written by Pat Thompson
On the east wall of our church, to the right of the stairway to the choir loft, is a window depicting a lamb with a banner. A lamb in church art can usually represent two things. When shown with a shepherd, the lamb symbolizes each of us. Jesus is our Good Shepherd and we are his lambs or sheep as He tells us in John 10:11-15: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them…I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me…and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Remember too the 23rd Psalm which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd…”? And the parable about the lost sheep in Luke 15:6?
On the east wall of our church, to the right of the stairway to the choir loft, is a window depicting a lamb with a banner. A lamb in church art can usually represent two things. When shown with a shepherd, the lamb symbolizes each of us. Jesus is our Good Shepherd and we are his lambs or sheep as He tells us in John 10:11-15: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them…I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me…and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Remember too the 23rd Psalm which begins, “The Lord is my shepherd…”? And the parable about the lost sheep in Luke 15:6?
Jesus again refers to us as lambs or sheep in John 21:15-17 when He says to Peter, “Feed my lambs…Tend my sheep…Feed my sheep.” Perhaps though a bit off the point of our window discussion, it might be appropriate to mention here that it is in this discussion with Peter that Jesus delegates Peter to be the next shepherd of His flock, the Church. As He did in Matthew 16:13-20, Christ establishes Peter as head and protector of the Church. In this role Peter and His successors were to protect us from the “wolves” of this world, preserve the gospel, and be sure that we are fed spiritually.
Back to our window. When a lamb is not pictured with the Good Shepherd, but rather is alone, it usually represents Jesus, the pure and innocent one who was sacrificed in atonement for our sins. When he sees Jesus, John the Baptist cries out, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29) Do these words sound familiar? Remember what we say at Mass? In the Gloria and ancient hymn of our Church, we sing, “Lord God, Lamb of God…” and later we sing the Agnus Dei—“Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.”
The Jews who heard John the Baptist say these words would have immediately been reminded of the sacrificial lambs whose blood was painted on the doorposts of the Israelites in Egypt so that the angel of death would pass over their homes. (Exodus 12) Just as those lambs saved the Israelites, our Lamb, at a later Passover, died upon His cross at the exact hour when the Jewish priests were sacrificing the Paschal/Passover lambs in the temple. (John 19:14) In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul writes, “Christ, our Paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. “Peter tells his readers, “You know that you were ransomed…not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (1 Peter 18-19)
Sometimes the Lamb of God is portrayed reclining, reminding us of the innocent wounded and/or slain Christ. Our Lamb is meek and innocent yet victorious, reminding that Jesus—our sacrificial Lamb—rose from the dead victorious. Our Lamb carries a banner with a cross on it. This commonly pictured Lamb and banner remind us that Jesus conquered sin and death by suffering and dying for us on His cross and that we who follow Him as our King serve “beneath His banner.’”
Pope Benedict XVI said on the feast of Christ the King on November 22, 2009, “But in what does this ‘power’ of Jesus Christ the King consist? It is not the power of the kings or the great people of this world; it is the divine power to give eternal life, to liberate from evil, to defeat the dominion of death. It is the power of Love that can draw good from evil, that can melt a hardened heart, bring peace amid the harshest conflict and kindle hope in the thickest darkness. This Kingdom of Grace is Pilate: whoever accepts His witness serves beneath His ‘banner.’ …Every conscience, therefore, must make a choice. Who do I want to follow? God or the Evil One? The truth or falsehood? Choosing Christ does not guarantee success according to the world’s criteria but assures the peace and joy that He alone can give us…”
There are many more lamb and shepherd references throughout the Old and New Testaments (Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 11:19, Ezekial 34—about bad and good shepherds, Acts 8:32, Revelation 5 …), but it is time to move on to the next window!
