Tag Archives: Shepherd

Like Sheep

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Sheep have no good way to defend themselves against predators. They are also stupid.  Easily startled, they tend to bolt, without thinking about where.  Commonly, the rest of the flock instinctively follows suit, frequently stampeding toward greater danger.  A few years back, USA Today reported a huge loss of sheep in turkey that began as one decided to jump off a cliff.  The shepherds, who had left to have breakfast, watched helplessly from a distance as more than a thousand followed.  450 died. Sheep are stupid.   

So are humans.  That’s why the Bible calls us sheep.  Isaiah said, 

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way…   (Isaiah 53:6a)

And when Jesus “…saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  (Matthew 9:36b)

We have been designed by God to be connected to Him by means of His Holy Spirit.  Without that living connection, we are easily confused, frightened, influenced to stampede toward danger and defeated.  Like sheep.  But, God loved us and arranged to reconnect us through the work of His Son, Jesus.  He is the Good Shepherd.  

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… He restores my soul.  (Psalm 23:1 & 3a)

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.  (1 Peter 2:25)

Unlikely but Certain

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Shepherds near here live in rustic, tiny wagons with rounded tops.  Pretty shabby accomodations but then shepherds are on the bottom of the food chain; they don’t command per diem expense accounts in fancy hotels.  Same thing was true in biblical days: shepherds were considered to be a pretty low and sleazy lot. 

Kings, on the other hand, jet around the world in private, posh comfort and command the highest respect and fanciest privileges.  As they have for thousands of years.  (Ok, they didn’t have Lear Jets back in the Bible days, but you get the idea…)

These days, the nations surrounding Israel want to wipe her off the map and take her land for themselves.  As was also the case a few hundred years before Christ.  And, just as they were about to conquer Israel, God made this astonishing promise:

“Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the judge of Israel
on the cheek. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
And he shall be their peace.  (Micah 5:1-5a)

Quick paraphrase.  God said, You, Israel, are about to get wiped out by your pagan neighbors.  But after you have been destroyed and things look hopeless, I will send you a King Who will be a Shepherd to His people.  His mother will give birth to Him in Bethlehem, the least likely of places.  But eventually, His reign will be accomplished by My unlimited power.  He will incorporate people from every nation into His flock and His reign will be supreme even to the ends of the earth.  He will bring peace because He will be peace. This may seem unlikely, but it is going to happen, because I planned and ordained His coming from ancient days past.

His birth was extremely unlikely.  But it happened, just as God said it would.

His dual role as Shepherd/King seemed like a ridiculous oxymoron.  And yet He affirmed both.

Perhaps least likely of all, that anyone one man could reign supreme to the ends of the earth and bring peace.  But His reign is already being established, growing and spreading around the globe.   Unlikely, but certain. 

To Lie Down in Peace

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Next year I’m going to be selling a line of Black Friday helmets and protective gear, along with a self-test concussion assessment. Good idea? I think so and I hope your BF bruises are beginning to heal. Ah, yes: each year our anticipation of Christmas gets more and more exciting!

Before the birth of Christ, there was also great anticipation of His coming but for slightly different reasons. One of them was they knew this promise from God, written by the prophet, Ezekiel:

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. – (Ezekiel 34:15-16)

Perhaps you can relate to the sheep. When sheep lie down, it is because they are at peace – no threats, real or imagined to stir them up. No pacing about with anxious bleating. How would you like to find peace like that this Christmas? Maybe you understand what it feels like to be lost. Or to have strayed and not know how to find your way back. Perhaps you’ve been injured in life, or feel weak or oppressed. The promise of God was to be a shepherd for His people. He said “I myself will make them lie down…” No wonder there was such a yearning for His coming, such anticipation for the One Whose Name would be “God with Us.”

Regardless of how you spent Black Friday and Cyber Monday, my prayer is that this season you will find the One Who called Himself the “Good Shepherd,” the One in Whom we can truly lie down in peace.

And if you want to get in on the helmet thing, let me know…

Don’t Trust the Herd

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Just when I began to lose hope, I heard people have had enough of Lady Gaga.  Of course, soon enough, the thundering herd will head off over a different cliff.  There is no accounting for how powerful and unpredictable groupthink is.  Fads of pop culture are relatively harmless.  More serious is what happens when people cluster around social and political ideas without thinking.  How did Hitler get to be so powerful?  How did Rob Ford get elected?  How does extreme political correctness get imposed?  Groupthink about how to make money gave us the tech bubble and the housing crash.  People who broke away from the pack and followed their own ideas did better during those tough days.

As a rule of thumb, when everybody agrees about something, watch out!  Think to yourself, “Can all those people really be right?”  Jesus said:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  (Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus was talking about how to find life, real life.  He said, when it comes to life, the thundering herd has it wrong.  It’s not happiness or money or a better job and house.  It’s not thrills or music or fame or intoxication or even great achievement in your career.  Those paths are packed hard with countless footprints of those who thought they would find life and were disappointed.  Those gates resemble the bent and trampled doors of a city Walmart on Black Friday.  But the herd is wrong.

So how do we find the “narrow gate?”  Don’t get the wrong idea: the “narrow gate” is not for the “narrow minded.”  Narrow mindedness is another form of groupthink.  That herd is wrong, too.  The narrow gate Jesus referred to “leads to life” – abundant, full, rich and satisfying life.  And He showed us how to find it:

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.  (John 10:9)