Jan. 19, 2020 2nd Sunday A

Jan. 19, 2020 2nd Sunday A

One day two friends decided to take a long road trip together. The original purpose of the road trip was to give some fresh air to the friend sitting on the passenger side who was dying of esophageal cancer. As they drove through the beautiful and breathtaking Montana and Yellowstone Park, their discussions centered on the Gospel of John. It was an unlikely discussion topic because while the driver is a devoted Christian, his friend on the passenger side was the late Christopher Hitchens, a life-long atheist who publicly and vehemently mocked Christianity and religion through his books, articles, and interviews. As they discussed the Gospel of John, the Christian friend remembered Hitchens musing and questioning about the grace of God in the New Testament. Hitchens was a brilliant and eloquent debater who often outwitted and pounced Christian apologists who debated him. Yet there was one event that shook Hitchens to the core—9/11 in New York City. Hitchens saw real evil face to face in that raw event, and he did not have an adequate intellectual answer to the “Problem of Evil” in the suffering of so many. Hitchens could not reconcile the moral chaos and wreckage caused by intentional evil, and his atheism would not allow him to call it a “sin.” Previous to 9/11 Hitchens intellectually imagined a possibility of utopia without religion, yet after the horrific event he understood that human inclination toward evil posed insurmountable problem for his atheistic paradise. Perhaps he may have asked himself, “Who can take away the ‘sins’ of the world”?  

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” John the Baptist proclaimed to the people while pointing to Jesus. After 30 years of hidden life in Nazareth, Jesus went to the Jordan River to see his cousin, John the Baptist. Jesus waited in line with other sinners to be baptized; in doing so Jesus took upon himself human condition, moved by compassion. His desire was to bring all people to the saving love of God. Jesus did not fight the evil of the world with eye-for-an-eye attitude; he did not use hatred to fight hatred nor respond hostility with hostility. Instead, he answered with love and mercy. His mission was contained in the prophecy of Isaiah which he proclaimed in the synagogue of Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk 4:18-19) 

Initially, the disciples of Jesus did not understand why John the Baptist referred to their master as “the Lamb of God”. It was only after Jesus’ death upon the cross, did the disciples make the connection between the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb of the Passover and the sacrifice Jesus on the cross. The Passover—the yearly remembrance of the deliverance of Jews from Egyptian slavery—would be supplanted by the New Passover inaugurated by Jesus who sacrificed himself to take away all the sins of the world. His path to the cross was a path of humility, compassion, obedience, and trust in His Father. We, the disciples, are to follow this narrow path as well.

I still appreciate and thank my high school classmates who took time to introduce me to Jesus and the bible. From my sophomore year in high school through my sophomore year in college, I was a professed atheist who mocked religion and the so called “hypocrisy” of Christians. Several of my Christian classmates tried to evangelize to me, to point out inconsistencies of my thinking, and to introduce me to Jesus. I rebuffed their attempts and usually ended the conversation by saying, “If I don’t believe in this Jesus or bible, I will go to hell, right?”  The high school friends planted seeds of faith in me that finally germinated and grew later in my college years. That’s often what we are asked to do, to plant seeds, even though we may not see immediate results. The Christian friend who took his atheist friend, Christopher Hitchens, on a road trip does not know whether Hitchens had a conversion at the end of his life. What he knows is that he introduced Hitchens to Jesus, the Lamb of God. 

At every Mass, just before receiving the Holy Eucharist, the priest invites all to “Behold the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” We are to fix our eyes and our hearts on Jesus who died for every sin that has been committed or will be committed by us and by the whole world. We all know someone who has fallen away from his faith or those who do not yet know the love of Jesus. St. Oscar Romero said, “We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development...it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders.” Let us leave here today and boldly proclaim our baptismal call by planting small seeds in others.