2018-1-14

朋友们，在今天的福音中，我们听到洗者若翰在看见耶稣时即宣告：“看，天主的羔羊！”

 

早期与基督教会对抗的异端之一是马西昂派，他们深信人们应该忽略《圣经旧约》与耶稣的关系。但是四位福音书作者用来描述耶稣正是基督的各个方面几乎都是来自《旧约》。

 

在若望的福音序言中，亦即写在今天的福音之前的篇章中，我们读到天主盟约之爱的圣言，也就是曾与亚巴郎、梅瑟和达味对话的圣言，现在已于纳匝肋的耶稣身上成了血肉。耶稣本人就是盟约。但纵观整个以色列历史，天主与人类之间的盟约总是要求献祭牺牲品。

 

这就带出今天的福音，其中洗者若翰提供了解释《圣经新约》的最关键的要点之一：耶稣将成为圣殿里献祭的羔羊，并且通过这种牺牲，去除世人的罪恶。

 

当今人们之所以难以理解耶稣就是因为我们实际上都是马西昂派的后人。我们若要真正理解若翰的基督性语言，就需要去理解伟大的以色列故事。

 

Friends, in our Gospel for today, we hear John the Baptist proclaim, in response to meeting Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

 

One of the earliest heresies that the Christian church fought was Marcionism, the conviction that Jesus should be interpreted in abstraction from the Old Testament. But the categories that the Gospel writers used to present Jesus as the Christ were, almost exclusively, drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

In John’s prologue, the passage before today’s reading, we read that the Word of God’s covenantal love, which was addressed to Abraham, Moses, and David, has become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is the covenant in person. But throughout Israel’s history, the covenant between God and humanity is always accompanied by sacrifice.

 

That brings us to today’s reading, where John the Baptist offers one of the most important interpretive keys of the New Testament: Jesus will play the role of the sacrificial lambs offered in the temple, and through a sacrifice, take away the sins of the world.

 

One reason that people today have such a difficult time appreciating Jesus is that we have become, effectively, Marcionites. To really understand the Christological language of John, we need to understand the great story of Israel.