In today’s world, it’s easy to get lost. What we need is a shepherd to guide us, but beware of which shepherd you follow!
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(Click here to read the passage: Mark 6:1-56)
(Click here to start with part 1)
Learning From the Master
“You’d better practice or else,” my mother would tell me.
It was the summer after my 4th-grade year and I was learning to play my first musical instrument: the saxophone.
We started in the summers with one-on-one lessons with the band instructor. The hope was, by the time school started, we would know enough to be able to play basic songs together as a concert band.
To do that, one-on-one time was key. Many of us had never played an instrument before, so we had no idea how to begin.
Mr. Rod taught me how to put the saxophone together and how to put it properly in my mouth – I had to curl my bottom lip over my teeth.
I learned also how to hold it – hanging down on my right side – and where to place my fingers on the keys.
I was lead by the hand, step-by-step, on how to play the saxophone.
Perhaps, now that I’ve gone through the process of learning how to play an instrument, I could probably teach myself other one but, for that first one, I needed a “shepherd” to lead me.
The Israelites also had expectations that their leader – their king – would be a shepherd to his people.
And in the time of Jesus, one sign that the Messiah had come would be that he was a shepherd to his people.
But, it’s not always easy to recognize a shepherd when you see one.
The King Was the People’s Shepherd
The idea that the king is a shepherd isn’t unfamiliar.
In fact, I imagine the first thing you think about when you hear “shepherd” is your pre-communion prayers, which quotes this Psalm:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1 RSV)
The kings of Israel – Saul, David, and Solomon – were all considered shepherds of the nation; kings who cared and looked after their subjects. Even when Israel split into north and south, the respective kings were still shepherds of their people.
But then, disaster struck and foreign kings conquered the Israelites and sent many of them to live in far-off lands.
This left the people shepherd-less, abandoned, and defeated. But why?
Ezekiel explains.
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ho, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the wild beasts. (Ezekiel 34:2-5 RSV)
The kings stopped being shepherds. They stopped being kings.
A New Shepherd Was Needed
A new shepherd – a true shepherd – was needed to restore Israel to its former glory. A new shepherd was needed to redeem God’s people.
In fact, some believed that it would be God himself who would come.
For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. (Ezekiel 34:11 RSV)
Though, when Ezekiel wrote those words, he probably wasn’t expecting a shepherd to come in the form of a carpenter’s son.
In fact, even Jesus’s own townspeople didn’t recognize him as God in the flesh, the true shepherd of Israel (Mark 6:1-6).
Herod the False Shepherd
But Herod, who some claimed was the true king of the Jews while others doubted, saw Jesus and his followers as a threat. Anyone who claimed to be king of the Jews, the new shepherd of Israel, was not to be tolerated.
He was so threatened, in fact, that to protect his kingdom he ironically offered up to half of it to his twelve-year-old daughter when she impressed him with her dancing.
In the end, John the Forerunner, the first one to publicly proclaim that a new king had arrived, lost his head.
But Despite this setback, Jesus continues with his kingdom message.
The Revelation of the True Shepherd
Right after Herod kills St. John, to show us who the true shepherd of Israel is, Mark tells us more about Jesus’s ministry. If we compare this ministry with what the prophets of old, the true shepherd is revealed.
The true shepherd will teach his people.
Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:33-34 RSV)
A true shepherd will also provide his people with food.
…Should not shepherds feed the sheep? (Ezekiel 34:2 RSV)
He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11 RSV)
…he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; (Psalm 23:2 RSV)
And Jesus provides this by turning five loaves and 2 fish into a banquet for hundreds.
And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. (Mark 6:41-42 RSV)
And, finally, a true shepherd cares for his people by healing the sick and injured.
The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. (Ezekiel 34:4 RSV)
Jesus heals the broken among them.
And when they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, and ran about the whole neighborhood and began to bring sick people on their pallets to any place where they heard he was. And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or country, they laid the sick in the market places, and besought him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well. (Mark 6:54-56 RSV)
Mark is shouting from the rooftops: Jesus is Israel’s true shepherd!
The Blessings of a Shepherd
Ever since foreign kings had conquered Israel and sent the people off to strange lands, the Israelites had longed for God to act again – to save his people, to send a new shepherd to bring the flock home.
Some believed it was a political message: drive out the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. We want our kingdom back. And, for some, Herod was this new king.
But, he still worked for the Romans.
At any rate, a political king wasn’t what God had in mind.
Yes, all those foreign armies had done evil things, horrible things even, but they were the result of the real problem, not the cause.
The real cause was that pure evil was loose in the world. The kingdom that had full control of God’s people was Death. This was the enemy that we needed to be freed from. This was the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And this is who Jesus – our shepherd – frees us from.
And this freedom is beautiful.
And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken. “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them; they shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will provide for them prosperous plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. And they shall know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord GOD. And you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 34:24-31 RSV)
May the Lord come so that in the resurrection, we may fully enjoy the shepherd’s pasture!
P.S. Come and be Fed by the Shepherd!
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