel.  Nor does he offer a gift for the infant Jesus like the drummer boy in the popular Christmas song.  The lamb lies besides Christ because he is another Christ!

In the first chapter of John’s gospel John the Baptist points out Jesus to his disciples.  He tells them, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”  Jesus is the lamb who will be slaughtered to atone for human sin.  He will be baptized -- remember the dove sipping water from the font – as an identification with humankind. Today he comes in peace to allow the world to contemplate the Christ event in our lives.  We should take the opportunity to thank Christ for his coming among us.  We also want to ask his pardon for our pride and other sins.  Finally, we might pledge our love for him and for all those he died to save.

 

Friday, April 18, 2025

 

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

(Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16.5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42)

At the beginning of John’s gospel, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  The description sounded strange then.  It was a prophecy that is fulfilled in the Lord’s Passion.

Jesus died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice offered to the Father for the world’s sins.  It is no accident then that his death sentence comes at noon on Preparation Day of the Passover.  At that moment the lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple precincts for the forgiveness of the people’s sins.  Nor is it coincidental that he is offered a sponge soaked in wine on “a sprig of hyssop.” Hyssop could hardly support a soaked sponge.  But it was the reed used to splash the blood of the Passover lamb on the Hebrew doorposts that made them immune to the pestilence killing the first-born.  John the Evangelist is saying that Jesus’ Passion likewise saves the world from punishment for their sins.

Why then are we so reluctant to admit our sins?  Relatively few people come to confession more than two or three times a year.  Often they come more needing to share with someone about how they have been offended than how they responded to the offenses badly.  Many also overlook the command to keep holy the Lord’s Day.  Even sexual sins – pornography, masturbation, fornication, to say nothing of contraceptives – are sometimes ignored.  We forget that Jesus died on the cross precisely as a sin offering.  Our sins are not forgiven if we do not acknowledge and ask pardon for them.  It is the forgiveness of our sins that makes this Friday “Good.”

Friday, April 7, 2023

 Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

(Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16.5:7-9; John18:1-19:42)

Jesus’ last words in today’s gospel sound enigmatic. “It is finished?”  What is finished?  Is it his life as he dies?  Is it his ordeal on the cross?  We can find a hint of the answer to the question in the first chapter of the gospel.  On seeing Jesus, John the Baptist declares, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” 

Jesus’ sacrifice of himself ends with his death on the cross.  Pilate rendered the death sentence at midday when the paschal lambs were being sacrificed in the temple.  As a result of the lamb offerings, the Jews believed their sins were forgiven.  Now with the death of the Lamb of God, the world is liberated from its sins.

Liberation is hinted at in a phrase just prior to Jesus’ last words.  The gospel says that they offered him a wine-soaked sponge on a hyssop sprig to quench his thirst.  We may ask, how can a hyssop sprig support a soaked sponge?  Of course, it can’t.  But the hyssop is used here to remind us of the hyssop that spread the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites the night before they were liberated from slavery.  The angel of death came to take the first-born of all the families of Egypt except of the Israelites with their blood-splattered doorposts.  Hyssop became a sign of liberation. 

Like the Israelites, we have been liberated.  We are no longer slaves to sin but are free to serve God and neighbor.  Let us not fall back into the slavery of sin by mostly serving ourselves.  Rather let us sacrifice ourselves in the way Jesus did.  Then we will be able to say with Jesus when our moment comes, “It is finished.”

Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord

(Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42)

We tend to think of lambs as vulnerable animals.  Do you remember watching cartoons in which the wolf seeing a lamb imagines lamb chops?  But there is at least one instance when the lamb is strong enough to protect all his subjects from harm.  In the Book of Revelation the Lamb of God sits on the throne surrounded by those he has saved.  The Passion of St. John which we just heard features this same lamb in a subtle but telling way.

At the beginning of the Gospel John the Baptist calls Jesus the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (1:29).”  He has in mind, of course, Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross to atone for human sin.  The Passion account does not speak directly of Jesus as the lamb but gives at least three hints that he is the Passover lamb of the Old Testament tradition that needed to be sacrificed for human freedom from the bondage of sin.  In the first place, Jesus is said to be crucified at noon on the preparation day for the Passover, the exact time when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple (19:14).  Then while Jesus is hanging on the cross, the people “put a sponge soaked in wine on a spring of hyssop…up to (Jesus’) mouth (19:29).”  The hyssop is a slender plant that could not possibly bear the weight of a soaked sponge.  It is used here to remind the reader of the hyssop that the Israelites used to sprinkle their doorposts with the blood of the Passover lamb.  The blood saved them from the Angel of Death who destroyed the first-born of the Egyptians when the Israelites were fleeing captivity (Ex 12:22).  The last hint of Jesus as the Lamb of God comes as Jesus dies on the cross.  A soldier comes to break his legs so that he can no longer support breathing.  The text says that the soldier, seeing that Jesus had died, sticks a lance in his side perhaps to save himself the trouble of breaking a large bone (19:36).  In any case, no bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken (Ex 12:46). 

Was it necessary for Jesus to be sacrificed as a lamb to free us from sin? we may want to ask.  And, could God have forgiven us our sins without the cross?  No, it was not absolutely necessary and, yes, God might have forgiven our sins without Jesus’ bloody death.  However, without knowing the terrible price that Jesus had to pay for our salvation, we would be less inclined to follow his ways.  Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on the cross gives us both courage and example to give of ourselves for the love of God and the good of others.