John the Baptist twice says of Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel: “I did not know him.” There are additional instances after Jesus’ baptism that shows John didn’t entirely understand Jesus, or His mission. (Matthew 11:2-6) Though John doesn’t know Jesus, John knows the old God and the old religion of the Old Testament. John unfortunately thinks he knows it is his mission to announce that old God and that old religion when he announces Jesus.
John therefore announces that old God and religion when he first sees Jesus: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The reference to the Lamb of God is a reference to a wholly un-Christ-like event. It is an Old Testament human sacrifice, the slaughter of innocents in the Exodus. Lambs and the first born male of Egyptian families were sacrificed, slaughtered on order of the Hebrew War Lord, Yahweh. The Hebrew people continued their military religion’s legacy of sacrifice by requiring the slaughter of animals in regular atonement rituals of blood sacrifice. The atonement rituals were performed by priests who had convinced people such sacrifice took away their sin. It is unfortunately the case that there have been many lambs, all of them sacrificed to keep taking away sin, and all of them offered to John’s God. John thus assigns to Jesus that identity – a lamb, that mission – taking away sin, and that God – Yahweh. Fortunately, Jesus does not require deadly sacrifices. He encourages life instead. This is the historical point when religion transitions to spirituality. John soon comes to discover this transitioning truth, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon Jesus.” John changes what he knows at that point: “Now I have seen and testified that he is the Holy One of God.” John knows, in that moment at least, religion and its sacrifice are over and spirituality and its energy has begun.
John is much like us in that he thought he knew God and God’s mission. Let us hope we are as open to the Spirit’s surprising ways as was John.
Prayer: Dear Spirit, fill me with your wonder.
Question: Who is the God I announce?
January 19, 2014 Gospel John 1:29-34 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time