Leonard The Lamb

My mind runs through memories of the holiday season.  My husband's favorite Christmas movie was  What A Wonderful Life, the heartwarming story of a man discovering the importance of his well-lived, generous life.  On the other hand, my favorite movie is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, the story of the renegade Herdman children bringing wild adventure to a usually calm Christmas program.  It reminds me of a event I want to share here.  I've already included it in my annual Christmas letter.

It happened during the children's annual Christmas pageant at the Free Methodist Church in Huntsville, Alabama in 1975.   A soft murmer rippled through the congregation after the shepherds arrived at the manger, because, in the subdued lighting while a teenager sang O Holy Night, it appeared that one of the shepherds held a real live lamb.  The shepherd held the lamb tightly in his arms while the lamb gazed around at everything and then finally snuggled closer to the shepherd in loving confidence.  However, it wasn't a real live lamb; it was a puppet.  Our family still has this puppet; we call him Leonard the Lamb.  How he came to be is an amazing story!

That was the year I volunteered to do the costumes for the Christmas program.  I made the three wise men's crowns by gluing gaudy costume jewelry onto strips of indoor/outdoor carpet with liquid nails.  Then I recycled used bathrobes, coat linings, and bed covers into robes for Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the wise men.  At one point, I turned the fleece-lined hood of an old jacket inside out.  When I threw the hood on the floor with scraps of cloth as useless, it landed in such a way that it reminded me of the shape of a lamb's head.  Picking the hood back up, I began envisioning it as a puppet for my ten-year-old son Mark to carry as a shepherd.  I knew I could teach him how to make the puppet move realistically.

And so, I fashioned Leonard the Lamb out of the fleece of the jacket hood, adding glossy black buttons as eyes and gluing on a yarn black nose.  I put a Styrofoam ball inside the head for shape and fashioned a bent coat hanger to make the ears stick out and be moveable.  But then I was stymied because I didn't have any more fabric with which to make ears.  In desperation, I cut a 2" by 2" square out of one side of the puppet's neck and used it to make the ears.  I told my son he'd have to be careful to only let one side of the lamb's neck show since the other side had a big square hole in it. 

A few days later, in the mail came samples of sewing materials, fabrics, that I could order from a certain company.  I had never ever heard of the company, nor had I ever bought fabric from anyone through the mail.  I had never had such an offer before, nor have I ever had such an offer since.  There were a few swatches of dark polyester trouser material in the envelope, and there was also a 2" by 2" square of fleece that was nearly an identical color and texture as Leonard the Lamb.  At once I sewed the square into the puppet's neck.  It fit the hole exactly!  And it was barely noticeable!  If you look closely at the picture above, you might be able to see the square of slightly different fleece in the middle and the bottom of Leonard's neck.

The arrival of that swatch of matching material wasn't just a coincidence.  It was an example of God's watch care and grace.  As I recall that event of thirty-four years ago, I continue to be amazed that God cared about Leonard the Lamb who was merely a puppet.  I learned an unforgetable lesson from that event-- If God cared for that inanimate puppet to be made whole, surely He cares that much for me.

That's the message of Christmas itself.  God loved us so much that He sent Jesus, His Son, to earth as a human being, so that one day on the cross Jesus would be the sacrificial lamb to take away our sins.  Truly, to be whole, we need God's healing of our past and the wrongs done to us.  That is what Jesus was born to accomplish. 

Perhaps that is why a movie about a Christmas pageant is my favorite Christmas movie-- it reminds me of this lesson I learned long ago.