Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34
The readings for today’s celebration are a sort of follow-up of last Sunday’s celebration. As a matter of fact, St. John the Baptist refers to the mystery of Jesus’ baptism, and makes known what he witnessed. Thus, today’s celebration means a step forward to introduce us into the period of Jesus’ public ministry in which He displays the mystery of the kingdom of heaven He came to reveal and eventually its installment.
The Baptist, in his witness, uses two very significant expressions to refer to Jesus Christ: Lamb of God and Son of God. Both of them are very well known from their use in the Mass, traditional iconography and liturgical music. The two titles present proleptically (“anticipate”) the rest of the liturgical year, placing the focus on two essential aspects of Jesus’ mystery, to know His Passion and Death (Lamb) and His Resurrection and Glorification (Son of God; see Psalms 2 and 110). These two titles, introduced here by the Baptist, are more fully presented, by way of very rich imagery, in the Book of Revelation, traditionally attributed to St. John the Apostle, the same author of the Fourth Gospel (see Rev 5:6; 14:1; 19:7; passim).
Today’s liturgy highlights another aspect of the mystery as well. The first reading, which is always chosen in connection with the Gospel reading in the Sundays of the Ordinary Time, prepares for it. It is a portion of the Second Song of the Servant of the Lord Hymns (a total of four powerful prophetic poems in the Book of the prophet Isaiah describing a mysterious figure, the Lord’s Servant, who suffers for the people, bringing light, justice and redemption; last Sunday, we heard the first poem; all four are proclaimed during Holy Week). Reminiscent of the Christmas’ mystery, today’s passage says “You are my servant … through whom I show my glory. … I will make you a light to the nations.” Next Sunday’s readings will echo this statement.
How will it be done? The Responsorial Psalm selected as a response to the first reading provides cues that contain powerful connections with the letter to the Hebrews. First, it says, “I have waited, waited for the LORD, and he stooped toward me and heard my cry,” echoed in Hebrews in this way: “he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect (teleiothéis), he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb 5:7-9). Later, the same Psalm is quoted in the Letter to the Hebrews: “when he came into the world, he said: … ‘Behold, I come to do your will.’ … By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. … by one offering he has made perfect (teteléioken) forever those who are being consecrated” (Hebrews 10:5, 9, 10, 14). Christmas is too close to Good Friday to forget how much it costed Him to fulfill His mission, when God’s all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne leapt into the doomed land (see Wis 18:15), to finally shout “Per-fected!” (tetélestai, John 19:30; see Heb 5:9).
Summing up, we can say that these two first Sundays of the Ordinary Time offer biblical readings that support Jesus’ status as the divine legate who came to proclaim and institute God’s Kingdom among us. In the second reading, St. Paul, mindful of his mission that continues on what Jesus did first, wishes for the Corinthians to share in that Kingdom: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All of it is very well wrapped up by the Alleluia verse: “The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. To those who accepted him, he gave power to become children of God.”