JESUS’ SACRIFICE, THEN AND
NOW
2nd Sunday in year
A. John 1:29-34.
AIM: To explain the doctrine
of eucharistic sacrifice.
“Behold, the Lamb of God!” John’s words from the opening of the gospel
reading we have just heard are so familiar to us that we don’t stop to ask what
they mean. We hear the words immediately before
Communion at every Mass, when the priest, holds up the Lord’s body and blood
and says: “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” What do those words really mean?
To understand them we must plunge
into the distant history of Jesus’ people and read about their greatest feast:
the Passover. Here is the account from
the book of Exodus, chapter 12:
Moses told the people, “Go and get a
lamb for your families and slaughter it for the Passover. Then take some of the hyssop, dip it in the
blood [of the lamb] and smear some of the blood ... on the door-posts and
lintel. ... The Lord will go through Egypt and strike it, but when he sees the
blood on the lintel and doorposts, he will pass over that door and will
not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you. You shall keep this as a
rule of all time. When your children ask
you, ‘What is the meaning of this rite?’ you shall say: ‘It is the Lord’s
Passover, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when
he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.
(Ex. 12: 21-27)
The blood of the Passover lamb
smeared on the doorposts kept the people safe.
Later the lamb was thought of as sacrificed to God: a gift through which
God and his human worshipers were reconciled.
Such gifts, offered in sacrifice to God, were supposed to restore the
fellowship which had been broken by human sin.
The prophets of Jesus’ people
criticized these sacrificial offerings.
They were based, the prophets pointed out, on the fiction that the
things offered to God represented those who offered them. What God really wants, the prophets
said, is not things (since everything belongs to him already). God wants men and women themselves. But how could people really offer themselves
to God in sacrifice? And to the extent
that people did offer themselves in a spiritual sense, they were offering God
gifts stained by sin. Hence the whole
sacrificial system failed to achieve what it was meant to achieve. This a central theme of the Letter to the
Hebrews:
Every priest [and the writer is
talking about Jewish priests] stands performing his daily service and
offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
(Heb. 10:11)
Hebrews also affirms, however, that a
perfect, unblemished sacrifice has been offered. The fellowship between sinful humanity and
God has been restored. (Cf. Heb.
10:12). Jesus is the priest who offers,
and Jesus is himself the sacrifice
offered. His life of perfect
obedience to his heavenly Father, consummated on Calvary, “takes away the sin
of the world,” as John says at the beginning of today’s gospel. As the blood of the Passover lamb protected
Jesus’ ancestors, so his blood protects us, his spiritual
descendants. Because of our sins we are
unworthy to stand before God, to pray to him, to claim his blessing. But as sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ
we can do all these things.
Jesus’ sacrifice, which mends the
fellowship between us and God, broken by our sins, is not just long ago and far
away. Though the Last Supper and Calvary
are unrepeatable, they become, here and now, a living reality each time
we obey Jesus command at the Last Supper, to “do this in memory of me”
with the bread and wine. To this day
part of the Jewish Passover ritual is the child’s question: “What is the
meaning of this rite?” To which the
person presiding replies: “It is the Lord’s Passover.” The unique past event is not repeated. But through its ritual celebration it becomes
a living reality for the worshipers today.
This is what we Catholics believe about the Mass. At the Last Supper, celebrated in the context
of a Jewish Passover meal, Jesus took bread and said: “This is my body.” He meant: ‘This is me. When you do this I am truly with you. I give myself to you.’ Saying over the cup, “This is my blood,” Jesus
was telling us: ‘I am the one whose poured out blood keeps you safe, and brings
you into a new relationship with God.’
The bread and cup of this meal, previously a celebration of the
Passover, are now a pledge of Jesus’ personal presence with us, his
friends. That is the meaning of the
offertory prayer we shall hear in a few moments: “When we proclaim the death of
the Lord, you continue the work of his redemption.”
The Catechism says: “The Eucharist is
the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental
offering of his unique sacrifice ... [1362] The memorial is not merely
the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works
wrought by God for men. In the
liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present
and real. ... [1363] The Eucharist is
thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of
the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its
fruit.” [1366]
The Mass is not the repetition the
Last Supper and Calvary. It is, in a
unique and specially intense way, their sacramental commemoration. It makes present, spiritually but truly, what
it commemorates. When we “do this” with
the bread and wine, as Jesus commanded, we are there! We are with the friends of Jesus in the upper
room; with Mary and the Beloved Disciple at the cross. Here in the sacrifice of the Mass we
encounter him who is the true Lamb of God: the one who destroys sin; who
protects us through his poured-out blood from sin’s just penalty; the one
through whom we can approach God, not in fear and trembling because of our
sins, but in confidence and love; calling him, as Jesus taught us to do:
“Father.”
So much meaning, so much wonder, so
much drama! How often do we recognize
it, and truly worship?
