Timing is everything. Choosing the moment to do something says much about the decision and what we hope will flow from it. Matthew tells us that Jesus began his public ministry after hearing that the Baptist had been arrested (Matthew 14:1-12). When John was arrested, the riskiness of his style of preaching became palpably obvious.

Jesus had asked John for baptism and after he was baptized, he "was led by the Spirit" to the desert — the setting from which John himself had come. What we call his temptation could also be considered a time of discernment about the purpose of his life. 

Then, when he realized that John's voice would no longer be heard, he took up the mantle in his own style.

Like John, Jesus preached metanoia, yet he did it in a different way. His message? The reign of God is at hand, get with it! Metanoia involved believing that message and putting its truth into action.

Seemingly right away, Jesus invited others to join him in spreading the message. He might have already known the first ones he invited — perhaps they had been disciples of John. Jesus' invitation to them was more than a call to metanoia. He invited these few women and men (more than are named) to consecrate their lives to making the reign of God obvious in the midst of their turmoil-torn, vulnerable world. The miracle? They did it!

It's hard to imagine what was going through those young people's heads. They were living good, ordinary lives, keeping their heads down under a repressive regime, seeing all too clearly what happened to those who stepped out of line. Then they encounter Jesus who lives as a vivid incarnation of what the reign of God means. He preaches and heals all kinds of brokenness. 

What's more, he tells those who would join with him that they can do the same. Even though they constantly wavered, they were devoting their lives, risking everything because they believed in his message and what it meant for them and their world.

While they may have occasionally dreamed that they were coming into prestige and power, their day-by-day experience of being with Jesus deflated that ambition time and again. They were on the road with a humble servant — very gradually understanding what he had invited them into. 

Ironically, the demons and Jesus' enemies understood his message in ways the disciples originally failed to grasp. Everything that Jesus was doing threatened the power behind lies and domination. That's what made his mission so dangerous.

Paul intended his message to the Christian community at Corinth to be, at the very least, a wake-up call. He had heard rumors about behavior unbecoming of disciples — rivalry, scorn of the poor, partisanship and much more. He minced no words in denouncing such conduct, reminding them that they were capable of much more: of being the body of Christ in their world.

What went on among the Corinthians is an ongoing temptation in every Christian community. We can think of the practice of our faith as something comforting and safe, even something that gives us a certain status. 

That's hardly what Jesus' first disciples found, and it has nothing to do with what Jesus asked for and promised his disciples. (See Matthew 24:9: "They will persecute you and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name.") That was what Jesus invited the disciples into when he said, "Come, follow me!"

They would slowly learn that their status came from how they served, how they proclaimed the Gospel and tended to the wounded, the ill, the poor. Living their mission, they would realize that the reign of God was becoming more and more visible among them. It was becoming real through them in ways that they never could have imagined and that it cost them nothing but their lives.

Looking at those first disciples challenges us. It's easy to go to Mass, to sing with a great choir and eat donuts with people afterward. There's no danger in that. But is that all that we are invited to as disciples? 

There's a T-shirt recently promoted that displays the words, "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Advocating for peace, the recognition of the dignity of each person, for food and health care for everyone — within and beyond our borders — is not politics, it is Christianity in action. Supporting efforts toward peace belongs to our mission — even when it is neither comforting or safe.

Are we, too, capable of much more than we might imagine? What are our times calling forth from us?

"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." We hear that at every eucharistic celebration. What does it mean to us? One interpretation holds that the lamb refers to sacrifice, inferring that the cross was necessary to atone for human sins. It could also be a declaration of faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Yet there are other ways to interpret John's declaration about the Lamb of God. 

Note one intriguing detail: While our eucharistic celebration says that the Lamb takes away the sins of the world, John proclaimed that Jesus would take away the sin (singular) of the world. That's a significant distinction. The plural expression seems to focus on the failings of each of us — on personal guilt. The singular more likely refers to the state of a sinful world. In this case, taking away the sin of the world would imply healing divisions and humanity's estrangement from God. Translation makes a great difference!

What did John mean by calling Jesus the "lamb" of God? This is the only time in the Gospels that anyone called Jesus a lamb — and that gentle image came from the mouth of John the Baptist, the firebrand prophet. Some scholars claim that John's use of the word lamb came from an Aramaic word that can be translated as boy, child or servant. No matter which word we use, the lamb image describes someone gentle and almost categorically incapable of violence.

This sense of the Lamb of God corresponds well with what Isaiah 49 says about the servant of God. Isaiah addressed this proclamation about the servant to the coastlands and distant peoples — to the whole world. Some see the servant as Christ, others as Israel, and still others as anyone chosen to be God's light to the nations. 

Whoever it may be — and it could be all of these — the servant relies on strength from God, reveals God's glory, brings God's people home and offers salvation to all the Earth. That's quite a vocation — given even before birth.

Today's Psalm invites us to pray with Jesus the lamb/servant. Our selections from Psalm 40 make an ideal prayer for discerning a vocational decision and for remaining faithful to it. They are appropriate for the celebration of marriage, graduation, the profession of vows or an ordination, and the anniversaries of any of those. This prayer centers us and reminds us of the purpose of our lives. Ultimately, to do the will of God is to keep becoming as fully human and unique as God created us to be.

In the introduction to his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul elaborates on being consecrated to the will of God. He makes it clear that he did not initiate his vocation but that God called him. He tells the unruly Corinthians that they share the same distinction: "You have been sanctified, called to be holy." 

Interestingly, Paul is talking to a community sanctified together, called together to be holy. In light of this, we realize that prayer acts like a boomerang. We ask for anything, and we're called to trust we've been given the grace to accomplish whatever is God's will. We ask, and God says yes while holding up a mirror.

When John pointed to Jesus, he spoke with uncharacteristic humility, admitting, "I did not know him. ... I saw the Spirit ... remain upon him." According to this Gospel, seeing the Spirit of God in Jesus was all the Baptist needed. With that, he freed his disciples to follow Jesus, the Lamb of God; he trusted that he/they could take away the sin of the world.

We live in an extraordinarily divided world. We see this in church, society, relationships, interactions among nations and in our dealings with creation. Too often we approach political or theological differences as if we were playing football: We celebrate the strongest, labeling the others as stupid or losers. 

Doing that, we belittle ourselves as much as those whom we scorn. Expressing contempt for God's creatures is blasphemy; it disparages what God has made and loves.

If we are, as Paul said, sanctified in Christ, our communal mission is to continue the work of taking away the sin of the world. Like John, we need not call attention to ourselves but allow the world to see that the Lord is our strength. 

In Christ, the Lamb of God, we are called and therefore capable of bringing God's light to our world. Today, we are the ones Isaiah proclaims, formed from the womb to gather the people together and restore victims and the lost so that salvation may reach the ends of Earth.

Are we ready to say, "Here we are, Lord, we come to do your will?"