Scripture readings for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34
If you need help spotting Christ, you can always count on John the Baptist.
“Behold, the Lamb of God!,” he cried out when he saw Jesus. But that wasn’t enough. He needed to explain. He made a point of telling anyone who would listen, “This is the one I was telling you about! He’s here!”
With that, the Gospel this Sunday serves as a bracing wake-up call as we return once more into Ordinary Time. For some of us, the holidays can’t end soon enough; for others, it seems, they’re ending much too soon.
Reality sets in. After the merriment of Christmas – packages and parties, carols and cooking, broken toys and broken diets – we get down to the hard work of ordinary life. There are lights to unplug, tinsel to toss. We need to get back to work. That includes our challenge to put the message of Christmas into practice – to carry a proclamation of joy and hope into the world and to dwell, for at least a little longer, in a sense of possibility and peace.
We also need to hear once more the Baptist’s cry in the wilderness. Keep your eyes open, he tells us. The Lamb of God is here. Pay attention!
Do we realize what he is asking? It sounds so simple. Recognize the Lord. Look for him. Listen to him. But there’s more we need to do.
I’m reminded of something Pope Francis told the deacons of the Diocese of Rome a few years ago.
“I expect you to be sentinels,” he said, “not only to know how to spot the poor and the distant - this is not so difficult – but to help the Christian community to recognize Jesus in the poor and the distant, as he knocks on our doors through them…Whatever the need, see the Lord. So, you, too: recognize the Lord when, in so many of his smaller brothers and sisters, he asks to be fed, to be welcomed and loved.”
How are we doing with that?
When John pointed out Jesus to those around him, he was not only telling them that the one they had been waiting for had arrived; he also signaled that the great work was now beginning.
Things were about to change. It was time to live, pray and love differently.
In the same way, all of us these days need to refocus our energies after the frenzy of the holidays. Most of us are probably ready to move beyond the fruitcake and the fa-la-la-la-la.
But behold! The Lord is here. How will we make that matter?
For starters, we need to keep the message of the season going, cherishing the reminder we got just a couple weeks ago that God is with us. Our world is different because of that. We need to realize that the Incarnation was not a one-time event; Christ continues to be born, to live among us, as long as we seek him and help make him visible ourselves.
Do we recognize Christ when he approaches us? Do we acknowledge him in the way we live our lives? Do we see him in those around us? Do we live in a way that tells the world we are his followers?
“Behold the Lamb of God!” John said those words with awe and with love – and, undoubtedly, with joy, the same joy that caused him to leap in his mother’s womb when the unborn savior entered his life.
