CHRIST AND OUR HELPLESSNESS

"I AM the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. • •. I AM the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine." — St. John x. 11, 14.

The pastoral life — the relation of shepherd and flock — has always had about it a peculiar charm. It has touched the imagination, and been made the frequent subject both of pictorial and of poetic art. The classic poets, the early English writers, and even the homelier bards of Scotland, have given the shepherd a place of honour. In his calling there would seem to lie that sympathy with Nature which comes of living in green pastures and far from the busy haunts of men. His task, though an engrossing, is not an enslaving one. It is one of responsibility rather than of drudgery; one where the eye can look far ahead and far afield. It is a work that has often afforded opportunity for meditation and reflection, whether under the starry heavens by night, or amid the ever-changing scenery of mountain and glen by day. Hence men have always felt that there is something ideal in the life of the shepherd; something typical of life at its highest.

In Eastern lands the shepherd’s work is invested with yet greater honour and significance by reason of the danger, the anxiety, the self-sacrifice, which it entails. There is a certain sacredness in having the care of a living creature; and in the case of the Eastern shepherd everything tended to increase that sacredness. He knew his sheep by name, and they knew him. He did not drive them from behind, but led them from before. For them he had to encounter many perils, and might even have to give his life.

The Shepherd in Scripture.

As we read the Old Testament we cannot but be struck by the number of shepherds we meet in its pages. The righteous Abel was a keeper of sheep. The faithful Abraham was very rich in cattle, and flocks, and herds. The patient Jacob kept the flock of his kinsman Laban, and met at the well’s mouth the shepherdess for whom he was to wait twice seven long years. Moses was leading sheep through the desert when the word of God bade him conduct a mightier flock through a vaster wilderness. Amos, the stern preacher of righteousness, was a herdman of Tekoah. At the head of the whole band stands the great shepherd-king David. Long ere he fought human enemies he had slain the lion and bear that threatened the life of his sheep. While he yet lived among the flocks he had come to know that the Lord was his Shepherd, leading him beside the still waters, showing him the straight paths, comforting him with rod and staff even in the valley of the shadow. They were shepherds, too, who watched their flocks on that night when the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and the herald-angel delivered his message — "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

The relation of shepherd and sheep — strength and tenderness on the one hand, weakness and trust on the other — inevitably suggested that of God and His people. "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel," writes one psalmist, "Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock." "We," writes another, "are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." And in the anticipations formed of the Messiah, it was not seldom as the Shepherd that He was depicted. "I will set up one Shepherd over them," writes Ezekiel, "and He shall feed them, even My servant David; He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd." "He shall feed His flock," writes the second Isaiah, "like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Our Lord, when He came, not only accepted the same office, but passed it on to the apostles and ministers of His appointing. To St. Peter He says, "Feed My lambs," "Tend My sheep"; and that apostle in turn says to his own disciples, "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof; . . . and when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." The tradition has been handed on; even the bishop’s staff was fashioned after the likeness of a shepherd’s crook; and in many countries the minister of Christ is still called the pastor or shepherd, bound to render an ( account to his Master of the souls placed in his charge.

Christ the Shepherd.

It is thus in the midst of a goodly array that our Lord here stands as the Good Shepherd, fulfilling the old, instituting the new.

Before proceeding to the details of the picture given here, we learn something from a comparison of the two figures, "I am the Door," and "I am the Good Shepherd." At first we are half tempted to wish that our Lord had kept to one or other figure, in order to make the picture a clear and complete one. But we gain something from the very fact that He did not We might almost say that in the parable the two conceptions of Christ as the Door and as the Shepherd struggle for the mastery, and that the latter prevails in the end. When Jesus speaks of a door. He is thinking of the door of a fold; but when He speaks of a shepherd. He is thinking of the shepherd of a flock. The idea of the fold has retired into the background; for the words at the end of verse 16 should be, not "one fold, one shepherd," but "one flock, one shepherd." Moreover,. when He speaks of Himself as the Door, He speaks of our entering in; but when He speaks of Himself as the Shepherd, He says, "He leadeth them out." On the one side, then, we have Door, fold, in; on the other side, Shepherd, flock, out. And the second conception is an advance upon the first, both with reference to Christ and to His Church. In the first, all is stationary, fenced round, isolated; in the second, all moving, free, progressive. According to the first idea the Church is a fold, of which Christ is the Door, and into which the flocks must be gathered in. But according to the second, the Church is a flock, of which Christ is the Shepherd, leading out His flock, some from one fold and some from another. And it is doing no injustice to the first figure to say that the second goes farther and deeper. One is reminded of the different ways in which two great English poets have spoken of death. Spenser uses the more obvious figure, that of entering a harbour.

      Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,

Ease after war, death after life, does greatly please.

But Tennyson has the courage to invert the figure, and to speak of death as of leaving a harbour.

May there be no moaning of the bar

     When I put out to sea.

And there is a similar distinction here. There is comfort, no doubt, in the thought that Christ means for us entrance into a fold where we shall be safe from peril. But there is more that appeals to our chivalry in the thought that Christ is leading us out, and that we must follow Him. Our attachment is not to a place but to a Person. Better that we should be members of a flock than dwellers in a fold. We may say of metaphors what William Robertson of Irvine truly said of the arts — that while some, like architecture, painting, sculpture, tend to localise religion, there are others, like poetry and music, on whose wheels the chariot of the everlasting Gospel has gone abroad. It is grander to think of Christ’s people as following Him out of many folds than as enclosed by Him within one. "Ubi Christus, ibi ecdesia." We can say, as Ittai the Gittite said to King David, "Surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be." And it widens our whole conception of the Church of Christ, and shows us how different it may be from all our preconceived ideas, to read His words in this sense, and hear Him say, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock, one Shepherd."

Turning to the details of our Lord’s picture, we find it to be one of sharp contrasts. Over against the picture of the Good (i.e. the true, the real) Shepherd, He places two types of false shepherds. It will make for clearness if we examine these first.

1. The False Shepherds.

We may omit the "stranger" of verse 5, who may either be a person of no account, or may represent either of the two following classes; and pass at once to —

The thief. — It must be noted that into one fold might be gathered the sheep of different flocks by night, guarded by a watchman or porter. To this fold came the various shepherds in the morning, to lead their several flocks out to pasture. Each has a recognised signal or knock, which when the porter hears he opens the door. Any one who is not a true shepherd need not attempt to gain entrance in this legitimate way. The porter will not admit him, nor will the sheep follow him, not knowing his voice. To enter at all, he must enter "not by the door," but "climb up some other way," and carry off the sheep by force or by stealth. Milton’s elaboration of the parable was probably justified by the conduct of many so-called shepherds of his day — men who

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold;

Of other care they little reckoning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers 9 feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest.

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least

That to the faithful herdsman’s art belongs!

What recks it them? what need they? they are sped;

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;

The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,

But swol’n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.

The thief s purpose is as evil as his method of entrance is unlawful. While the true Shepherd comes for a beneficent purpose, the object of the thief is "to steal, and to kill, and to destroy."

The hireling. — There is another type of so-called shepherd from which the true shepherd must be carefully distinguished. This is the hireling, "whose own the sheep are not." No doubt a man may be a hireling, in the sense of a man who works for hire, and yet have as strong a sense of responsibility as the actual owner. Most shepherds, indeed, are hirelings in this sense. But the hireling referred to here is a hireling and no more. He thinks not of the charge, but only of the reward. His aim is not the. welfare of the flock, but his own enrichment. This is an old temptation to shepherds of souls. "Woe be," says Ezekiel, "to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not the flock." "Their own shepherds," says Zechariah, "pity them not" And St. Peter warns his successors in the pastoral office to "feed the flock of God... not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." Much, too, in Milton’s description given above applies rather to the hireling than to the thief.. Trouble or danger at once reveals the hireling in his true colours. The man who "careth not for the sheep," who puts himself and not his charge first, naturally seeks his own safety when evil days come. While he perhaps would not willingly harm the flock, he does not feel bound to endanger his life in keeping others from doing harm. Many of us who would not do a fellow-man a positive injury will not lift a finger to protect him from the injuries inflicted by others. Here, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan and elsewhere, our Lord reminds us that sins of omission may be as dangerous as those of commission. In any position of trust it is not enough to avoid being a thief. We must also abhor the spirit of the hireling, and regard the safety of those under our charge as of greater consequence than our own.

2. The Good Shepherd.

As already stated, this means the real, the true Shepherd, as against the false. The proofs of His reality are two in number. One is, "I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." The other is, "I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine." We may call these proofs, respectively, self-sacrifice and mutual confidence.

Self-sacrifice. — "I lay down My life for the sheep." This brings us straight to the heart of all Christ’s work for man. Unlike the thief, whose object was the sheep’s destruction and his own enrichment; unlike the hireling, who cared nothing for the sheep, but everything for the safety of his own skin: the Good Shepherd lays down His life that the sheep may win theirs, that they may be delivered from danger and may enter into more abundant life. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." To help His lost sheep, the Good Shepherd suffered death, and that willingly.

"Lord, whence are those blood-drops all the way,

     That mark out the mountain’s track?"

"They were shed for one who had gone astray.

     Ere the Shepherd could bring him back."

"Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and tom?"

     "They are pierced to-night by many a thorn."

"No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." The "laying down" and "taking again" of His life were both for our sakes; that He might work both for us and in us; that He might die for us and live for us. Here is the central mystery and glory of our faith — the sacrifice of very God for man.

Mutual confidence. — "I know My sheep, and am known of Mine." Not only does He know His own sheep from those which are not, but knows them individually; knows them by name. Nor is the relation complete until they too know Him. The knowledge spoken of is by voice rather than by appearance. It is told that a Scottish traveller in Palestine, wishing to test the accuracy of these words, changed garments with a shepherd whom he met under the walls of Samaria. Thus disguised, he attempted to call the sheep. But they would not move. The true shepherd then raised his voice, and, in spite of his unaccustomed dress, they rallied to him at once. We are apt sometimes to belittle the intelligence of sheep. But we might well take a lesson from them in this respect. Let us learn to know the voice of Christ; to distinguish His call from the beguiling voices of those who wish our hurt; to recognise Him even when we meet Him in unexpected places and in strange guise — hungry, sick, in prison. Then will His words be literally as well as ideally true, "I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father."

If men were asked which of all our Lord’s I am's appealed most to the heart, there are few who would not give the favourite place to "I am the Good Shepherd." We may follow a Light, we may enter a Door, we may traverse a Way. But these symbols are all inanimate things. They cannot, owing to their inherent limitations, express with any fulness what Christ is to us. When we think of the infinite Love of Him Who gave His life that we might live, and of the infinite Wisdom of Him Who knows us and bids us know Him, it is as the Good Shepherd that He appeals to us. For among the many other specially attractive features of the symbolism of shepherd and flock, not the least striking is this — that it brings so clearly into view both our individual and our social relations with Him. We cannot read the allegory without seeing in it the personal contact of every follower of Christ with his Master. Sheep are prone to follow each other; but here they are represented each as separately hearing the voice of the shepherd, and each as the separate object of the shepherd’s care. But while this is so, the unifying, consolidating influence of the Shepherd is no less clearly marked. His ideal is "one flock, one Shepherd"; and it is according as we own and follow the one Shepherd that we can ever become one flock. "Sheep having no shepherd" are scattered abroad; the shepherd’s presence and care are necessary to the very existence of a flock as such. "We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."