Untitled Sermon
Having taught in Israel, two illustrations have become seared in my memory concerning eastern shepherds and their sheep.
Of the two pictures, one is that of a shepherd leading his sheep through the city of Jerusalem just outside the Jaffa Gate. Cars were whizzing by while the shepherd sang and gently whistled to his sheep, and they dutifully followed him despite all of the bustling traffic nearby. The other picture is that of an early morning with the Bedouins when the shepherds began to lead their sheep out of the sheepfold, which contained the combined flocks of four shepherds. As each shepherd took his turn and began to sing and call his sheep, they dutifully separated from the larger flock and began to follow him to the hills for their daylight feeding (cf. 10:3–4). Such contemporary pictures of the intimate relationship between shepherd and sheep can provide us with the framework of thinking about the great shepherd texts of the Bible: the beloved shepherd psalm (Ps 23), the parable of the lost sheep (Matt 18:12–14; Luke 15:3–7), the compassion statements of Jesus (Matt 9:36; Mark 6:34), the Old Testament texts likening God to a shepherd (Jer 23; Ezek 34;), and particularly here in this fascinating shepherd mashal.