Last Sunday night the Methodists put on a living nativity.

We had shepherds. We had Wise Men. The Holy Family with a real baby made an appearance. The children sang. Folks walked around talking and laughing. It was great.

The hit of the evening was the petting zoo. We had real animals. I didn’t have to put on a costume because there was a donkey present. There were goats and sheep present. There was also a lamb.

The evening was wonderful. Things happened over which we had little control. It was very much like the first Christmas must have been. It was life, unscripted.

When the folks were packing up their animals, the lamb escaped. In proper fashion the Methodists were methodical in chasing down the lamb. The ninety-nine were left in the trailer while the escaped lamb was rounded up.

In our preacher covenant group we were talking about the escaped lamb. Linda Clark, who leads our group, shared a wonderful passage of scripture for us to ponder. I needed the word that she had selected. The passage also reminded me of the Sunday night escaped lamb and the Lamb of God who has come into the world.

Imagine a world where:

The wolf will live with the lamb.
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
The calf and the young lion will feed together,
And a little child will lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze.
Their young will lie down together,
And a lion will eat straw like an ox.
A nursing child will play over the snake’s hole;
Toddlers will reach right over the serpents’ den.
They won’t harm or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain.
The earth will surely be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
Just as the water covers the sea.
Isaiah 11: 6-9 (CEB)

Merry Christmas

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