Behold, the Lamb of God! - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

peace be with you friends we returned this Sunday to ordinary time and the church gives us a rather extraordinary reading is taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John it has to do with John the Baptist now I've told you before but it's worth noting again very important when the when the gospels give us John the Baptist because they're compelling us to see Jesus through him he provides a kind of interpretive lens for understanding Jesus so whenever John is operative when he's speaking we should pay very close attention and here's what he says

famously we repeat it at every single Mass listen John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world now as I say we hear that we Catholics hear that all the time it's said at every single Mass but I would submit to you a lot of us a lot of Christians even those who are pretty attentive to the faith don't really know what that phrase means I did a little informal surveys many years ago now but I just asked a number of of

Catholics when John the Baptist says that and we say it at Mass Behold the Lamb of God what what do you think that means and really to a person everyone responded what means he's he's gentle and he's innocent like a lamb well yeah I mean fair enough he is gentleen isn't like a lamb but see listen again what John says Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world he's not just commenting on the innocence and gentleness of Jesus John we here is the son of a priest that means he grew

up in the temple that means he was very well acquainted with what happened in the temple and it was above all animal sacrifice they say if we got into a time machine went back to the ancient world what would impress and surprise us the most would be the prevalence of animal sacrifice uh not just of course in the in the Jewish cultural context in almost every ancient culture it was a basic religious practice to take an animal sacrifice the animal as a religious Act we find it rather anomalous if John had said oh look there's

the great moral teacher who takes away the sin of the World by by giving us new moral instruction we'd say yeah I get that oh there there's the great psychological counselor who helped us deal with our with our our inner problems of Personality mind you I'm not I'm that bad-mouthing counselors and psychotherapists but that's the way we would tend to look at it but hmm here's the Lamb of sacrifice who will take away the sin of the world I mean what what could that possibly mean how how does the the killing of an animal and

the offering up of its body in a fiery sacrifice how does a pouring out of the animal's blood deal with sin well let me just say this runs like a golden thread through the whole scriptures who are some of the people that perform sacrifices well Cain and Abel Noah Abraham Jacob Moses Joshua Samuel Saul David Solomon Elijah Alicia all perform sacrifices and as I said the temple was a place of sacrifice for centuries think of the millions of animals who were killed in the temple they say that you could smell the temple before you saw

it as you were making your way to it it would have smelled like a combination of a of a slaughterhouse and a barbecue because so much of the killing and the burning of animals flesh was going on so again we say what's the point how does this even make sense how does it work that the sacrificing of this Lamb of God will take away the sins of the world just one more thing before I get to an attempt to explain it we Catholics we come to mass right and we do indeed hear the word of

God proclaimed but at the heart of the matter is not a Pulpit at the heart of the matter it's an altar what's an altar it's a place of sacrifice and the priest that's important isn't it not just the minister or the proclaimer of the word but the priest that's someone who performs a sacrifice is doing his work at that altar this idea of the Lamb of God is Central to the basic worship of the church okay so John the Baptist says it the whole Jewish tradition anticipates it the mass embodies it so what is it

exactly and how does it work well there's many things we can say about it but let me just give you one angle on it think for a second of a broken down car now I'm someone that knows nothing about cars if my car stopped working I would just uh call AAA and I I wouldn't know what to do so imagine a broken down car what's not going to solve the problem of the broken down car well get another broken down car line up line up 10 broken down cars well no I mean that's not going

to accomplish anything okay get somebody who really knows of cars maybe knows that particular make of cars and and call that person up well yeah okay he might be able to tell you yeah you know you got a trouble with your your fuel injector or something you describe the problem you give them the symptoms and he goes yeah yeah I think the problem is that the fuel injector and you gotta do this and that okay well we've taken a Step Beyond just lining up other broken cars but we haven't really solved the problem yet have

we we might have named it more accurately what do you need if that car is really gonna get fixed you do need someone who is above and beyond the level of the car you you need somebody who's who's at another level and who understands the working of the car but more to it that same person now has got to be willing to open up that hood and get his hands inside the the mechanism of that car or he's got to go underneath the car underneath the chassis he's got to get his his hand maybe his

face even dirty with oil or whatever he's got to work with that car to fix it he has to make listen now a sacrifice if he's going to fix the trouble with that car it's not enough to know what it is it's not enough to have correct knowledge about it he's got to make the sacrificial move by which he enters into the dysfunction so as to fix it might suggest anyone that follows the the Tolkien trilogy Frodo's got to get rid of this ring he's got to fix a problem but he's got to go right

into the heart of Mordor he's got to go into the heart of the dysfunction to do it now think of the Lord Jesus Christ he's come as Savior Salvatore Latin means healer he's come to solve a problem everybody he's come to to fix something that's broken what's broken it we're broken we're Sinners we're off kilter we remain I mean fundamentally good because we're creatures of God yes but there's something to matter with us we've all fallen short of the glory of God the Bible says there's not there's not one man righteous no not one the

Bible says we're all broken what's not going to solve our problem let's line up all kinds of similarly broken people that'll solve the problem no it won't that's why bring all the philosophers you want are they going to solve the problem well no because there there is broken as anybody oh just get the you know the best psychologists and sociologists and historians and they're not going to solve the problem Oh get get the politicians you know just have the right social reforms how well that worked out by the way look at the last 200 years

of History that's like lining up a bunch of other broken cars thinking they'll fix the the car you want fixed won't work you need somebody first of all who knows the problem huh might I suggest that the maker of human life and human being might be the one who best understands the problem what's wrong with my soul might I suggest is the creator of the Soul what's wrong with me might I suggest it's the one who made me who has the best understanding of what the problem is okay okay someone's got to come from outside

of the dysfunction but take that next step more than just knowing what to do this one has to get down into the muck and the mess and the mud he's got to get his hands dirty he's got to get under the chassis he's got to get under the hood he has to enter into the dysfunctional human heart what happened on that terrible cross but that Christ God incarnate entered into human depravity and sin and dysfunction cruelty and hatred and violence and Injustice and Corruption and all of it he entered into it so as to so

as to fix it from the inside so as to bring the Divine love precisely where it's most needed but see everybody where I'm going a sacrifice had to be made a sacrifice had to be performed by someone above the sin yes the sinless son of God but the sinless Son of God couldn't remain isolated in his Heaven making pronouncements no God so loved the world that he sent his only son look all the way down all the way down into our Humanity but then accepting even death death on a cross the Lamb of God who

takes away the sins of the world the one who is sacrificed so as to solve the problem the one who paid the awful praise that the healing might be affected John the Baptist got it right away didn't he he didn't say behold the great ethical teacher though he was that he didn't say oh behold the friend of the poor though he was then oh look Behold The Miracle Worker he was that too but John didn't say that he said Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world the Incarnate Son of

God willing to make this supreme sacrifice to save us everybody that's the good news and God bless you [Music] [Applause] [Music]