“Tell me, you whom my heart loves, where you pasture your flock.”
“What are the pastures of these sheep if they are not the deepest joys of the everlasting fresh pastures of paradise? For the pasture of the saints is to see God face to face; when the vision of God never fails, the soul receives its fill of the food of life for ever. And so, dear brothers and sisters, let us seek these pastures and there join in the joy of the celebrations of so many citizens of heaven. Let their happiness and rejoicing be an invitation to us. Let our hearts grow warm, let our faith be rekindled, let our desires for heavenly things grow warm; for to love like this is to be on the way.”
-Gregory the Great
“Little Lamb, who made thee?
Doest thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
-William Blake
“Lambs do not sit on thrones. Nor do they act as shepherds to the flock.
“In Israel—and in the Near East generally—the tradition was indeed to call the kings and leaders of the people “shepherds” and thereby to call the people “flock.”
“But what is meant that the lamb is the shepherd? It is, of course, the truth about Jesus that is so spoken. He is made a weak and finally a slain man. A nothing. Yet this very one knows his own, calls them by name, will allow no snatching out of the flock. One who is no king at all is the only king. One who is no shepherd is the good shepherd for all the peoples.
“It is the resurrection of the crucified one which is spoken by these images. In his “knowing us,” that is his being in the midst of our agony, knowing it by sharing it, we are placed irrevocably in God’s hand.
“But how shall we know that?
“Come to the table. Eat and drink. In the address of the body and blood to you, hear the shepherd’s voice calling you by name, knowing you and your need. Here is the end of hunger and thirst, the beginning of the wiping away of all tears, the flowing of the spring of life-giving waters.”
-Gordon Lathrop
“The paschal lamb, like Isaac’s ram,
in blood was offered for us,
pouring out his life that he
might to life restore us.”
-James Waring McCrady
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