19 January 2020: Second Sunday In Ordinary Time (Year A)

Gospel for the Sunday:

​The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world. This is He, of whom I said: After me there cometh a Man, who is preferred before me: because He was before me. And I knew Him not, but that He may be made manifest in Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. And John gave testimony, saying: I saw the Spirit coming down, as a dove from Heaven, and He remained upon Him. And I knew Him not; but He who sent me to baptize with water, said to me: He upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and I gave testimony, that this is the Son of God. [John 1:29-34; Douay-Rheims Version]

After His Baptism, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the next day, returns to His cousin and Precursor, St. John the Baptist, in order firstly, to show the multitude that He, being God, had no need of baptism for the remission of sins, since He was sinless. Rather, as St. John Chrysostom teaches, He comes to correct any notion that He needed remission of sins, and the Precursor provides the correction by saying that Christ is the Lamb of God, viz, the Son of God, Who is God from God, Eternal from Eternal; hence he says "He was before me", viz, He is Eternal God made Man in time [1]. We may also see the two visitations of Our Lord to the Precursor as a prefigurement of the two Advents of Our Lord: the first, when He was born in Bethlehem; the second, at the end of time. After the first time He came, many have divined perverted doctrine concerning Him, which He will, at His second coming, correct. 

Next, the Precursor testifies as to what happened at the Baptism of the Lord, namely, that the Holy Ghost came down upon the Lord Christ, and resting upon Him, proved to all that he was truly the Son of God, Who has come to save men from their sins. And St. John the Apostle, the author of today's Gospel, informs us that the Precursor had been instructed by the Father that the One upon Whom the Spirit will descend, He it is Who will baptise with the Holy Ghost. And so, as with many prodigies to come, the Lord graciously forewarns His people of their coming, so that they may prepare for them. In this wise, the Precursor, travelling about the wilds of Judaea, was taught by the Eternal Father that His Son was coming to him, and announced to him the sign by which he may recognise the Lamb of God. But, if Christ and the Precursor were cousins, how then did he need a sign to recognise Christ? Due to his eremitic life, the Baptist had not met His Divine Cousin often, except perhaps when they were both boys; afterward, the Precursor abandoned the towns for the wilderness, and lived his eremitic life, eating locusts and wild honey. And so, the two Cousins were estranged from one another and thus meet each other for the first time in decades at the Jordan. At this time, both were 30 years old, or so, with the Precursor being six months older than Our Lord, and both begin their public ministries at the same age as was designated for men to enter the Levitical Priesthood. 

And so, what can we take from this Gospel? Is it not that each of us is called to be precursor to the Lord, making straight His path in both our life and that of others? Are we not to bring our neighbour to Christ, and to the saving font of Salvation, Baptism? Are we not called to announce the Gospel, and say with St. John: Behold the lamb of God, Who taketh away the sons of the world? Are we not called to bear testimony that Christ is the true Son of God, and that He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life? Some of us can truthfully say with St. John that we did not know Him, but by His grace we now know Him, and wish for others to know Him also. 



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[1] St. John Chrysostom: But why did He come to him the next day after His baptism? Having been baptized with the multitude, He wished to prevent any from thinking that He came to John for the same reason that others did, viz. to confess His sins, and be washed in the river unto repentance. He comes therefore to give John an opportunity of correcting this mistake; which John accordingly did correct; viz. by those words, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. For He Who was so pure, as to be able to absolve other men’s sins, evidently could not have come thither for the sake of confessing His own; but only to give John an opportunity of speaking of Him. He came too the next day, that those who had heard the former testimonies of John, might hear them again more plainly; and other besides. For he saith, Behold the Lamb of God, signifying that He was the one of old sought after, and reminding them of the prophecy of Isaiah, and of the shadows of the Mosaic law, in order that through the figure he might the easier lead them to the substance. [Homily xvii (al. xvi)]