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The Lamb, the Bread and the Eucharist

Homily
Sunday, April 22, 2007, 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C

We read in today’s reading that the angels, the evangelists and the apostles all cried out, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Today I wish to offer a meditation on that.

The first time a lamb was slain in sacrifice was in the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. They lived there as slaves, and now God was going to deliver them. Egypt, in the later books of the prophets, in the “theological geography” of the Old Testament, was the land of sin. So the Israelites were slaves of sin, and like all sinners who serve sin, they served their enemy, for sin is the enemy of man.

The sacrifice that night, the night of their freedom, linked three things: first, the slaying of the innocent, immaculate Lamb; second, the sacrifice of unleavened bread; and third, the death of the firstborn sons. This is a prophecy and figure in ancient times of Jesus, the Only Son of God, who was both immaculate and slain, and who comes to us in the form of unleavened bread.

Today’s passage is the first of many where the Lamb appears. In this passage, he is worthy to open the scroll. Later we see the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:16). Then we contemplate the Lamb and the 144,000 saved (Rev 14:1-5). The Lamb “is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings” (Rev 17:14). The new Jerusalem, the Church Triumphant, is portrayed as the bride of the Lamb (Rev 21:9). His universal and divine presence throughout heaven (Rev 21:22). All of this tells us who this Lamb is: Jesus the Lord, born of the Virgin Mary, who was slain on the cross and rose from the dead.

This Lamb is the one who descends upon the altar every Mass through the ministry of the priest. This is why the priest holds up the host and says, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” It is really him, it is the Lord!

The Lord comes to us under the appearances of bread and wine, because he is the Lamb who was slain. For let’s look at some of the aspects of the sign of bread and wine to understand the ways of the Lamb of God who is present in the Eucharist.

Bread requires two things: the natural forces God has created in living things on the one hand, and the labor of men on the other. Man takes something he finds in the world God made, namely, the seed of wheat. He plants it, and it corrupts in the ground, and from it then springs forth something new. It is as if God left a fingerprint in creation which would teach us about his death and resurrection. For Jesus says, “Unless the seed dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). The wheat is then crushed, ground and baked, and then it becomes a very simple bread, a bread so to speak even of the poor, with nothing in it but wheat. Similarly, the vine is often pruned, and the grapes are dried and crushed and much else.

And so, taking of the things God gives us, and sending them down the royal road of the cross, man’s hands transforms these simple things into apt signs of the Eucharist; the priest then adds the sacramental word, and the signs take on a reality which far exceeds their own nature.

The Lamb, too, was crushed, left in the dryness of the desert, put to fire in the crucible of suffering, and so prepared for the Resurrection and Ascension.

So let us always come to the Eucharist thinking these things: that in the sign of bread, the reality of God is given to me. The Eucharist is the Lamb, who is Worthy, who is King, who is Mighty, who knows all things, who created the universe, the bride of the Church, the goal of my life, the heavenly possession for which it is worth sacrificing everything.

When Jesus told Peter to “feed his lambs,” he meant especially with the Eucharist. And in the Our Father, the real translation of it does not say, “give us this day our daily bread,” but “give us this day our supersubstantial bread,” indicating the divine nature of the Eucharistic bread.

And so we pray, “Jesus, I believe that in the Eucharist you are present. You are the Lamb of God. You were sacrificed to save me from my sins and open up to me the gates of heaven. I adore you and praise you, to you be glory forever. Make me like you, so I can love you in life and in death, so I can give my life for others both in time and in eternity. And bless the Church, dearest Eucharistic Lord, with many priests to feed us with the Eucharist until you come again in glory. Amen.”