Do you remember the childhood song, “Mary Had A Little Lamb”? The Bible tells us that Mary’s little Lamb “will save His people from their sins” and “they will call Him Immanuel” which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:21, 23). The Bible declares that Jesus Christ was a Special Lamb, a Sacrificial Lamb and a Saving Lamb.
Mary had a little lamb is a well-known old English nursery rhyme, most often used with the modern words: Mary had a little lamb With fleece as white as snow It’s fleece was white as snow And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go. However, did you know that this rhyme has an alternative ancient meaning of ‘Mary’ as the Virgin Mary and ‘little lamb’ as Jesus Christ? This is the spiritual meaning of Mary having a little lamb.
Churchgists affords you unrestricted access to all the relevant information you need on Spiritual meaning of Mary had a little lamb in Christianity, Spiritual meaning of Mary had a little lamb bible verse, Spiritual meaning of Mary had a little lamb in Hebrew, and so much more. You don’t want to miss this!
Spiritual Meaning Of Mary Had A Little Lamb
The famous poem Mary Had a Little Lamb by American poet Sarah Hale was originally published in 1829. While today, the poem seems to have been largely forgotten by the modern reader, it is one of the Americans’ best-known nursery rhymes.
The spiritual meaning of Mary having a little lamb is that it teaches us about the importance of following our dreams.
The story begins with the mother lamb telling her child that she cannot go out to play because there are wolves in the field. The child, who is named Mary after the mother’s favorite song, insists on going outside and playing despite her mother’s warnings.
When Mary returns home, she tells her mother that she went to play with the other lambs in the field and they were all very nice. Her mother replies by saying “Mary had a little lamb” which means that she should not go outside again because wolves will eat her if they catch her playing in the field.
Despite this warning, Mary goes back outside to play with the lambs anyway because she loves them so much. When it gets dark out (and wolves come out), Mary realizes that she should go home before any harm comes to her or her family members (who are also lambs).
This story teaches us that sometimes we have to listen to our parents’ advice even though we don’t always agree with them at first glance; however, sometimes we need to follow our own heart and listen instead of someone else’s words
The spiritual meaning of Mary having a little lamb is that it represents the virtue of humility. The lamb represents Mary, and the fact that she is so humble that she would choose to carry and care for an animal symbolizes her humility. The lamb, being young, small and defenseless, also symbolizes the inherent vulnerability of humans, who must rely on God to protect them.
The song was first published in 1871 by Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote it as a poem to commemorate the death of President Abraham Lincoln. It was later set to music by John L. Pratt in 1872. The song has been performed by many different artists over the decades, including Bing Crosby (1937), Judy Garland (1947), Gene Autry (1950), Elvis Presley (1956), Mariah Carey (1999) and Taylor Swift (2013).
Spiritual Meaning of Mary Had A Little Lamb In The Bible
We all know the delightful story of a young girl named Mary who brought her beloved pet lamb with her to school one day. In fact, I’d bet money that you have the sing-songy tune playing in your head right now just reading about it. That said, did you know the whole thing was based on a real-life little lady and her lamb?
The lyrics of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” were inspired by Mary Sawyer, who lived in Sterling, Massachusetts, in the 1800s, reports the New England Historical Society. Mary took the young animal under her care after the poor thing was rejected by her sheep mother on the family’s farm. After nursing her unusual pet to good health, the lamb became Mary’s shadow and, indeed, “everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”
When Mary described the day her lamb joined her at school, she said, “I hadn’t seen her before starting off and, not wanting to go without seeing her, I called. She recognized my voice, and soon I heard a faint bleating far down the field. More and more distinctly, I heard it, and I knew my pet was coming to greet me. My brother Nat said, ‘Let’s take the lamb to school with us.’” It makes you wonder if Nat was ever annoyed that he didn’t merit a mention in the classic rhyme.
As the story goes, Mary did try to hide the lamb under her desk in a basket at her feet, but she was quickly discovered by the teacher who made the animal wait outside until class was over. The original poem was penned by one of Mary’s schoolmates, John Roustone, who witnessed the whole thing. In 1830, poet Sarah Josepha Hale added a few stanzas with a moral lesson about treating others with kindness and love.
Later in life, Mary donated socks made with “knitted wool from the first fleece of Mary’s Little Lamb.” She wasn’t trying to profit off her fuzzy friend, but instead raised funds to save a local historical building, the Old South Meeting House in Somerville, Massachusetts. It worked and further secured Mary and her lamb’s impressive (and adorable) legacy.
The True Story Behind “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
The nursery rhyme, which was first published in 1830, is based on an actual incident involving Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman born in 1806 on a farm in Sterling, Mass. Spoiler: its fleece was as white as snow.
The nursery rhyme, which was first published in 1830, is based on an actual incident involving Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman born in 1806 on a farm in Sterling, Mass. In 1815, Mary, then nine, was helping her father with farm chores when they discovered a sickly newborn lamb in the sheep pen that had been abandoned by its mother. After a lot of pleading, Mary was allowed to keep the animal, although her father didn’t hold out much hope for its survival. Against the odds, Mary managed to nurse the lamb back to health.
Mary Had A Little Lamb Lyrics
“In the morning, much to my girlish delight, it could stand; and from that time it improved rapidly. It soon learned to drink milk; and from the time it would walk about, it would follow me anywhere if I only called it,” Mary would later write in the 1880s, many decades after the incident. And, yes, the lamb would indeed follow her wherever she went and did have a fleece as white as snow.
Sometime later, it’s uncertain exactly when, Mary was heading to school with her brother when the lamb began following them. The siblings apparently weren’t trying very hard to prevent the lamb from tagging along, even hauling it over a large stone fence they had to cross to get to Redstone School, the one-room schoolhouse they attended. Once there, Mary secreted her pet under her desk and covered her with a blanket. But when Mary was called to the front of the class to recite her lessons, the lamb popped out of its hiding place and, much to Mary’s chagrin and to the merriment of her classmates, came loping up the aisle after her. The lamb was shooed out, where it then waited outside until Mary took her home during lunch. The next day, John Roulstone, a student a year or two older, handed Mary a piece of paper with a poem he’d written about the previous day’s events. You know the words:
Mary had a little lamb;
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
And so the teacher turned it out;
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appear.
The lamb grew up and would later have three lambs of her own before being gored to death by one of the family’s cows at age four. Another tragedy struck soon after when Roulstone, by then a freshman at Harvard, died suddenly at age 17.
Here’s where the controversy begins:. In 1830, Sarah Josepha Hale, a renowned writer and influential editor (she’s also known as the “Mother of Thanksgiving” for helping making the day a holiday), published Poems for Our Children, which included a version of the poem. According to Mary herself, Roulstone’s original contained only the three stanzas, while Hale’s version had an additional three stanzas at the end. Mary admitted she had no idea how Hale had gotten Roulstone’s poem.
When asked, Hale said her version, titled “Mary’s Lamb,” wasn’t about a real incident but rather something she’d just made up. Soon the residents of Sterling and those of Newport, New Hampshire, where Hale hailed from, were arguing about the poem’s provenance—something they continued to do for years. In the 1920s, by which time both Mary Sawyer and Sarah Hale were dead, none other than Henry Ford, the man who revolutionized the auto industry, leapt into the fray.
The inventor sided with Mary’s version of events. He ended up buying the old schoolhouse where the lamb incident took place and moving it to Sudbury, Mass., then publishing a book about Mary Sawyer and her lamb. In the end, it seems the most logical explanation is that Hale simply added the additional stanzas to Roulstone’s original (which she’d probably gotten wind of at some point).
But wait! There’s a third version of how the Mary and her lamb story came to be. Across the pond in Wales, Mary Hughes, of Llangollen, Denbighshire, was credited with being the subject of the nursery rhyme supposedly penned by a woman from London by the name of Miss Burls. The only problem with the U.K. version of events is that Mary Hughes wasn’t born until 1842, twelve years after Hale’s poem was published.
In the end, the nursery rhyme took on a life of it’s own after it was set to music. It became wildly popular beginning in the mid-1800s. The poem even became the first audio recording in history when Thomas Edison recited it on his newly invented phonograph in 1877 in order to see if the machine actually worked. It did. Listen to it here. Back in Sterling, Mass., they continue to celebrate Mary Sawyer. There’s a statue of the famous lamb in town, and a restored version of Mary’s home (the original was destroyed by a pair of arsonists back in 2007). Her descendants continue to farm the land that gave birth to the most famous nursery rhyme of all time.
Mary Had A Little Lamb Meaning
The lyrics of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” were inspired by Mary Sawyer, who lived in Sterling, Massachusetts, in the 1800s, reports the New England Historical Society. Mary took the young animal under her care after the poor thing was rejected by her sheep mother on the family’s farm. After nursing her unusual pet to good health, the lamb became Mary’s shadow and, indeed, “everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.”