The Gift of a Goat

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​Jesus, the Lamb, not the goat, of God (An excerpt from my devotional I am publishing)
While goats and lambs were sacrificed in the Bible, Jesus was likened unto a sacrificial lamb.
Goats can be stubborn and troublesome with their curiosity and need to chew on things, while sheep are more likely to follow the paths set before them. Perhaps that is why Jesus was known as the sacrificial Lamb of God. He obeyed God, followed the path God set before him, and was gentle like a lamb.
While I have read different theories of where and how Jesus was born, the one that made the most sense to me was regarding the birth in a manger in a cave. A lamb’s manger.
At the time Jesus was born, and less than an hour’s walk from Bethlehem on the road to Jerusalem, was a tower known as Migdal Eder, called a watch tower for flocks of sheep. The sheep kept in this area by specially trained shepherds were marked for sacrifice, and it is said came from Bethlehem.
Ewes (mama sheep) gave birth in a special depression in limestone rock known as a manger in the lower level of this tower. The lambs at birth and before sacrifice were wrapped in swaddling cloths to calm them and prevent injury or blemish. This meant strips of cloth would be wrapped around the baby lambs.
When these nearby shepherds were told by the angels that they should go see a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths in a manger, they knew the significance of the message. The long promised Messiah, the “sacrificial lamb” without blemish for all men’s (and women’s) sins, had been born. Probably in a cave, perhaps in a stone manger.
I find God’s Bible so remarkable in how thousands of small details written into the lives of the people in the Old Testament point every time to our Savior of the New Testament. What a miraculous book.
I hope you find answers and fellowship with our Savior as you share in my thoughts and prayers in this book—a book in which goats lead me to thoughts of the Lamb.
With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. (Hebrews 9:12)