Lamb

Morning routine and then—news! Spoons and tea cups dropped, and mud-slick-slide dash to the barn. There awaits two little lambs. Juniper the ewe, mother. One jet black, the other all ebony but touched with a white spot on the head. Amazement, confusion, daze—our first lambs, grey Juniper’s first lambs. What to do? What to expect? Is everything all right? Book knowledge stays between the covers, safely tucked next to the comfortable blue chair. What does it have to bear in this mud and straw and blood and umbilical cords and afterbirth and two bobbling buckling all-legs-and-tail lives?

But the white-anointed one is quiet. Too quiet? Father God, is this little lamb too quiet? Breath of only minutes old, barely sucking the ancient air. It lays in the straw—will it be okay? Will death touch new life? Worry. Fret.

And we—the stewards. We, the image-bearers. We, the culprits. The ancient winds of Garden of Eden sweep into the muddy stall; cosmic consequences of the Fall land and bear upon that little lamb. It is innocent. We, the sinners. We, whose fall brought the whole creation into groaning. Our cries against the way-things-are-not-supposed-to-be. Greater things than lambs: Natural disasters wiping out thousands, a child with cancer, a miscarriage, an auto accident, sickness. Brought home to me one more time as a jet-black lamb lies quiet.

But another stable cave…..With us.

Another Lamb who knew not sin…..For us. 
Another Adam who reversed Eden's curse.... Our hope.

Grace—our lamb did live. Thank you, Jesus, thank you.