Jesus, Like a Shepherd, Lead Us
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025%3A31-46&version=NLT
Head/Mind – Helpful Information About Today’s Passage
One of the pervasive myths about the Bible that gets told every Christmas is that shepherds were despised by the Jewish people. The reality is that nearly every family in the ancient world had at least some lived experience with agriculture. Shepherding was so common that nearly everyone knew at least one shepherd personally. The myth that shepherds were despised by Jewish people comes from one author within the Mishnah, who was known to be intellectually arrogant and a pretentious snob who thought that the only respectable calling was to a life of study. If everyone had followed his lead, nothing would have ever gotten done. No houses would have been built, not art produced, no furniture assembled, no food grown. This guy hardly reflects what the average Jew would have thought about shepherding.
In reality, shepherds played an almost romantic role in the Jewish imagination in the same way that ranchers and cowboys play a romantic role in the American imagination. This is very easy to see by just reading through the Old Testament.
So much was this the case that the shepherd was the model for both political and religious leaders. Notables such as Moses and King David were called the shepherds.
In the most beloved prayer of the Bible, Psalm 23, Yahweh, Israel’s God is called The Good Shepherd. Other parts of the Bible call upon Israel’s human leaders to model themselves and their work after the Lord, as his under-shepherds.
Unfortunately, then, just as now, many of those leaders, from time to time, failed to live up to their responsibilities. At one point in the history of Israel, the leadership had become so corrupt that God says through the prophet Jeremiah that God has decided that all of Israel’s shepherds would need to be replaced. Jeremiah 23 and 31
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.
“Hear the word of the Lord, you nations;
proclaim it in distant coastlands:
‘He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will watch over his flock like a shepherd
The situation in the time of the prophet Ezekiel had gotten so bad that God says that he himself will need to come and be the shepherd of his people. In Ezekiel 34 we read:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
“‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
“‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice
This is what makes it remarkable that one of the ways the Gospel writers remember Jesus is as The Good Shepherd, with Matthew 18:12-14 and John 10, both identifying Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Remember that by the end of OT there is a sense that Israel’s leaders have failed and that in the Messianic Age, the Lord himself will be the good shepherd. So what does it mean for the Gospels to identify Jesus as The Good Shepherd? It means that Jesus is somehow the embodiment of the Lord promising to be come and take up the role of Shepherd over his people. Jesus is somehow the Divine Lord celebrated in Psalm 23.
Heart – the Personal Connection
– A Shepherd King
If you do much reading about Jesus and the historic context into which he entered, you will very quickly run into this question: “Why did so many of his own people, reject Jesus?”
One explanation is that Jesus simply did not match the common expectations about what the Messiah was supposed to be or what he was supposed to do. Many people of the time expected the Messiah to be a great and conquering king; a mighty ruler and a military hero who would ride in and vanquish evil and establish justice. He would probably be a lot like Judah Maccabee and his brother.
That is what most people thought of when they thought about the coming Messiah. And for obvious reasons, Jesus was something very different than what they expected. I must admit, I have some sympathy for these people and can understand, at least a little, why it was so easy for them to miss Jesus’ coming.
Christ the King Sunday is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It is the Sunday on which we remember how the world’s story ends. We remember and we look toward to the fulfillment of God’s will on earth and coming of God’s kingdom in all its glory. At long last, Christ is hailed as King throughout all of creation and the nations bow before his throne.
That’s why I was a little disappointed by this year’s lectionary readings for Christ the King Sunday. Half of them were about God as shepherd. That’s fine and all, but I didn’t want to hear about God as shepherd. Yes, Jesus is The Good Shepherd, but I didn’t want to focus on that. Our world’s a mess and what we need is a King. We need someone to come in take charge. We need someone with some authority and some power that back that authority up. The imagery of God as shepherd is comforting but it lacks to force I was hoping to find.
And I guess the reason I didn’t want to talk about God as shepherd is because when I look at the world we live in, I don’t really want to be strengthen and comforted in times of trial and suffering. What I want is someone who will come in and make the suffering and trouble stop. I don’t really want someone to help me face the darkness. I want someone to disperse the darkness and make all the bad things go away.
And that makes me a little like the first century people who missed Jesus the first time. They were looking for a king who would vanquish their pagan oppressors and who would deliver the kingdom into their hands. Jesus was and is God’s Anointed One. He is their King and he is our King. But he is a very specific kind of King. He is a King who is also the great Shepherd. And if we miss that, we will miss the significance of Jesus and the reality of his Kingdom.
But, if I may be so bold as to ask, what good is Shepherd King? Our world is a real mess and many lives are weighed down with pain and sorrow. What good will it do to send a Shepherd, when what we really need is a hero. We need a Conan the Barbarian, Rambo, Jason Bourne, or Jackie Chan?
These were the kinds of questions I was wrestling with as I struggled with today’s text. The struggles were also bathed in prayer. I not only thought about them but also talked to God about them. And as I did, two examples came to mind. Both were mere mortals, and not the Son of God. But, each was a ruler with a shepherd’s heart.
Both were British, and both led the British people during World War II. One was Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, better known as Queen Elizabeth II. She was just a teenager as the war seized upon England. But, as heir to the throne, she was a highly prized target of war. She was particularly at risk by being in the country, but she refused to leave her people. Instead, she rode out the London Blitz, even enduring the bombing of Buckingham Palace. Her valor enabled to the British people to face their enemies with courage, strengthen by the thought that their sovereign would not seek refuge in another country.
Another leader with a shepherd’s heart was Winston Churchill. Though he was an incredible administrator, Winston Churchill was never one to send others into danger that he himself was not willing to face. In this way, he was one of the last of his kind. He not only sent soldiers into harm’s way, but was also willing to go there himself.
Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in October 1911 and helped modernize the Royal Navy. When the First World War started in 1914, Churchill was a part of the War Council. But, he was removed from that post a year later when a military campaign in the Dardanelles failed. Removed from his post, he rejoined the Army and commanded a battalion on the Western Front. As commander, he was not expected to be anywhere near the actual fighting. But so strong was his sense of responsibility for the men he was commanding that he was often seen very close the front of the fighting lines. Churchill was simply not the kind of leader who would ask his soldiers to face the enemy and not be willing to face it himself.
A generation later, when his country called upon him to serve as Prime Minister, Britain was facing her darkest hour. Addressing the government and his people, Churchill said this.
“Sir, to form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious undertaking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many points in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean, that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations have to be made here at home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined the government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
Winston Churchill – May 13, 1940
In other words: we are about to face some pretty tough days ahead. We are going to go through some really hard times and it will be very frightening, demanding, and painful. But, whatever we face, we will face it together.
Friends, both Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II were leaders with the heart of a shepherd. And both saw their people through a time of great darkness, all the way through to victory.
As great as these two were, they pale in comparison to King Jesus. Jesus looked upon our world and saw that it was being engulfed by darkness. He, like they, was committed to seeing his people through the darkness; all the way to victory. And like them, he did not promise his people that they would not have to face the darkness; only that he would face it with us.
We may have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death; but we do not have to fear any evil; for He is with us. And, His rod and staff they comfort us.
We may discover, like the fishermen of old that our vessel is so small and the terrible sea is so great. But we do not need to tremble in the storm, for Jesus sits in back of our tiny vessel ensuring our safe passage.
We need not even fear death, for even though we die, yet shall we live. And they who believe in him shall never die, for death has lost its sting and its victory.
And though our world at times seems on the verge of being lost to sorrow and chaos, we know that there is coming day when He shall make all things new, and sorrow and death, fear and suffering shall be no more.
Jesus, our Shepherd King, has won the victory by confronting the darkness of sin and death at the point of its greatest intensity; the cross. And he has overcome the cross and the grave, and has ensured us that life, not death, shall have the final word at the close of history.
All hail, King Jesus!
Hands – The Practical Application
As for our application, I would like to lead us in reciting Psalm 23 in the familiar King James Version. As we do, I invite you to not only say the words, but to also pray them.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.