13.03 The shepherd seeks

III. THE SHEPHERD SEEKS

“What man of you having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not... go after that which is lost?” We might conceive of a perfect knowledge which marks the wandering of a human soul as it marks the failure of a stunted tree all-knowing and all-indifferent. We might even conceive of a vast love (we could scarcely call it perfect) which feels the pity of the wandering, and yet in its serene hold upon the mysterious wisdom of a plan which involves the freedom of man leaves the wanderer alone. But God’s Incarnation in Jesus the Saviour reveals to us infinite knowledge, and love, not merely marking and missing, but going after the soul that has strayed. It reveals the coming forth of the Eternal Companion to seek and to save that which is lost. Man knows in his conscience that he has wandered. The restlessness of his heart, the inevitable sigh which rises from it when in a moment of quiet he reviews the story of his life, betray that knowledge. “We have erred and strayed like lost sheep: we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” That after all is man’s verdict on himself when he brings his life to the court of conscience. He can judge, but he cannot redeem himself. He knows that he has wandered, but he cannot compass his own return. It is then that, looking up to the immutable heavens and feeling dimly that behind them lies surely some heart that knows and cares, he cries, “Oh that there might come forth from this vast and distant Power some visible Messenger of its compassion, some divine Assistant of men, to recall them from their wandering and bring them back to the truth.” And, in answer, “See the Christ stand!”

It was a true and touching sign of the need of man’s heart, of the welcome which it gave to God’s answer, that the early Christians loved to imagine and pourtray their Redeemer as the strong and kindly Shepherd. On their gems and seals and household ornaments, on the tombs in which they laid their dead who seemed to have wandered to “the land where all things are forgotten,” they imprinted the likeness of the Shepherd. Since they were still, as it were, in the bright early morning of their redemption, they loved to represent him as a shepherd blithe and strong and beautiful. As it was the image of this Good Shepherd which was the first to attract and express the grateful love of the Christian Church, so is it not this same image that we would wish to have before our eyes at the last, when we, too, set forth upon our dim journey, lost to sight, along the untrodden ways of death? “The Lord is my Shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.” How can we measure the difference to the world and to our own life since we have had the vision of Jesus as the Shepherd who “goes after” the sheep that is lost?

TAGS: [Parables]