In the city of Werden, Germany, there is a Catholic Church with a lamb carved out of stone and placed on its roof. The story behind it is a powerful one.
It was said that when the Church was being built, a stone-carving mason fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and immense joy, he was alive and only slightly injured.
How did he survive?
At the exact same moment that the mason fell, a flock of sheep was passing beneath the tower, and he landed on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man’s life was saved. To commemorate that miraculous escape, the mason carved a lamb in stone and placed it on the tower, in gratitude for the lamb that saved his life.
In today’s gospel, John the Baptist gives his testimony about Jesus, declaring that He is the Lamb of God. And we, as a Catholic Community of believers, continue to make that same declaration every time we attend Mass.
We have already done it once today in the Gloria, “Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father …”
We will pray it again as we prepare to receive the Eucharist, “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us …”
I must admit, I’m not always comfortable with the image of God as a lamb. A lamb is a baby sheep, helpless, obedient, gentle, innocent and meek. Sometimes I think it would be preferable to ask a formidable animal such as a lion for mercy!
So, why the lamb?
To understand that we need to go back to the Old Testament, to the original Passover. It was a lamb that was sacrificed to commemorate the Israelites being freed from slavery in Egypt. It was the blood of the lamb that was placed on the doorposts of every Israelite home so that the angel of God would pass over the home and spare the lives of their firstborn child.
From that time on, a lamb has always been part of the Passover meal, including the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
The Gospel of John’s account of the Baptism of Jesus, which we heard today, is quite different from the accounts found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. The synoptic Gospel writers, all describe the same basic details: Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him, and a voice from heaven proclaims that God the Father is well pleased.
However, in the Gospel according to John the Apostle, we get the perspective of John the Baptist who testifies to three specific truths about Jesus:
John the Baptist always puts Jesus first. And that is not easy. Being second isn’t easy.
Leonard Bernstein, the American composer and conductor, was once asked what instrument in the orchestra was the most difficult to play. He answered without hesitation, “Second Fiddle.”
Ask any athlete who finishes in second place, and they’ll tell you how hard that is.
History gives us powerful examples of people who put Jesus first, who chose to be second. One of those is Saint Maximilian Kolbe.
Father Kolbe was a Polish priest imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II for publishing criticism of the Nazi regime. During his imprisonment, a prisoner escaped. As punishment, the camp commander selected ten men to be starved to death.
When the name of a young man with a wife and children was called, Father Kolbe stepped forward and insisted on taking his place. While he was being starved to death, Father Kolbe comforted the others and helped prepare them for their own deaths. He was the last to die. And when it took too long, he was finally killed by an injection of poison.
Another example of putting Jesus first is found in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King whose birthday we celebrate this Monday.
The last place Dr. King stood was on the balcony of a modest motel in Memphis Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, when a rifle shot struck him down. He was not attending a political rally, a theological conference, or enjoying a vacation. He was standing up for the rights of garbage collectors when he was murdered.
One of his many famous quotes besides, “I have a dream” was “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Here is a man who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and then was violently assassinated four years later.
I sometimes wonder if Jesus would have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Do you think the Lamb of God, the One who takes away the sins of the world, the One who shows mercy to all, would have been honored that way?
On this Martin Luther King weekend, let us thank our Lord for calling each one of us to be instruments of peace, so we might replace darkness with light and hatred with love.
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