Of Lions and Lambs

Today is March 1st.  As I sit and look out my office window at the wet snow wafting from the heavens I am reminded of the March weather wives tale, "in like a lion...out like a lamb."  Needless to say, I am expecting BIG weather changes in the next thirty days that comprise the month of March.

Almost simultaneously other pictures entered into my thought process...lions and lambs. I'll begin with the streaming thoughts of lions.  I rarely even hear the word lion without three mental ques going off in my head--one tangible, one visual, and one auditory. When I was very young I had a small stuffed lion.  It's name, according to the tag, was either "Rory" or "Dandy" (I know right...but I was a kid I thought either was cute.)  To tell the truth I don't remember how I came to possess this pint sized king of the jungle...but he must have meant something to me because I kept him through my college years, and passed him along to my kids when they were old enough to enjoy stuffed toys (another cue just flashed into my head as I typed this--Burt Lahr--the cowardly lion singing "If I Were King of the Forrrrrest!!"). The second connection is Aslan, C.S. Lewis' powerful Christ figure in the Chronicles of Narnia. Though there are MANY favorite quotes by and about Aslan throughout the seven books, my favorite is from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" where Mr & Mrs Beaver are telling the Pevensie children about Aslan and Susan states that she would be scared to meet a Lion, to which the Beavers respond, "he is NOT a tame lion!" (my second favorite is where Aslan tells Jill that he eats... "girls, boys, and has consumed entire kingdoms!"). The third thing that takes place in my head when I hear the word lion is Daniel Bashta's song (and I might add that Crowder does the ONLY worthwhile version) that states, "my Gods not dead He is surely alive...he is living on the inside roaring like a lion!" So each time the word lion is mentioned I get this weird music video thing going off in my brain replete with flashing images of stuffed, pint-sized lions, computer generated lions (who sounds like Liam Neason) saying my favorite quotes from the books, and David Crowder (beard and all) singing "roaring like a lion." WOW...just think if I actually took mind altering drugs what my world might be like!!

Then there are the "lamb" signals that rush to my brain...the innocence of seeing newborn lambs in the spring, frolicking in the newly green grass, the joy that I felt as they drank milk from the bottle in my hand. The immense emotion of Jodie Foster describing to Hannibal Lecture why the movie is called "The Silence of the Lambs", and the old Ray Boltz song..."Watch the Lamb."

It may not be coincidental that all of these sounds, and images fire in the chemical make up of my brain on a day like this.  It should not seem odd that the thoughts of lions and lambs (when speaking of spring weather) should conjure such occurrences...especially since Good Friday and Easter find their celebrations in the month of March this year.

Call it a...vocational hazard...but when Spring rolls around my thoughts turn to Easter.  Easter can scarcely be contained into a single day or encapsulated into a single thought.  Most theologians call it the Easter "event."  I guess that is what it was...perhaps the greatest event in the history of humanity...for what good is the cross of Good Friday without the resurrection on Sunday--or visa-versa.  One brings grace, mercy, and forgiveness to humanity which would be quite useless if we were forced to live THIS life without hope of something else...which is what the power of the resurrection brings to us.

Hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth the prophet said, "...He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth...."  Who did this?  Jesus, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," the "Lion of the tribe of Judah."

And so as the month of March begins (at least today it seemed to "come in like a lion" therefore I assume it will "go out like a lamb"), and the weather causes us to pause and consider lions, and lambs...don't think it mere coincidence that celebrating Easter is JUST around the corner.

I believe...("my Gods not dead he is surely alive, he's living on the inside roaring like a lion"), help me in my unbelief.