The Bull and the Lamb

Art by Annaliese Sanchez, age 13

By Pastor Joseph Urbina, Jr.

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
– Hebrews 9:12

That day started like any other: Big sister helping Mom, older brother in the field with Dad.

The smell of breakfast filled the house. It was the weekend. Good! At least I can rest one day, maybe.

“Obie, time to get up! You have unfinished chores, young man.”

“Oh, Mom, do I have to?”

“You know we all have to pitch in.” Oh, well, can't blame me for trying.

“I made your favorite,” said Mom in a lighter tone, “bread with goat's milk.” Hmm, I could eat that any time of day, seven days a week. Too bad we only get it once a year.

“Mom, can’t I do my chores later, please?” Mom arched her eyebrow and rolled her eyes.

“No problem with me, Son. Dad might not appreciate it, though.” The thought gave me a shiver. Dad always wanted things done just so.

I finished breakfast and slowly walked to my first chore: cleaning my section of the barn and feeding the animals Dad had assigned to my care. “That'll teach you responsibility, Son,” he had told me.

I stopped in my tracks and my blood froze. My oldest brother was taking my yearling bull out of the barn.

“What are you doing with Pooky?” I demanded in a strained voice.

“Dad needs him.” Big brother had always been a man of few words.

“Needs him for what?” I asked as something began to well up inside me.

“Just needs him. Didn't say why.”

I remembered the night my bull was born. He was small, with a tiny patch of white hair on the tip of each ear. Dad told Mom something about the bull not being fit. He would wind up helping in the field, he said. I was six years old and I didn't understand. I was just happy to watch the newborn feed on his mother's milk. I called him Pooky because he made that sound when he called to his mother. Or, at least I thought he did.

Dad told me it was ridiculous to give names to farm animals and my brother agreed, but I didn't care. I would make sure my bull grew up healthy and strong. Strictly speaking, he wasn't really my bull, but I liked to think so.

Pooky had the biggest, brightest brown eyes and he liked to follow me around as I did my chores. I would pat his head, rub his ears, and tell him stories. I told him when I grew up and got a house I would take him to my place to live with his family. He would just listen, swat flies with his tail, twitch his ears, and make that funny sound I loved so much.

As the days went by, he gained weight and his coat got soft and shiny. Unlike the other bulls, Pooky was so calm, so humble. I felt relaxed whenever I was around him. I loved him so much. The days went a lot smoother when Pooky was around, even when I was mucking out stalls on my side of the barn.

Often Dad would take the other bulls, sheep, or goats to town and return without them. He would tell us that he gave them to the Lord and that the priests took them to their houses. I thought nothing of it, but that the Lord must have lots of animals that the priests cared for. I wondered where He kept them all.

One day I got curious and followed Dad and my brother to the Temple of the Lord.

Just outside the Temple door stood a long line of people with their animals. I wasn't close enough to hear what each one said in their turn to the priest, but their faces betrayed their dismay. The priest told the first man in line to put his hands on his bull. The man said something, and then I saw it.

I'll never forget that flash of metal in the sunlight. The sound that animal made will stay with me the rest of my life. Another priest took a basin and put it just under the gash in the animal’s throat. The animal tried to run but it couldn't. It was tied down, the prisoner of someone's vow. Slowly, the pangs of death came and the animal fell down shaking, its lifeless eyes still wide with fear; its mouth open with a scream stuck inside. Then, silence. Death had triumphed once more.

The animal was skinned and cut up and the priest placed the pieces on the fire of the altar. The smell of burned flesh made my gut turn. These animals have no sense of what is about to happen to them, I thought. I felt sad for them. So innocent, so defenseless. Why do people have to kill an animal that never did them any harm just to enter the Temple? Can’t they just bring fruit or money or something else – anything but blood – so they can enter in?

Then I saw the next animal die: a lamb, perfectly beautiful and so quiet. I turned and ran home. The streets were a blur, the people like trees. Even the midday sky seemed gray. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I don't know how long I ran or how I even got home. I just wanted to hide in my corner of the barn and mourn those dead animals.

That night I went to bed without supper. I told Mom I didn't feel good and hid in my room, my eyes red from crying. Dad asked for me and had my big sister poke her head into my room to check on me – then I was alone. The next day I told Pooky all about it. He just nodded his head, twitched his ears, and looked at me with those big, dark eyes of his. Somehow I felt better.

But now, suddenly, my brother was taking him away. The memories of that day came flooding back.

“Leave Pooky alone!” I yelled. “Why can’t you take another animal? Why Pooky?”

My brother looked at me for the longest time without a word.

“Dad needs him,” he said finally. “That's all.”

“Needs him for what? Tell me!” I pleaded. “Why does he need my Pooky?”I held my bull tight, my eyes a sea of tears. “Is he going to the Temple? Is that why? Please, brother, don't take him!” I pleaded as if I was holding my heart in my hand.

“Obie, there's Dad. You tell 'im.” I ran to my father as he waited by the gate.

“Dad... Dad... Please don't take Pooky. Please, Dad! I promise to be good and to do all my chores. You don't have to pay me anything, just don't take Pooky.” Dad just put his head down and turned away. “Dad, please...!” I pulled on his shirt sleeve and stepped in front of him.

“I have no other choice,” he finally said. “Obie, listen to me. One day you'll understand. I did something I shouldn't have.” I could see him struggling to find the words to help me comprehend the gravity of the situation. “It’s too complicated, son. One day this will be clear to you.”

“I don't want to understand!” I cried out loudly. “I just want my Pooky!”

Dad told my brother to go on ahead and then he gently sat me down.

“Son, when a person sins, he cuts a cord that ties him to God and to the rest of the community,” Dad explained. “The blood of the animals is the only thing that mends that broken cord.”

Next to my brother, Pooky was walking away with that slow walk of his. Then he turned towards me, as if to say goodbye with a twitch of his ears. It broke my heart.

“Obadiah... Son...” Dad looked at me in a way he hadn't looked at me before and said, “God has blessed us with something we don't like but that we all need. That something is a conscience. It tells us when we do wrong. You remember when you accidentally broke your mother's water jug, the one I bought her in Jerusalem? You felt sorry for a long time.” I just nodded, whimpering.

“That's what we feel when we break God's laws. Pooky was born to mend the broken cord so we can be right with God and with His people.”

“But you said Pooky wasn’t fit!” I countered. Dad just looked away and sighed.

“I was wrong,” he said simply. “Obie, I must go now. The priests await.” And with that, he gently touched the back of my head with those rough farmer hands of his, and I saw that his eyes were moist also.

The last thing I remember is Dad walking away and the thought hitting me of those lifeless eyes and the smell of burned flesh. Pooky's. I fell to the ground in a heap of emotion.

Why, Lord. Why does it have to be like this? I thought. For a long time, my life was drained of joy. I saw other boys my age doing their chores and having fun, but I couldn't. My only friend was gone. For weeks I couldn't look the other animals in the eye because they reminded me of my Pooky. It made me think of how bad sin really must be, that only the blood of an innocent animal could fix it.

At age 13, as I studied to become Bar Mitzvah – a Son of the Law – I asked my rabbis about this bloody ritual.

“Young Obadiah,” they said. “Is there a man on earth who has not sinned? From the first Adam to the very last baby born, we all have sin in us. Sin is the very thing that cast our father Adam out of the presence of the Lord. It's what causes man toil to in order to wrench a meager subsistence from the ground he tills. It’s what makes a woman cry and travail in childbirth. It's what makes people live without hope and die in misery.”

“But why is the blood necessary to deal with sin?” I asked. Tobiah just stroked his long beard.

“Inside the Temple is a beautiful box covered with gold that has two angels on its lid,” he said at last. “Inside are the broken tablets of the Law that God Himself gave to Moses. We are continually guilty of breaking God’s laws, and a righteous God cannot let sin go unpunished. When the priest of God puts the blood on that lid, God no longer sees the broken Law, but the blood that has been sacrificed to pay for our sins – and so now God considers us His sons, in good standing before Him.”

It was some years later that another rabbi came and caused quite a stir in our land with His teachings. His words captivated me, and with the rest of the throng I followed along to listen – until one day He was arrested, tried, and hung on a cross. Why? Hadn’t Pontius Pilate pronounced Him innocent?

From the outskirts of the smaller crowd around the cross, I heard Him say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and heard the centurion say, “Surely this was the Son of God.”

Like a flash my mind raced back to the day I watched that spotless lamb give its life at the Temple, and it all made sense. As John cried out at His coming, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

I knelt and received His sacrifice and all at once I was able to forgive my dad and accept Pooky’s sacrifice, too. I was able to go home that night and tell my six-year-old son there was no longer a reason why his yearling lamb must die tomorrow for my sin. The Son of God Himself had paid the price once and for all.