Mary Had A Little Lamb...the Lamb of God

Virgin Mary had a Lamb,

His fleece was white as snow.

And wherever Joe and Mary went,

The Lamb was sure to go.

He went with them to Temple once,
And stayed, against the rule;
It made the elders quite impressed - 
The Lamb took them to school!

The priests chose not to turn Him out:
He knew so much they lacked.
And so they waited patiently
For Mary to come back.

"Why did you stay behind, my Son?"
The mother asked the lad.
"Did you not know I would be here
In the Temple of My Dad?"

The actual origin of the American nursery rhyme Mary Had A Little Lamb has to do with a little girl named Mary Sawyer, believed to have lived in Sterling, Massachusetts in the early 1800’s. In theory, the words are a very literal telling of an incident one morning: at the suggestion of her younger brother, Mary brought her lamb to school, and John Roulstone, a young man studying for college there, was inspired to write the four-stanza poem. (Sarah Hale was credited with its publication in 1830, and there is some question as to whether one, the other, or some combination wrote the four stanzas.) For whatever reason, the poem has become perhaps the most famous nursery rhyme in the western world – notably, Thomas Edison’s first recording of the human voice in 1877 was of himself, reciting the first verse of Mary Had A Little Lamb. 

Mary had a little lamb,
its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
the lamb was sure to go. 

It followed her to school one day,
which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play,
to see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out,
but still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
till Mary did appear.

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
the eager children cry;
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know",
the teacher did reply.  


The poem itself is innocuous enough - a lamb follows the little girl to school, much like Fido does at many elementary schools today. But as Christians, we see the words "Mary" and "lamb" and think of something very specific:

The Virgin Mary and the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

I did quite a bit of research over the last two weeks, trying to find out that secretly this was actually a subversively Christian poem...only to discover that it's exactly what it purports to be. It's about a little girl in Massachusetts and a baby sheep. Yawn.

So I wrote my own 'Christian' version of the poem - the version above in blue. All I did was simply take the story of youthful Jesus and formatted the words to fit the original poem, which is printed in green above. And I felt pretty decent about it.

And then...on Sunday morning, my pastor pulls out this gem of a re-write by a man named Brian Bill, who's the senior pastor at Edgewood Baptist in Rock Island, IL...

Mary had the little Lamb
Who lived before His birth;
Self-existent Son of God,
From Heaven, He came to Earth. (Micah 5:2)

Mary had the little Lamb;
See Him in yonder stall -
Virgin born Son of God,
To save man from the Fall. (Isaiah 7:14)

Mary had the little Lamb,
Obedient Son of God.
Everywhere the Father led,
His feet were sure to trod. (John 6:38)

Mary had the little Lamb,
Crucified on the tree.
The rejected Son of God,
He died to set men free. (1st Peter 1:18)

Mary had the little Lamb - 
Men placed Him in the grave
Thinking they were done with Him; 
To death, He was no slave! (Matthew 28:6)

Mary had the little Lamb, 
Ascended now is He;
All work on Earth is ended, 
Our Advocate to be.(Hebrews 4:14-16)

Mary had the little Lamb - 
A mystery to behold!
From the lamb of Calvary,
A Lion will unfold. (Revelation 5:5-6)

When the Day-Star comes again,
Of this, be very sure:
It won't be Lamb-like silence, but
With the Lion's roar. (Ps 2:12, Rev 19:11-16)

So...maybe it's time to open up the comments section and ask YOU, the reader, to write your OWN version of "Mary Had The Little Lamb of God"! One verse is plenty, or you can go berserk and write as many verses as Blogspot will let you fit into the comments!

Good luck!