Corpus Christi - June 22, 2025
- charleseverson
- Jun 27
- 5 min read
Corpus Christi
Church of the Atonement
The Rev’d Charles Everson
June 22, 2025
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
These words brought great comfort to me nearly two years ago when I celebrated my first Mass here at Atonement. It was the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and in the pews were members of the Rector Search Committee and the vestry. I remembered an earlier interview when someone asked me, “Are you the kind of Anglo-Catholic priest who’s comfortable using the prayer book rather than other traditional liturgies?” I had said yes—absolutely—but quietly wondered if that meant that one of my favorite liturgical moments would be forbidden as it’s not in the prayer book – the moment when the priest elevates the consecrated bread and wine and says, Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
So when I saw those words printed in the bulletin, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. That simple phrase, from John 1:29, has long marked one of the most profound moments in the Western liturgy—a moment that emphasizes the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For Anglo-Catholics, it’s a center of gravity. It names who Christ is, what he has done, and how we respond. And today, on this great feast of Corpus Christi, I want us to sit with those words. Let’s turn them over, listen again, and let them shape our understanding of the Cross, the Eucharist, and the very identity of this parish.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Last Sunday, Bro. Ron masterfully avoided heresy by avoiding the doctrine of the Trinity altogether. Today, for better or for worse, I want to take the opposite approach and face the doctrine of atonement head-on. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines atonement as "man’s reconciliation with God through the sacrificial death of Christ." Sounds simple enough. But throughout history, Christians have described this mystery in many ways. Many of us who come out of the evangelical world know too well the penal substitution theory—the idea that God is a wrathful judge, and Jesus took the punishment we deserved. This theory is deeply problematic, in part because it makes God the Father into a punisher, and God the Son into the target of divine violence. That is not the Gospel.
Instead, I want to offer a model that has shaped my understanding of atonement: St. Anselm’s satisfaction theory. In his seminal work Cur Deus Homo—“Why did God become man?”—Anselm uses the imagery of the feudal system of his day to suggest that sin is not merely breaking a rule but breaking a relationship. Sin is a dishonor to God’s justice, a rupture we can’t repair. Humanity owes a debt—not of punishment, but of honor and fidelity—a debt we are unable to repay.
So in love, God becomes one of us. Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, he whom Anselm refers to as “the God-Man” owes nothing—but gives everything. Not to appease wrath, but to restore justice through mercy. In Christ, God lifts what we could not carry. The cross is not about wrath—it’s about restoration. Not violence for appeasement, but self-giving love.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Anselm’s atonement theory is not the only one out there. The early Church taught Christus Victor—Christ as the conquering King who defeats sin, death, and the devil. Others have emphasized moral influence—Christ showing us perfect love and calling us to imitate him. These and other models aren’t in competition; they are complementary. The Lamb of God is both Victor and Victim. His death is both conquest and offering. But what unites all these approaches is this: Jesus gives himself in love. He takes what is broken and makes it whole. And that self-gift—the atonement—is made present to us every time we come to the altar.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th century author of many of the prayers and hymns for today’s feast, teaches, Christ’s Passion is the greatest of all sacrifices, for by it the whole world is reconciled to God.[1] That once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus isn’t just something we read about in a book, it is a reality made present here and now, in the mystery of the Eucharist. In John 6, Jesus says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And Paul reminds us that the bread we break and the cup we bless are a participation in Christ’s body and blood.
Flannery O’Connor once said of the Eucharist, “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” She was right. This is not symbol only, but sacrament: Christ’s true Body and Blood, given for us—the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
At the Church of the Atonement, we don’t have a patron saint like St. Mary or St. Luke. Our name points instead to a doctrine: Christ’s reconciling work on the cross. Rather than the feast of St. Mary or St. Luke, our feast of title is Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. We are not named for a single holy person, but for the gift that makes us holy: the One who gave himself once for all on the cross, and gives himself still to us in this bread and this cup. We are a people reconciled and reconciling. We are a Eucharistic people—fed by love, sent in love.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.
Today at 11:00, we had planned to carry that love into the streets of Edgewater in a Eucharistic procession—a hallmark of Corpus Christi for centuries. That procession, where the Blessed Sacrament is lifted high and Christ is borne among his people, is not meant to be spectacle but witness. It is one of the most concrete ways we proclaim that Christ is not confined to the sanctuary. He is Lord of Edgewater. Lord of Chicago. Lord of the world.
Due to today’s intense heat, we’ve had to adapt our plans. But the witness of this feast remains. The presence we adore at the altar is the same presence we carry in our hearts and bear into the world in our lives. Our feet may not walk in procession today, but our lives still do—carrying Christ into the world with every act of mercy, every step rooted in his self-giving love.
That is what it means to be Church of the Atonement. Not simply to proclaim a doctrine, but to embody it. Not merely to adore Jesus in the monstrance, but to take Jesus into a world aching for peace.
As we leave this place, I invite you to carry that refrain with you. Let it ring in your soul. Let it shape how you see the world, how you love your neighbor, how you face your burdens. And let it echo in your heart this day, and every day: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Amen.
Comments