Behold a life in one’s own hands, one’s own life to dispatch or hoard as one pleases. It is a gift meant to be shared, to be given, to be given up for the good, when death is not an end as much as a means to an end. It is in the act of sacrifice when our profile is best inscribed, when the story is left for others to spread. Our greatest triumph occurs beyond a hollow boast, beyond the reach of any human voice. When we stand in the lamb’s place and spare its wool with our own skin, we accept the judgment before it can be judged and sleep through the final verdict and its effects.

Offer anything less only offers the worthless / replaceable / discretionary. The blood of the lamb is not our blood nor of our blood. It is our easy victim, innocent of any crime but a weakness to resist our stronger weaknesses. It stands in for the apostate, deprived of further days to relieve our gnawing survivor’s guilt. Every forgotten hero’s grave and bleached martyr’s bone holy relic under glass calls us cowards. Lambs and children sound the same when facing the moment meant for us reluctant warriors and saints.

Life is a debt and death its settlement. No number of lambs can remove the price we bear, or extend our stay. We choose the moment only when we choose to place ourselves in front of the lamb and stare into the face of God, fearless. No thought to how we are to be remembered, to our forgotten graves or bones wrested and broken, on display for the blessing of cowards. Stare into the face of God and you will sleep the sleep of warrior saints and dream of lambs at play.