My husband loves animals.  If you’ve read the “About Me” page, you know that we have a few goats.  If it were up to Kevin, we’d have many more animals than just goats.  Every year he wants to add a different kind of animal to our property.  One year it was chickens, then a cow, followed by a horse, a miniature horse, guineas, sheep, and this year it’s a miniature donkey.  I’m hoping he’s running out of ideas and will eventually be content with just goats.  Raising two boys is plenty for me.

Out of all those animals, the only addition that we’ve ever made was sheep.  His thought was that the sheep would eat what the goats didn’t.  (That’s right, goats don’t actually eat anything and everything.)  After all, sheep and goats aren’t that different, right?  WRONG!  Thus started our ignorant, frustrating, and short-lived experience with raising sheep.

I did learn a lot about sheep.  It was a humbling experience on many levels.  One level was coming to terms with being referred to as sheep in the Bible.  That is not a compliment.  Sheep are dumb and helpless.  Did you know that a sheep may run if you try to catch it, but once you catch it, it gives up?  They don’t struggle.  They just lay limp in your arms.  It’s as if it’s thinking, “Alas, the end has come!  Good-bye world!”

I finally came to the conclusion that sheep should be an extinct species.  There aren’t any in the wild (that I’m aware of).  They have no defense mechanisms, which includes survival instincts.  The only reason they survive is because they are protectively raised and bred.  Sometimes sheep don’t run when there is a predator.  They just stand there staring at it, almost like they’re trying to figure out what it is.  Other times they take off running at the slightest insignificant occurrence, hurting itself or others.  We had one sheep die that way.  It got spooked and ran into a tree, breaking its neck.  True story.

There is a lot I could share about sheep, but one thing stood out the most.  I was reading through the book of Mark and came to chapter 6 verse 34:

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

I had always viewed that verse as if the sheep just needed some help.  Oh, poor sheep.  You just need someone to show you the way and you’ll be okay.  But that’s not what it means.  Sheep without a shepherd is the same as dead meat.  It’s just a matter of time.  It’s inevitable.  A sheep without a shepherd will either encounter a predator, get torn to pieces and eaten or it’ll do something dumb and end up causing its own death.

That’s what we are without Christ.  But praise God, He sent Jesus to be our Shepherd!  My awe and wonder at the patience of Christ skyrocketed after tending sheep.  There were many times that I became frustrated with our sheep, shook my head, and said to myself, “I am not a good shepherd.”  Jesus is not just a shepherd; He’s our Good Shepherd.  He is patient, compassionate and caring.  He searches out the lost sheep and gives His life for the sheep.

Christ came as a helpless babe for the helpless.  He was slaughtered to save us from the slaughter.  He protects us from the predator and leads us into safety.  What a wonderful and mighty God we serve!  Who is like Him?

There is none like Him.

Let us marvel in this season as we celebrate the birth of the helpless babe that became the Good Shepherd and Savior of the world.

Thank you, God.

– John 10:1-18
– Luke 11:14-22
– Isaiah 40:10-14
– Psalm 23
– Ezekiel 34:11-16, 23-24, 31 <– the highlights, or all of Ezekiel 34

Photo by Judith Prins on Unsplash.com