(Lamb of God, Vault of the presbytery of San Vitale, Ravenna, 6th century)

Sunday, 18 January 2026

SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Commentary on the Sunday Gospel

Jn 1:29-34

This Sunday’s Gospel presents Jesus to us through the words of the prophet, moments after his baptism in the Jordan. How important it is for our daily faith to have someone who points us in the right direction, saying, ‘This is what you are looking for!’. Ultimately, our whole life is made up of encounters and words, but how often do those around us point us in the wrong direction?

Today, however, we can rely on a credible witness, a person who chose to live in the desert in a radical way, and with this radicalism attracted crowds outside the city of Jerusalem. The passage of the Gospel on which we focus is the second part of a dialogue between John and the crowds. In the previous part, John presented himself as a witness; in this second part, the witness presents Christ. In this presentation, we have much to learn about our relationship with God and with creation. 

“Behold the Lamb of God” is the concise and effective announcement that the eyewitness makes before the crowds who rush to be baptised in the River Jordan. Jesus has just been baptised. John’s Gospel does not recount the scene but only what follows. The first recipient of the announcement, paradoxically, is the prophet himself! He who performed the baptism of the Lord, and did not understand it while he was doing it, tries to understand in the announcement that he has before him the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah 53, the servant of YHWH.

For the Baptist, as for many of us, it is incomprehensible that God would silently stand in line with sinners to receive baptism. A God of silence is beyond our comprehension. It was beyond the Baptist’s comprehension, who in fact says, ‘I did not know him‘. That silence allows God to reveal himself to Israel. Faced with this silence, the wise action of the prophet is to do the Lord’s will, even though he does not understand it.

In this passage, the eyes of the Baptist are moving. First he says to us, ‘Behold!’, he says to us, ‘Look!’, and then he says to us, ‘I have seen the Spirit descend like a dove from heaven‘. It is an invitation to slow down, to take a contemplative look at what surrounds us. John’s prophetic act in the desert begins with contemplation. With silence. It is as if, from this very first moment, the prophet already makes himself a disciple of his Lord. And he invites us all to do the same.

The Baptist offers us a clear definition. Jesus is nothing more than a lamb, ‘the one who takes away the sin of the world‘. This is the mission of God who chooses to become incarnate; that baptism in the Jordan was performed by him in another way. In fact, while baptism by immersion in water in the river was a sign of conversion, ‘it is he who baptises in the Holy Spirit’, that is, not only in the immersion of death but above all in the life of the fire of the Spirit!

It is as if the Baptist were admitting the end of his activity in the desert, like an artist admitting that he has someone better than himself before him, and inviting us all to follow the new artist. The great teaching we receive today from John, on the banks of the river that flows through the desert, is to abandon the temptation of self-referentiality and instead fix our gaze on God.

‘And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God’, a beautiful declaration of love that closes John’s dialogue with the crowds. Seeing and bearing witness are the two actions that this wonderful figure of the Gospel gives us today, directed towards a God who frees us all from the slavery of sin, placing himself at the service of each one of us. John saw a man, in silence, becoming close to sinners, and from this he understood creation, the dove, the Spirit, baptism; he understood his life at its core.

Let us pray to the Lord today, on this Sunday, that we may better understand the meaning of our service to creation and to our brothers and sisters, with the gaze of Francis of Assisi, who said: “By this sign the servant of God can be recognised: if he has the Spirit of the Lord, when the Lord accomplishes something good through him, his ‘flesh’ does not become proud of it, for the ‘flesh’ is always opposed to every good thing, but rather he considers himself even more vile in his own eyes and esteems himself smaller than all other men.” (FF 161).

We wish you a happy Sunday

Laudato si’!