Lamb update

The lambs continue to come along fine. We have a total of six from the three ewes. Two gave birth to twins, one gave birth to triplets, but lost two in the process. So, how is it that we have six?

As mentioned previously, I was away for a 16 hour trip out of town when the triplets came. One was just fine, the others were found dead. Of those two, one looked like a wee lamb that was only sleeping.

Lauren called our resident expert, Tom Wilson, who said, “Bring the lamb to me that is dead, but looks normal.” Lauren took the lamb to Edgeworth where Tom immediately go to work. Tom skinned the lamb in such a way that its pelt resembled a sweater. He then pulled it over the head of a bottle lamb (a lamb who has no mother to nurse off of) and gave it back to Lauren. “There,” he said, “Let’s see what she does with her.”

Lauren came home with the lamb and the ewe who had lost the two, took this one as her own.

This process is known as grafting. The smell of the dead lamb’s pelt says to the mother, “I belong to you.” There are instances in which this doesn’t work, but it is remarkable how often it does work. And, it is not really a trick because not only do we see this in nature, but in a deeper and more meaningful way when it comes to how God relates to us.

Grafting a lamb is an echo, a sign, a shadow, of God’s redeeming work in Jesus. As fallen human beings who are turned in on ourselves; we do not belong to God, but are alienated from him. In order for us to be grafted into his family, we need someone from the outside to intervene. We need someone to die. And with that death, we can now put on the righteousness of Jesus. We are, like the grafted lamb, covered by him. When the Father sees us, we are no longer estranged, but he looks upon us as he looks upon Jesus, his child.

Just one more instance in our world where God tries to show us what he had done for us in Jesus.

To see a video of the grafted lamb with its loving mother, head over to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092492406425