My brothers and sisters, if you look around the sanctuary today, you will notice a distinct shift. The poinsettias are gone, the crèche has been packed away for another year, and the gold and white vestments of Christmas have been folded up. Today, I stand before you in green as we enter what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.” However, I want to warn you against a common mistake: “Ordinary” in the life of the Church does not mean boring, nor does it mean routine. The word comes from ordinal, meaning “counted time.” It is the season where we count the days we walk alongside Jesus in the midst of our daily lives. And frankly, there is nothing “ordinary” about the Gospel we just heard.

We find John the Baptist standing by the River Jordan, surrounded by crowds buzzing with anticipation. They are looking for a Messiah, a conqueror, perhaps a King who will kick out the Romans—the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah.” Yet, when John sees Jesus coming toward him, he doesn’t announce a Lion; he says, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Imagine the confusion of those listening. A lamb isn’t a conqueror; a lamb doesn’t have claws or fangs. A lamb is vulnerable, gentle, and most importantly to the Jewish listeners standing there, a lamb is sacrifice. In one sentence, John the Baptist flips the world’s expectations upside down, telling them that God isn’t coming to conquer by force, but by sacrificing Himself—taking away the sin of the world not by destroying sinners, but by bearing the weight of the sin Himself.

As a Dominican, a member of the Order of Preachers, I have a deep love for John the Baptist because he is the model for all of us. If you look at classic religious paintings of John, artists almost always depict him the same way: with an elongated finger pointing away from himself and directly at Jesus. He doesn’t say, “Look at me, I’m the prophet,” or “Look how well I baptize.” He simply says, “Behold Him.” In the text today, John even admits, “I did not know him.” Think about that—they were cousins, yet John admits that he didn’t truly know who Jesus was until the Spirit opened his eyes. That is a lesson for us at St. Michael’s; we may have grown up with Jesus, but we always need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes a little wider, to see Him not just as a historical figure, but as the Lamb present right now.

In a few moments, I will stand at this Altar to do exactly what John did. I will take the consecrated Host, elevate it for you all to see, and echo those words across two thousand years: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” When we reach that moment in the Mass, remember that it is not a ritual repetition; it is a reality. We are pointing to the fact that Christ is here, not as a memory, but as a real presence.

So, here is your mission for this first week of Ordinary Time. We live in a world that is obsessed with “selfies”—look at me, look at my life, look at my opinions. The Christian is called to be the anti-selfie. We are called to be like John. When people look at your life—how you treat your employees, how you love your family, how you handle a crisis—do they see you, or do they see the One you are pointing to? Let us walk into this green season with the humility of the Baptist, unafraid to point a finger at the presence of God in our midst and say to a broken world: “Look. There He is. There is the Lamb who can make you whole.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.