When I was small, my mother received a Christmas card that she loved. It showed simple silhouettes, in red white and gold, of a lion laid down with a lamb. The majestic strength of the lion held the vulnerable lamb, protected between its great paws. The tiny, fragile creature rested there in perfect trust… and, I have to wonder, of the two, which was the strongest?

Every year, for years thereafter, my mother tried to find something similar because, to her, the image symbolised what Christmas should be… a time of peace. The card meant so much to her that I remember it still, well over half a century later. The design was based upon the biblical saying that ‘the lion shall lay down with the lamb’, referring to a time of peace to come. These days, I know that no such saying exists in the Bible… that the closest is a verse from Isiah that speaks of the wolf laying down with the lamb… but there is much in the remembered image that speaks to the heart.

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