The Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sins of the World

Friends, we return this Sunday to Ordinary Time, and the Church gives us a rather extraordinary reading from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Seeing Jesus, John the Baptist says something that we repeat at every single Mass: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Many Christians don’t know what this phrase means; they think that it has to do with Jesus’ gentleness or innocence. But John is drawing our attention here to who Jesus was—and the Good News of what he did for us on the cross.