Now
may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead,
that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His
will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews
13:20-21, NKJV).
It
is fitting that the King of the World is likened to a Shepherd. In
the most ideal sense, a shepherd is a selfless caretaker of those who
are the least able to care for themselves.
It
is also fitting that the King's subjects are called sheep
throughout the Bible, since, of all the domesticated herd animals,
sheep are classically the most clueless.
Sheep
are some of the most shortsighted of creatures, looking no further -
in terms of their actions, decisions, and priorities - than the nose
on their muzzles or the desires of their bellies. They are amoral
(stealing food even from their young without any hesitation), easily
manipulated, and, if panicked, will follow their equally irrational
counterparts into a raging river current, helplessly drowning because
of their wool coats.
I
have read of sheep getting stuck in barbed wire straining mightily to
nip at a morsel of grass while acres of it are adjacent and far more
easily attainable. Sheep, unattended, smell badly and have no means
of staying clean.
In
the realm of similes and metaphors, sheep are apt and accurate
representations of fallen humanity, clueless, amoral, easily
manipulated and panicked, and largely without the common sense of a
doorknob.
And
in addition to all this, sheep are dangerously unaware of their own
critical shortcomings and weaknesses, lowering their chances of
survival in a savage world that much more.
Like
the shepherd, our Lord has taken it upon Himself to enable us to
overcome these fatal characteristics. He has put Himself between us
and our own idiocies, and between us and the deadly enemies that
surround us.
He
has chosen this course not because of anything valuable in and of
ourselves, but because He has invested in us value beyond measure.
Perhaps
the most vibrant description of His voluntary relationship with us
can be found in John 10.
“I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
“But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own
the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and
the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. “The hireling flees
because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. “I am
the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. “As
the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My
life for the sheep. (John 10:11-15, NKJV).
It
is no accident that Israel's greatest King was David, a shepherd,
someone who, through long experience in the fields and hills of the
wilderness, knew what it meant to care for the likes his people,
Israel – sheep easily led astray by their own unthinking lusts.
While
David was subject to the same flaws and inadequacies of his flock,
our Shepherd is not. He is the perfect Caretaker, who unfailingly
knows what is best for His people, and who has demonstrated His love
for us by doing the unthinkable, dying in our place.
But
that death was only temporary, and He now lives forever more as our
Guide and Protector.
To
get a sense of the beauty of our Shepherd's heart for us, is to see
yet another aspect of His immeasurable superiority in all things. We,
His sheep, are anything but lovable left to our own devices and in
our own debased natures, but only when He cleans us up and cares for
us do we become what He has always envisioned for us – lambs whose
wool is white as snow, without spot or blemish, fit members of His
marvelous pasture.
To
be considered equivalent to the least fierce, least capable, least
intelligent of livestock does not appeal to our unfounded sense of
pride, but that is just another symptom of our incurable condition.
Incurable,
that is, until placed under the care of the One who loves us.
In
Him, we go from helpless sheep to more than conquerors.
In
Him, we go from minions of certain death to recipients of eternal
life.
To
be a sheep of the Lord's pasture is the greatest destiny any of us
can attain, but to get there you must swallow all pride, acknowledge
your own helplessness, and follow His lead.
And
while mules and donkeys have a popular reputation for stubbornness,
it pales in comparison to the actual intransigence of a clueless,
self-deluded sheep.
