April 26, 2015
Sunday

“The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” John 10:13-14

“Some of the earliest images of Jesus found in churches and tombs were not portrayals of Jesus on the cross, or the infant in the manger. Rather, they picture Jesus as the gentle shepherd. And what may be one of the earliest paintings of all is of a very young Jesus, dressed in a short white tunic, who has draped a lamb over his shoulders. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” (John 10:14) …what (might) it mean to understand the risen Christ as our shepherd. And what kind of flock are we to be?” (Lucy Lind Hogan workingpreacher.org)

If you ask ten people what their image of Jesus is, they might all give you a different answer – or combinations of the same or similar images. Some might see Jesus as victorious – Christ ascending into heaven. Some might draw an image of Jesus on the cross, dying for our sins. And yes, some might picture Jesus as the good shepherd, that pastoral image of Jesus, the shepherd carrying a lamb across his shoulders. Since there are few shepherds here in Central Pennsylvania, it is hard to conjure up the image of a working shepherd. I can picture a farmer, I can picture a mail person or even a FedEx driver, or I can even picture a steel worker. But shepherd? Nope, it just isn’t there in my mind’s eye. So to picture Jesus in that image is hard for me – although I can read lots of descriptions of what a shepherd supposedly does to protect the sheep.

The other day I was maneuvering through the back roads of Mechanicsburg trying to get to the Carlisle Pike, when I came upon a line of traffic. I couldn’t see around the bend initially to see what was holding us up – though I could see two police cars. But as we inched forward I could see what was causing the hold up. It was a cow – a cow had wandered into the road from the adjacent pasture. I immediately looked for the farmer who might own the cow, but there was no one there to help the police coral the cow. Why I expected the farmer to have this intuitive notion that one of his cows was loose on the road, I don’t know. But that gets me thinking about Jesus as the good shepherd. While a local farmer has no idea if one of his cows has gone rogue, Jesus knows when we do the very same thing. Jesus knows when we stray – and he pursues us with determination when we have wandered away.

One day I was trying to get to Leah’s school to pick her up when I saw a person standing in the middle of the road. He was waving his hands at me indicating he wanted me to stop. I couldn’t understand why he was standing in the middle of the road until I saw a small calf running along the side of the road – running toward her pen. The farmer was protecting the cow so in case she decided to run into the road again, I would be able to stop. This is an image that I can see in my mind’s eye when I think of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd”. Just as the farmer tried to protect the calf from danger, Jesus protects the flock from the wiles of the devil. Yes, we still experience danger and close calls, but when it comes to life with G*d, nothing will take us away from G*d’s love when we see Jesus as our Good Shepherd.

Pastor Dave