The same John, or perhaps a different one, who had multiple visions of the Lamb of God, early in his gospel tells us that John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God. It is, in fact, according to John, that the first disciples came to follow Jesus because John had pointed him out to them as the Lamb of God. One of those disciples was Andrew, and he told his brother Simon what he had seen and heard, and together they would follow him the rest of their lives.

Whenever we gather at the table of the Lord, the priest repeats John’s message, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Then, we not only behold him, we also take him into our very bodies as we eat his Body and drink his Blood. Unlike Andrew and the other disciple of John who went to see where this Lamb of God dwelled, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world comes to dwell in us. When we eat his Body and drink his Blood, the Lamb of God finds a dwelling place in us. We become the very place where God is at work in the world.

Can we look in the mirror and say to ourselves, “Behold the Lamb of God?” Can we look at everyone else who receives the Eucharist, and say, “Behold the Lamb of God?” When we see ourselves and our fellow Christians as the presence of Christ in the world, when we see the Lamb of God in ourselves and all around us, then we can really be a people of hope. Then we can see that the Lamb of God is not simply a vision of some distant future or the dream of one of the disciples long ago, but is alive and present in our world today.