A, Last Sunday of the Church Year - Ezekiel 34:11-16 "Sheep Need a Shepherd"

The picture of a grazier feeding grain to sheep from the back of a Land Cruiser has become a dim picture in the minds of most Queenslanders in the past ten years or so. In fact most kids would not have ever seen or experienced an economy riding on the backs of sheep, unless they live on one of the few properties that still graze sheep. When driving around the Tara-Meandarra area one will notice there aren’t many sheep left. Thousands of sheep grazing in paddocks, a common sight in the 70’s and early 80’s, are not there anymore. The pictures of the caring grazier feeding his sheep grain on drought stricken properties are gone, and, so too, the pictures of sheep grazing on green grassy paddocks are just memories of the past.

So as Australia moves away from being a country dependant on an economy driven by wool and mutton, the picture painted in the texts today of a shepherd caring for his sheep two-thousand years ago in the Middle East gets just a little bit dimmer on the horizon. If we look at what a shepherd does and see the sheep for what they are, these texts can give us a very good picture of what God does for us, how he does it, and who we are. We can put aside the far-fetched picture painted by the movie ‘Babe’, where sheep, a little pig, dogs and a duck seem to be as intelligent as, or even more intelligent than, the old man who farms them.

Anyone who has ever had to work with sheep will know that they are not the brightest animals to ever walk the earth. Left to their own devices they will get into trouble. Some say they are thick or stupid. Sheep easily sulk, flopping down, refusing to be brought back to the herd when they have gone astray. These animals need boundaries and protection. Their wool which once made them so valuable is also the very thing that can harbour their death, if it gets wet and fly blown. When sheep are chased through a gate, if you can get them to the gate, one will jump then the next and the next and so on. Maybe you have heard asked, ‘If someone jumped off a cliff would you?’¬– well a sheep probably would! Graziers have to spend much time and money building and mending fences, to hold the sheep in, and, in some areas, to keep wild dogs out. He might spend a great deal on vehicles, sheepdogs, and pasture improvements to guard and protect these dumb animals. These animals need to be shepherded; the Australian grazier uses these means to do this task of shepherding.

So sheep need pasture or land on which to graze. They need protection from disease and attack from wild animals, and they need someone to watch over them. Farmers have paddocks to protect and keep the sheep together, but when these paddocks run out of feed, the sheep can’t find a new one, and rarely do they find their way back to the paddock if they get out. When their protector approaches them to catch and care for them, they become scared and struggle to get free or go into sulk mode and flop down as if they would give up their life in an instant.

The picture of a shepherd in the Middle East is not really that much different. There are no fences, the shepherd travels with his sheep; he in a sense is the fence for his sheep. He finds the right pastures for them, if he left them to their own devices others would steal them, wild animals would eat them, or they would wander off and get lost from the flock. He calls his sheep with his word and uses his rod to protect, and his staff to save them. Whereas motor bikes, dogs, and Land Cruisers are the identifying sounds and instruments of an Australian shepherd or grazier.

But the fact is without a shepherd, of some sort, sheep are not going to survive. In their temporary existence away from their shepherd or the things put in place to shepherd them, their quality of life will be next to nothing. We are God’s sheep, and he is our shepherd. Are we thick, dumb, or stupid like sheep? Well no, we are not! But our actions are similar to that of a sheep’s because of sin. So we too, need a Shepherd.

The pastures in which God originally placed us, was the lushest garden ever. The Garden of Eden was a paradise of infinite gifts to us from God, with one boundary, and that was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But like sheep left to their own device, the grass seemed greener on the other side of the fence, outside the boundary, and humanity shepherded themselves into death and separation from God and his garden of gifts, by crossing that boundary. They turned their backs away from the Shepherd and his green pastures, to the fruit which has made us all rotten to the core. Now there is no way that you or I, can get back into the garden that is eternal life, or paradise, no matter how much we try to look like good sheep outside the fence.

So what does God have to say about weak stray sheep outside the fence of paradise and eternal life? He says: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. (Ezekiel 34:11-16)

God has placed a hole back in the fence, so we can enter back into paradise. But guilty as we are, we flee further from God, seeking to be fed outside the fence. The opening he gave us only exposes the boundaries we ignored and crossed. Such is the Law of God which shows us how we sin; the Ten Commandments expose our desire to turn away from God, his will, and the bountiful gifts he wants us to have in our lives. God gives us an entrance back in, but the same craving which led us to break the boundaries and be thrown out of the Garden in the first place, only causes us to run further away.

So to bring us back to his garden of paradise, the Shepherd, in an act of brilliance, sent his Son to shepherd us. He came to make us content to dwell in his garden, or his paddock of perfection, and to heal us and cleanse us of our stricken state. We once again have value as his sheep because he came to seek us and lead us home to our Father’s property, named, Heaven. The Shepherd came to us not as the Shepherd but as a sheep; he came as the Lamb of God. Just as the economy of our country once rode on the sheep’s back, God put his household in order by placing the burden of obedience on Christ’s back. Jesus came as a sheep to heal our waywardness, protect and cleanse us from evil, and to carry us home on his back.

Jesus bore the punishment for our corruption of paradise and subsequent expulsion; he makes us acceptable and gives us access back into the Father’s presence. The Shepherd gave up his position as Shepherd and came as the humble Lamb who bears your sin and mine. And now having been raised, the Lamb of God leads his flock back into God’s eternal paddock of paradise. The economy of God’s church is carried on the back of the Lamb of God. The head servant, Jesus Christ, shepherds us back into God’s presence where he causes us to live forever on his green pastures of paradise.

You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture and I am your God, says the Lord God (Ezekiel 34:31).

[So] come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care (Psalm 95:6-7a). Amen.