The Lovely Shepherd

It’s easy for a townie like me to begin to think of everything to do with sheep and lambs as all rather lovely and cuddly. It’s not hard to conjure up a pastoral idle, is it? We just have to think of lambs frolicking in the spring sunshine to let out an aaaah! What could be more delightful and adorable?

 

But the picture in John 10 is rather more realistic and hard-headed. There’s something of an edge.   Jesus would say to us that it’s not all sweetness and light out there. In fact, in some ways it’s a jungle. There are thieves and robbers, wolves and hired hands who will leg it at the first sign of real danger.

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and perhaps that implies that there are bad shepherds.

 

In Old Testament times, the people of God were basically shepherd types. Think of the flocks of Abraham and his children, of Moses and David.

 

The Bible frequently uses the metaphor of shepherds for the leaders of the people, for the king, prophets and priests and so on. We get the word “pastor” of course from the idea of a shepherd who leads his animals to pasture.

 

Often in the history of Israel, the shepherds of the people had been unfaithful. And in Jesus’ own day, it was the leaders who most opposed him, who stirred up the people to call for his crucifixion.

 

We could turn to a number of Old Testament texts but Ezekiel 34 is the fullest denunciation of the shepherds of Israel who take care of themselves but not their people. The shepherd-leaders live it up while the people-sheep are neglected. The weak, injured, lost and straying suffer. The shepherds are harsh and brutal, and the flock is scattered and preyed upon. These are shepherds who are only in leadership for themselves. They want to get, not give. (And church history and the present day sadly contain many other examples of under-shepherds who fail to even approximate the example of the Chief Shepherd).

 

So God promises to judge and remove those wicked shepherds. He himself will come and shepherd his people. And he promises them one Shepherd, whom he calls “David”, who will lead the people.

 

And so Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. Jesus is God himself come to shepherd the people, in fulfilment of God’s promise. Jesus is the descendant of King David, the Davidic Messiah, who will lead and save them.

 

We need the Good Shepherd who cares for us and will die for us (v11).

 

Of course sheep need a shepherd. Without someone to lead and provide for them, they might go hungry or get eaten. But its just worth pausing for a moment to step outside the metaphor to realise that the New Testament thinks of us as in serious danger. Think of perhaps the most famous verse in John’s Gospel, John 3:16. It says that unless we believe in Jesus, we will perish. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Without Jesus we would be ruined, utterly lost, we would die or perish everlastingly.

 

We face not wolves or lions or food shortages, but sin and its consequences: death and hell.  Jesus came to rescue us from the judgement we all deserve.  Jesus wasn’t messing about. He means to do more than give us a comforting image. His death and resurrection were absolutely necessary. The incarnation and the cross surely show us our need. The resurrection confirms to us that our need is perfectly met. Jesus must lay down his life and take it up again. That is the Father’s plan and the Son’s willing mission. Nothing else can save us and keep us safe eternally.  

 

So this perhaps apparently delightful passage about sheep and shepherds turns out to be serious and urgent.

 

In Jesus’ image / proto-parable, the hired hand actually behaves sensibly!  (vv12-13) Of course if it gets too dangerous, the minimum wage employee would leg it. I would. Wouldn’t you? In fact, any shepherd in his right mind would too! Shepherds don’t die for their sheep. In fact, sheep die for their shepherds! (In Jesus’ day apparently it wasn’t so much a matter of roast lamb, as it is for us today: they kept the sheep longer for their meat, wool and milk, so arguably shepherds typically knew their flocks better and would bond with them more. The Shepherd might walk ahead of his sheep, rather than look at them from a Land Rover, but in the end the sheep always ends up in the Shepherd’s pie or at market.)

 

I’ve discovered this week that “how much is a sheep worth” is actually a pretty difficult question to answer. It seems to be a bit more like asking how much a footballer or a car are worth, rather than the price of a pint of milk. Google suggested between £5 and £8 a KG. I’m told that prices are good at the moment and that you might get £160 for a lamb, if you’re lucky.

 

Anyway, no sheep, however valuable is really worth dying for, is it? Not at any price!

 

In 2020, the BBC reported that the World's most expensive sheep was sold for £368,000.

The six-month-old Texel ram was sold in Lanark by breeder Charlie Boden to a consortium of sheep farmers. Even so, it would be crazy to die even for a prize sheep.

 

But Jesus values us, his flock, our souls above his own life.

 

This shepherd has ridiculous job-loyalty! A good shepherd checks on his flock regularly and mends the fences![1] Jesus the good shepherd dies for his sheep.

 

Jesus loves and cares for us to a crazy degree. He came from heaven to save us. He was willing to give up his all for us.  

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. But it would be a mistake to think of him as the lovely shepherd. Jesus is gentle and lowly, yes. He is loving and kind. Of course! He is love incarnate. But there is also a toughness and a resolve to Jesus. He would fearlessly call out the religious leaders of his day and clear the temple with a whip. Jesus was no wimp.

 

Jesus was willing to face down our enemies (sin and death) for us and he overcame them. He is our hero, our champion. He willingly drank the cup of wrath which the Father gave him. He endured hell for us and came out the other side victorious. He showed the valour of David who, trusting God, knew how to fight a lion or a bear to save his sheep and who would defeat Goliath to win victory for his people.   

 

And so let us pray for grace to hear the voice of Jesus in the call of the gospel and the Scriptures and to respond to Jesus in faith and obedience. As Jesus the Good Shepherd would go ahead and call his sheep “Come on Barbara, Ewan, Lambert, Shawn, Ramsey!”, let us follow him.

 

The Good Shepherd means to call his sheep from all the nations into one flock under one shepherd. So let’s get on board with his purpose of bringing in other sheep that there might be one flock under one shepherd.

 

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[1] These phrases are taken from Glen Scrivener on John 10 in Reading Between The Lines (10 of those) volume 2