Saturday January 6, 2018
Week before Epiphany
Jesus is called “lamb of God” more than thirty times in the New Testament. The title has overtones of the Jewish annual Passover feast, when a yearling lamb was killed and eaten. This lamb became linked with the Exodus text (13:11-16) about the substitution of an animal for the firstborn of every family.
It is an enduring image of Jesus. A lamb is a figure of innocence. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers, never opening its mouth” (Is 53:7). Sheep, let alone lambs, have no real means of self-defense. Before they were domesticated more than 10,000 years ago they could defend themselves by climbing to inaccessible places in the mountains, but since they came among us they are particularly at our mercy. One could say the same about the Lamb of God.
