Recently, I have found myself watching the same old spaghetti westerns and cowboy movies that I thought were boring when my dad watched them as I grew up. I have come to love many of John Wayne’s movies but most of all I love the Man with No Name movies with Clint Eastwood. There is something about those characters who are strong, sleep under the stars, and fight for right that makes my heart beat.
For a long time I thought of the Middle Eastern, first century shepherd as kind of a sissy. I thought of them as soft, lamb carrying wimps who played the harp. It turns out they were much more like the American cowboys who drove cattle in the west. They were tough and hard. The major differences between them and the American cowboy are they had sheep following them, and they did not carry rifles or revolvers.
The first century shepherds were responsible for their sheep anytime they were out of the fold or pen. Without the shepherds the sheep would be easy pray for thieves, wolves, lions, and bears. But the shepherds stood between everything that would harm the sheep and led the sheep to places where they could eat their fill and drink slow, cool, calm water.
Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd. Unlike many of our leaders today, Jesus wants to stand between us and darker things of this world that will hurt us. Not only is he standing there, he is willing to protect us with his life. So that we would not feel the eternal consequences of our own bad choices and our own actions, Jesus laid down his life instead. He then picked his life back up and promised us that he will fix what is broken in us and will repair the damage we have done to the world by creating new bodies for us and a new Earth for us to live on. All we have to do is recognize his voice and believe.
John 10:1-21
