“God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Baltimore Catechism, 3) Our Gospel reading today reveals this to us in the person of John the Baptist, a real example for us in living out our genius. [You and I were each created with a particular genius, that is to say, there is one way that you can glorify and bring praise to God better than anyone else can.]

What I found most intriguing about today’s Gospel passage(John 1.29-34) was that John says, not once but twice, “I myself did not know him.” And yet look at the opening line of the Gospel, “John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and declared( I envision him shouting and pointing), “Here is the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus was made known/revealed to him and he continued to proclaim this, as we see in the next verse following the Gospel passage we hear today(John 1.35-37); “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ”Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” (John 1.35-37) Can you imagine today just standing with two close friends saying, “Look it’s him.” And they just leave you for him! BUT THIS IS IT! This is what we are called to do! We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ with our very lives AND(not OR) with our words. As John declares “I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed…” What are you called to do so that Jesus Christ might be revealed?

But perhaps the most powerful point of the passage is WHO John proclaims Christ as, “the Lamb of God.” What does this mean? To grasp the depth of these words we could go into two examples that foreshadowed him:

Issac & Abraham – Genesis 22.1-14; God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Issac, Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice on his shoulders up Mount Moriah(present day Jerusalem & Golgotha, where Christ would be crucified), prepared an altar on which he laid his son, he is stopped short of sacrificing his son and God provides the Lamb. In the same way God provided his son Jesus, who carried the wood of the cross on his shoulders up Golgotha to be sacrificed for our sins.

And some 500 years later we have the end of the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt(Exodus 12.1-13); The Passover Lamb was sacrificed, it’s blood placed on the doorway protecting them from the death that was to come to every firstborn son. We too are saved by the blood of the lamb, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” who shed his bloods blood on the cross for us.

So it is this intimacy of a God who has saved us, who desires to be so close to you that he sent and gave up his very son to death to remove all that stands between you and Him. And all this, foreshadowed over thousands of years, so that you might share everlasting happiness with him forever? What an offer? But is it an offer that you are going to take him up on?

In closing I cannot think of a better way to take God up on His offer of everlasting happiness, and I cannot think of a better way to reveal him in our lives than to echo the words of the psalmist today deep in our souls, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will!” (Psalm 40)

I also invite you to discover your genius, your one way that you can glorify and bring praise to God better than anyone else can! It may take you a lifetime time to discover, or maybe it is right there and you just haven’t thought about it or recognized it yet.

O Blessed Trinity, abundantly assist me in becoming that which thou intended me to become when thou created me, for in that perfection I will give thee the glory thou desirest of me, and in that perfection I will find my greatest joy in heaven. Amen       -(excerpt from a prayer by Fr.Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap)

Further reading:

Isaiah 49.3, 5-6

1 Corinthians 1.1-3