Jesus-The Good Shepherd
One of
the best known, if not the best known piece of literature throughout the whole
world is the 23rd Psalm - “The Lord is my Shepherd”. It was written by David
the Shepherd King of Israel, and although the current generation may not know
it as well, my generation would have probably at least heard it from time to
time. My Grandfather asked for it to be read to him on his deathbed, and even
though he was far from a religious man, he was able to quote it word for word!
In case you are not familiar with it, I have included the whole Psalm below,
from the New King James translation of the Bible:
The Lord
is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He
makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads
me beside the still waters
He
restores my soul; He leads me in the path 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 You
are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You
prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You
anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over.
Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I
will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.
It isn’t
difficult to imagine that Jesus had this psalm in mind when He made his famous
statement, recorded for us in John’s gospel chapter 10 and verse 11, where He
says “I am the Good Shepherd”. Every one of His hearers would have known the
psalm off by heart, and they would know that He was saying to them, in essence,
‘I am the Lord, the Shepherd’.
I have
always wondered that God should allow His only son Jesus to be thought of as
not only ‘The Good Shepherd’, but also, in John Chapter 1 verse 29, as the
‘Lamb of God’. How can you be both the ‘Shepherd’ and at the same time a
‘Lamb’? Our modern western minds may not so easily be able to understand this
concept, but for those in Jesus’ day, a shepherd would have slept out in the
fields with the sheep, as we are reminded in one of the best-loved Christmas
Carols! The sheep would have become so accustomed to the presence of the shepherd
with them that they would have hardly noticed that he only had two legs, and
was rather a different shape - for them, he was one of their number, and as
such, was loved, accepted, and followed.
Jesus
makes this appeal to His disciples, both to identify with Him, and to follow
Him. But He goes even further. For where we read ‘Behold the Lamb of God … ’,
if we read on, we have ‘… who takes away the sin of the world!’ The shepherd of
old found safe pasture for his sheep, guarded them and kept them with his rod
and staff (a comforting thought when you think that there were wolves and lions
on the prowl), and even risked his life to rescue them when necessary. In the
same way, Jesus the Good Shepherd has laid His life down, dying to take the
punishment for the sins of the whole world, so that we can have peace with God,
and eventually realize the promise of life everlasting with Him. In the mean
time, He will guard us, lead us, and keep us in His love.
My
prayer for you today is that you would know His love and Joy and Peace for each
moment – God bless you.
