The Shepherd Who Came Looking Himself

A sheep is a soft, small thing. It cannot see very far. It wanders off without even meaning to, nibbling one tuft of grass, then another, then another, until it lifts its head and the flock is gone. And it does not know the way home.

A sheep needs a shepherd, someone to count it, carry it, and come looking when it is lost.

But the people of God had bad shepherds. The kings and the leaders were supposed to watch over them the way a good shepherd watches over his sheep. They were supposed to feed the hungry ones and bind up the hurt ones and go out after the wandering ones.

They didn't.

They ate the best food themselves. They kept warm in the soft wool themselves. And the weak ones, the sick ones, the lost ones stumbled off into the dark hills all alone, with no one to count them and no one to come looking.

Picture one of those little sheep out on the cold mountain, the light going gray, calling and calling, and no shepherd ever comes.

God saw it. And oh, his heart.

He spoke to Ezekiel, and his voice was thunder and tears at once. Where are my sheep? Who is feeding my sheep? You shepherds have fed only yourselves. So God said: I am taking the flock away from you. You are not their shepherds anymore.

And then God made a promise, and God keeps every promise he ever makes.

I myself, God said. I myself will search for my sheep.

He would not send a king or a hired man in his place. God said: I will go. I will climb the hills in the gray light. I will look behind every rock. The one that wandered, I will bring back. The hurt one, I will bind up. The weak one, I will make strong. I will gather them from every place they were scattered, and I will carry them home, and not one of them will be missing.

I will be their Shepherd, God said. And I will hold them close.

Long before, a shepherd boy named David had sung, "The Lord is my shepherd." Now the Lord himself said it back: yes. I am.

The little sheep waited, and the years went by. Then one day, on those same hills, under that same sky, a man stood up among the people and said, "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me."

It was him. It was God, come at last, on his own two feet, to do the very thing he promised.

And when the wolf came for his sheep, this Shepherd did not run. He stood in front of them. He gave his own life so they could live.

God had said I myself. And he meant it. He came looking for you with his own face and his own feet and his own brave heart, and he will not come home missing a single one.