Lifesaver

March 18.  Always in my memory as my brother Bob's birthday.  I kidded him that now we are almost the same age, as he is 74 to my 75 (which will change soon!)  Growing up, I often heard our mother tell that when Bobby was a baby, he couldn't tolerate milk.  He was Mama's 7th child, and as far as I know, she had successfully nursed all her infants into fat and healthy babies.  Nursing did not work for my little brother, though, and despite following the doctor's instructions with different formulas, this baby was not thriving.

Until someone suggested they try him on goat's milk.  My parents didn't have a goat, but they bought one for Bobby.  The milk agreed with him, and soon he was a rosy, happy baby and the picture of contentment. I can still see a picture that used to be in Mama's box of photographs of a toddler in a little dress that baby boys wore then, reaching up to touch the nose of the nanny.  It was captioned in our mother's dear familiar script, "Bobby and his little goat."

As an adult, I have had lots of allergies, one of them being milk, as I was once told by an allergist. We were living in Mississippi,  and she told us of a place that sold fresh goat milk.  We found the country store  in an out-lying area and would go there once a week for a gallon of the delicious, cold milk. When we moved away after hurricane Katrina, I forgot about buying buying goat milk.  Until recently. Now I regularly get a quart at the grocery store, which seems to agree with my digestion.

In Old Testament times, lambs and goats were sacrificed by the priest in Jewish religious rituals.  "And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness." Leviticus 16:9-10.

This was before Jesus, the Lamb of God, gave His life to take away our sin.  The scapegoat, running free in the wilderness, symbolized the carrying, or taking away of sins.  Unlike the priests of that day who needed their sins forgiven, Jesus is our High Priest who knew no sin.

By accepting Jesus's sacrifice for our sins, we are like the scapegoat, having been spared from punishment and our lives saved by the death of Jesus.  Our mother always said that that long-ago goat saved her baby's life.  When we accept Jesus as our Saviour, our lives are saved for all eternity. As the song says, "There's a new name written down in glory, and it's mine." We have a brand-new birthday for which a party is held in heaven!

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance...Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth," Luke 15:7, 10.