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Where’s my lamb?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I am a poor Shepherd who has spent a lifetime outside the city in the fields keeping watch over sheep. Every day it is the same, watching over these smelly animals and picking up their scent all over my clothes. I guard these animals, who will be bought and offered as sacrifices for sin in the Temple. But I am too poor to afford one myself. Where is my lamb?

I know my sins are many and I pray to God daily for forgiveness. But I also know my Torah, which says that forgiveness of sins requires a blood sacrifice. I have none, so I also pray daily that God will somehow provide me one so that I may know cleansing from my sins. Where is my lamb?

I am with the others when the angels appear and tell of a baby born in a barn and laying in a manger. I follow, eager to know what this can all mean. How can this possibly affect me? I know the angel spoke of a great joy which will be for all people, but I also know that I am a dirty shepherd who is too unclean to enter the Temple. Where is my lamb?

We finally arrive at the place where the star shines to find a very tired woman holding a newborn, wrapped in cloths, and a tired but happy husband kneeling nearby. As glad as I am for them, I wonder again how this could affect me, a shepherd who is still weighed down by my sins.

Then I see Him. I look the child lying in a manger and I see Him with eyes of faith. I see that the child is no ordinary child, but is Emmanuel, God with us. I remember the prophet Isaiah’s words that He will be bruised and scarred for my transgressions. I see that God has in fact provided my sacrifice. With tears filling my eyes, I realize that God in the baby Jesus has become my Lamb.

So I kneel to worship this infant Jesus and I rise in wonder that God should do this for me. I will go from here changed, proclaiming that salvation for the whole world has come. And that includes even dirty, sinful shepherds like me.

For Advent

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Rejoice and be glad, all you who have royally screwed over your life, for Mercy and Grace have come to you in the form of a baby in a manger.

Celebrate, all who have lost their way, for the Star of Bethlehem points the way to the Child who is the Way.

Be ridiculously happy, all you who are shackled to bonds of fear and envy and hate, for the One has come whose mission is to set you free.

Dance for joy, all you who are nobodies of the world, for Mary’s child will take your lives and use them to shame the wise and powerful A-listers.

Weep no more, you who are rejected and outcast, for Love has a name written in blood on His heart and that name is yours.

Be giddy with glee and overcome with laughter, all you who have lost all hope, for Hope now has a name and that name is the Name above all Names, Jesus.

Come to the manger, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, for He who now rests there will give you rest.

Sing with joy all your days, you who were never good enough by your own efforts to get to God, for God has come near to you.

My first ever blog (tah-dah!)

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 5 Comments

This is my first ever blog! WOOHOO!

By the way, the name of the blog comes from The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, who is pretty much my favorite writer right now. In case you were wondering.

I think that there are two essentials in the faith. These come from James 1:27. “Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.” (from the Message translation) These are compassion and integrity.

Integrity is keeping yourself unstained by the world, and compassion is reaching out to the orphans and widows (or in our society, the homeless and loveless). We need both of these. Jesus had both during His earthly ministry. He was sinless and kept the law perfectly, but He reached out to society’s castaways and showed the world what the grace of God looks like.

How does that play out in real life? I am trying to figure that out myself. But I know I need both, so I try to live both.