Agnus Dei

I've heard several lessons, sermons, and stories about the great Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac; how God told Abraham to take Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice. Gruesome as it may seem, Abraham did what God told him to do - he gathered some wood for the burnt offering, packed a knife, and off he went. The trip was 50 or 60 miles to Mount Moriah; Abraham and Isaac took along two helpers for most of the way. On the third day of the journey, however, Abraham told the two helpers to hold up, took the wood and gave it to Isaac to carry, and the two of them went the rest of the way by themselves. Isaac, wondering, asked about the obvious omission: We've got wood for a burnt offering, but where is the lamb? Abraham answered, "God will provide for himself a lamb..."

It's a bit of a cliffhanger from there - Abraham and Isaac arrive at Mount Moriah, Abraham builds an altar, stacks the wood on top, and binds Isaac on top of the wood. Then he takes the knife, and just as he is about to plunge it into his son's body, an angel calls out to Abraham to stop. Looking up, Abraham spots a ram caught in a thicket, and untying Isaac, replaces him with the ram for the sacrifice.

Fr. William Wilson made a wonderful point about this story that I had never thought of before. Abraham told Isaac that "God will provide for himself a lamb...", however, it wasn't a lamb that was sacrificed - it was a ram. Fr. Wilson asks, "So, when does God provide a lamb for sacrifice?" The answer: way over in the New Testament, just after John the Baptist is introduced as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. John sees Jesus coming toward him and announces: "Behold, The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

And so, because of this, everything changed, in such a profound way that I still don't get it half the time. Prior to John's announcement about Jesus being the lamb of God, rabbis must have told their flock that they, too, had to be prepared to make sacrifices just like Abraham - he had set the example of willingness and submission by offering his most precious possession to God as a sacrifice. After the true Lamb was sacrificed, there was no more reason to think that way. All our missteps, our falling short, our stubbornness, our intransigence (Sinatra - "I did it my way"), our addiction, our hatred, our anger, lust, greed, and pride, our selfishness, our envy - every single sin - all this was taken into account, paid for, worked through, understood, and taken away from us. No more sacrifices are required by you and me - as a matter of fact, (and this is important) it would be presumptuous of us to think that we could offer some sacrifice in addition to the one offered for us, on the cross, on Good Friday.

I have learned that this is old hat to a lot of my friends, who get pretty bored with my amazement, and marvel that I took so long to "get it". Looking around, however, I don't think that I'm in the minority - Christians are still trying every which way to do something that will impress God, to make some sacrifice, to bear their own pitiful cross like a martyr, as so forth. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Truth be known, I still wear that t-shirt underneath my shirt, where none of my friends can see it.

There is a Derek Webb song which speaks to this - Derek is a singer/songwriter, and has written a powerful song entitled "I Repent", which contains these lines:

"I repent,
I repent,
Of paying for what I get for free."

It's a great song, by a compelling artist. But it's not as good as this little song, called Agnus Dei, which is part of the liturgy:

"O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace."

Perhaps if it's peace that I want, I'm going to have to give up some things I've been carrying around - like the wood for the burnt offering - and quit paying for what was given to me - and you - for free.