Of Lambs and Angels
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
December 18, 2005

I commend to all of us the Christmas images of lambs and angels which run through much of our choir music this morning. “I hear the angel choir sing the song of peace on earth tonight.” “Angels and archangels may have gathered there, Cherubim and Seraphim thronged the air.” “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.” And, the piece you are about to hear: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”

One might guess these images come into the Christmas tradition from the familiar language of the book of Luke which reads, “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of God stood before them, and the glory of God shone around them, and they were terrified.” The angel then tells the shepherds of the birth of Jesus and what it means. Beyond that the presence of lambs and angels at Jesus’ manger is scripturally inaccurate. In fact, there is no mention of lambs anywhere in the nativity stories. The author of Luke tells us the shepherds went to Bethlehem to see Jesus, but there is no indication they brought their flocks with them. It’s hard to imagine shepherds coming to see this baby and simultaneously crowding hundreds of sheep into a back alley in ancient Bethlehem. I suppose it could’ve happened, but it’s not in the Bible. Nor is there any reference to angels hovering over the stable where Jesus was born. You occasionally hear references to someone bringing a lamb as a gift to the holy family but, again, there is no reference to that in the scripture. There are wise men who bring gifts, but that happens in the book of Matthew where there is no mention of shepherds or angels. (You may recall the wise men were guided by a star.) Nevertheless, both Christmas crèches in our house feature lambs and angels galore, shepherds, wise men, stars, cows, yaks, bales of hay—you name it, it’s all there. Whether or not it is scripturally accurate, lambs and angels are two of the entities we associate with the Christmas story.

A lamb, of course, is a baby sheep. Throughout the centuries it has been used as an image of meekness. My guess is that lambs are read back into the story of Jesus’ birth, or sung into Christmas carols, because Jesus has so often been described in Christian tradition as the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb, the Paschal Lamb. Jesus is the worthy Lamb that was slain. Jesus is meek, like a lamb. Perhaps one of the most commonly quoted passages attributed to Jesus comes in the Sermon on the Mount as described in the book of Matthew: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meekness, lambs, and Jesus, mentioned in various contexts over the centuries, blur together in the Christmas season.

I call our attention to lambs this morning in order to call our attention to meekness. I call our attention to meekness because I believe it is a quality missing from our lives, missing from our leaders, missing from our communities, missing from so many of the messages we hear these days.

Meekness. On one level, when I refer to the meek, I refer to the poor and oppressed the prisoners, the victims of torture and terror, the downtrodden, the sick, the dying. The angel who appears in front of shepherds in the Lukan Christmas story is appearing, we presume, in front of people who are poor, people who are struggling to survive. It doesn’t say this in the scripture, but many scholars suggest the author of Luke chose shepherds precisely because that is how they were perceived: poor, downtrodden, struggling, meek. The angel’s message was one of good news to shepherds—not to the wealthy elites, not to kings, not to the Roman Empire, but to the meek. And Jesus’ practice of Judaism we know was oriented towards teaching and healing the meek, being among the meek, touching with his hands and embracing with his arms the meek, seeking love and justice for the meek, calling God’s kingdom into being for the meek.

It strikes me that any religion, including Unitarian Universalism, that admires Jesus the person, that admires not necessarily the religion about Jesus but the religion he lived and practiced, ought to understand that its central ministry, like Jesus’, ought to be a lamb-oriented, a ministry to and with the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Indeed, they do inherit the earth, scorched in the wake of wars—so many wars—military wars, social wars, economic wars, environmental wars. The meek do not cause any such wars to begin for they do not have such power. Yet they are always left to put torn lives back together in the wake of war. They always inherit a damaged and violated earth. There is always much need for a ministry like the one Jesus practiced among the meek.

On another level, I remind myself—I remind us—that in each of us resides the capacity for meekness. In each of us resides the possibility, and perhaps even the inevitability of weakness, frailty, suffering—suffering from illness; suffering from poverty; suffering from isolation and loneliness; suffering from war and terror and torture; suffering from a general mean-spiritedness in our communities. Our fortunes can turn. In each of us resides the inevitability of death. We may be privileged in certain ways but we nevertheless always face the limits of the human condition like every other person in this world. This knowledge ought to give us pause, ought to remind us of our common bonds with all humanity, ought to inform us we are ultimately among the meek, and we are ultimately blessed if we can only see it, hold onto it, and believe it.

This knowledge of our own inherent capacity for meekness—the lamb in each of us—call us, if we let it, to an attitude of humility and graciousness, an attitude of forgiveness and generosity, a practice of hospitality, a practice of non-violence, a practice of peace-making, a practice of love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself, a practice of justice-seeking. And when we embrace such attitudes and practices, when our outward lives mirror an inward meekness, is it not possible that we then become like angels, messengers of the holy, bearers of good news? Is it not possible that in claiming and internalizing the identity of the lamb, we claim and internalize a source of power and strength that no tank, no bomber jet, no sub-machine-gun, no terrorist, no torturer, no president, no king, no dictator, no AIDS, no hunger, no poverty, no oppression, no Herod, no Caesar can overcome?

I believe it is possible. In our meekness we become like angels. It may not be in the scriptures, but in this Christmas season may our lives tell a story of lambs and angels.

Amen and Blessed Be.