Behold, the Lamb of God

Agnus Dei

Following the Eucharistic prayer and the sign of peace, the priest breaks the consecrated Host while the congregation sings or says the Agnus Dei:

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.

The priest prays a silent prayer, genuflects, then reverently elevates the Blessed Sacrament and says,

Behold the Lamb of God. 
Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.

Who is the Lamb of God?

Catholics are thus very familiar with the title “Lamb of God,” but have we ever stopped to consider its deeper meaning? It is a strange but decidedly biblical term. The entire liturgy, in fact, is replete with scripture.

John, baptizing in the Jordan River, is asked by the Jewish leaders if he is the promised Messiah. “I am not,” he tells them. The next day he points out Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:19-29). (By the way, are you pointing others to Jesus?) In the book of Revelation, a victorious and redeeming Lamb is depicted multiple times, notably as the Bridegroom at the eternal Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9). Jesus, then, is the Lamb of God. But why a lamb?

The Lamb as Sacrificial Animal

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

God created us to live eternally in relationship with the Trinity. “If you eat of the tree,” God warned Adam, “you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Our parents disobedience resulted in their mortality and then the death of an innocent creature. As Adam and Eve hid in the shame of their nakedness, God provided them “garments of skin” as a covering (Genesis 3:21). The bad news was that sin requires a sacrifice. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). The (temporary) good news was that of substitutionary atonement. In God’s plan in ancient Israel, the lamb was a sacrificial animal, killed in place of a repentant sinful person. From the very beginning, our Creator was pointing us to a coming Savior (Genesis 3:15).

Abel brought “the firstlings of his flock” as an offering (Genesis 4:4). When Abraham and Isaac journeyed to Mt. Moriah, the beloved son carried the wood for the sacrifice upon his back. Isaac asked his father, “‘Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide himself the lamb'” (Genesis 22:7,8). Some 1800 years later on a nearby hill, God did literally that.

The Passover

Abraham and Isaac’s descendants were slaves in Egypt for more than 200 years, unable to offer sacrifices to God. Moses asked Pharaoh permission to worship in the wilderness and, despite awesome displays of God’s power, was refused nine times. (Exodus 7-10).

The LORD said to Moses, “Yet one more plague I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt…. About midnight I will go forth in the midst of Egypt; and all the first-born in the land shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh to the first-born of the maid who is behind the mill to the first-born of the cattle.”

Exodus 11:1, 4-5

In advance of the 10th plague, God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, paint its blood on their doorposts and lintel, and eat its flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs as food for their ensuing journey. God passed over and spared those hiding behind the blood of the lamb, redeeming them from death, freeing them from slavery, and giving them access to the Promised Land. Devout Jews today continue to observe Passover as more than just a re-telling of the Exodus, but an actual participation in that long-ago event.

Like a Lamb Led to the Slaughter

Centuries after that first Passover, Isaiah prophesied about a suffering servant, “wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our sins. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole. By his stripes we are healed…. The LORD has laid on him the iniquities of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53,5,6,7). Some seven centuries after that prophecy, John the Baptist points out Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God. who takes away the sin of the world.”

The Last Supper, The Mass, and the Wedding Supper of the Lamb

I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

Luke 22:15-16

The Last Supper was a Passover meal, and Jesus – the perfect Lamb of God – was the fulfillment of that first Passover. Through the shedding of His blood we are saved from death, freed from the yoke of slavery to sin, and given access to Heaven, eating His flesh in the appearance of unleavened bread to strengthen us for our journey. As Catholics, we believe that every celebration of the Eucharist is a re-presentation of Jesus’s sacrificial passion, death, and resurrection; Not merely a commemoration, but a participation in those long-ago events and at the same time in the eternal Wedding Supper of the Lamb from our lifted-up earthly perspective, there joined by all the angels and saints worshiping from their heavenly vantage point. Are you living a life of increasing holiness? Are you celebrating the sacraments faithfully? Behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. How blessed are we to be called to the supper of the Lamb. Now go, and point Him out to others.

• You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. -1 Peter 1:17-19
• A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. -1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. 
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. 
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.

Feature Image – Stained glass window, St. Michael’s Sittingbourne (England). Andrea Don via pixabay https://pixabay.com/photos/stained-glass-window-780844/