The Lamb

When I was born, it was very early in the morning.  The sun came up when I finally managed to stand on my legs.  Mother insisted on licking me all over.  I hated that, but she was very insistent.  A sea gull cried in the distance.

Not two days later, on one cool, starry night, the old shepherd, the one with the grey beard, gently picked me up as I sat upright on the cool grass.  He was smiling softly, so I was not afraid.  He was the kind shepherd who had often rescued lambs from the thick underbrush and taken thorns from overzealous young rams.  Tonight was different.  I could tell by the way he was walking, something special was happening.
I am not a good judge of distance, for my legs are not very long yet.  But it seemed like we walked for a long time.  There was a star in the sky that was so bright that it was almost like daylight.

When the shepherd first picked me up, I noticed the singing.  It didn’t stop as we walked, even a long ways from our pasture.  It was beautiful singing and it sounded like angels.

When we finally started walking down a hill and turned, I saw where we were going.  It was a rock enclosure, and looked kind of like the enclosures in our pasture.  These were the places the shepherds huddled in when it was storming.  Sometimes the lambs got to be in their with them.

In the shelter, I could see three people.  One was a tall man, standing up.  He had a beard.  There was a woman, a very beautiful woman, with a soft radiance about her.  She was kneeling beside a manger.  But in the manger, besides the straw for the animals, was a baby.  The baby was cooing, and had sparkling blues eyes.

When the shepherd and I got to the shelter,  the beautiful woman looked up and smiled at us.  The shepherd was looking as radiant as the woman.  I wondered what was happening.

The shepherd said to the woman that I was a gift, for the child.



Mark
Merry Christmas
2010.