Worthy is the Lamb

The Battle of the Lamb, from an early 13th century Spanish manuscript

Let me say I am conflicted about this magnficent manuscript illustration in the same way I am about the conclusion of Psalm 137: Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock.

So I will hide behind C. S. Lewis. He suggested using the imagery of Psalm 137 metaphorically: let that "smashing" be of the beginnings of thoughts of evil, concupiscence, and other nascent notions of doing wrong. In the same way, we see here depicted the Lamb cutting off the heads of the "powers and principalities" that lead us into conventional evil.

The Lamb is our victorious priest and victim and sacrifice, "slain since the foundation of the world." Or, as John said in the fifth chapter of Revelation: Then I saw standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and the elders, a Lamb that seemed to have been slain...