Lambs-to-the-Slaughter on Christmas Day

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Edited by CJ Tointon

Christmas Eve:  I passed a butcher's shop today, selling lamb.  Outside was a big poster of a classical painting depicting a lamb nestled in the arms of Jesus.   Obviously the butcher is selling the 'executed' version!    Cynical or wot?

Christmas Day:  I passed a retirement home in Kings Cross and read on a huge banner outside "The Lamb of God takes away our sins".  Now that's amazing!  It looks as though God sanctions the eating of lambs because they take away our sins??   As if the lamb cutlets de-culpable-ates us?  No wonder people find these sin-saving meats so delicious!

It’s Christmas and summertime Down Under - in Australia.  It’s a popular frying time here.  Lambs are keen to queue up, to be first for the slaughter.  It’s an exciting time of the year for all concerned.  Well, for people anyway.  Australians enjoy their lamb.   They enthusiastically eat lamb between Christmas Day and throughout January, till the bonanza of lamb-flesh-eating on the 26th - Australia Day!  Perhaps if the lamb on your dinner plate takes away your sins and saves you, you can barbeque it without causing any offence!  Is the Church in cahoots with the Abattoir?

Off to the slaughterhouse they go, in their thousands - pre-pubescent sheep (lambs). They’re killed for their tender flesh.  But because Australians regard all sheep as stupid animals with very little sentience, they feel this makes it OK to kill them!  Whether old or young, sheep are thought of as nothing.  Australians think nothing about their welfare or about killing or eating them.  They are there simply to satisfy the human.  And the cooking of them serves to satisfy that beloved of all human hobbies, the fire-ritual, the roasting of lamb flesh over an open flame!  There’s excitement at the smell of it cooking!  The crowd gathers!  More excitement at the eating of it - in spite of what they know!

What they know (unless abysmally schooled) is this:  Something 'dark' has been done (something they couldn’t have done themselves) to acquire the meat to make their BBQ successful.  But it comes at a terrible cost. Someone, somewhere, has taken a knife to a lamb’s throat!  Someone has looked a lamb in the face and perhaps warned it about ending its life.  No one benefits from its execution.  The reality is that we sanction the killing, but the idea disgusts us. 

The example of a lamb being executed, then barbequed, all for the pleasure of eating it, might not sit well in the conscience.  And that's where the struggle is, between conscience and pleasure, denial and temptation.  If we give in to pleasure and temptation, we have to mentally turn away from the truth  - "out of sight, out of mind".  Once out of mind, the crime is forgotten and the food experience can be better enjoyed.

The lamb is the symbol of innocence.  It’s a cute, cuddly and playful little creature.  It springs high in the air out of shear exuberance.  It gambols.  No other animal is quite so pretty and energetic.  But few other animals are so appallingly traumatised when still immature, by humans.  You might say that we humans symbolise the very opposite of the lamb.  We can be 'dark' and careless, and cowardly, especially when we let someone else do our dirty work for us (the killing). 
And dirty work it is, since this 'someone else' must take hold of the young animal and slit its throat, so that it can be butchered and made available for our BBQ.  Could there be an uglier outcome for this sweet creature’s life??  Taken from its mother to the slaughter house, its body butchered then roasted on a spit??  

We humans aren’t used to being denied what we want.  If it’s available, the human will be tempted and then determined to acquire it.  Typical carnivores are usually weak individuals, easily tempted, who salivate at the thought of animal food.  They may give some thought to those dear lambs being slaughtered, but they eat them just the same! What would you call this?  Giving into temptation?  Showing lack of self-discipline?  Is there any excuse for people who know what an animal has gone through on its journey from home to death, but still ignore it? 

But these people are cornered.  They feel they have to be hostile to anyone who disagrees with their policy that "sheep are nothing".  Having connived with a terrible act of cruelty, they must remain unmoved so they can continue eating 'lamb'.  Or they can seriously consider stopping eating  lamb!

But giving it up is another story.  Let’s look at it from the consumer’s point of view.  When it comes to self gratification, this favourite meat isn’t easy to give up.  It’s like smoking or drinking or any other uncontrolled habit.  Indulging in it is ALL we’ve ever known.  We’ve always eaten lamb (even though there’s nothing spiritually self-improving about doing so, quite the opposite in fact).


Probably everyone looks for some sort of self-improvement in life.  And we succeed in so many wonderful ways, with one single exception.  We don’t search out or examine the ethics behind the food we eat.  We think it’s a waste of time, being disciplined to not eat animals.  It would seem that if it doesn’t make us richer or better-thought-of, then saving lambs from the slaughter is just irrelevant.