I don’t know
about the shepherds of Jeremiah’s time but the ones I know work like dogs to
shepherd their people. But with the large population of aging sheep or sheep
leaving small pastures for larger ones or sheep who've stopped grazing
altogether, or worse, lambs who have never been brought to the pasture at all,
shepherds find themselves the ones scattered and sometimes even destroyed. We
hear this is the new normal of the post Christian era and that our decline is a
done deal and nothing short of the second coming will restore the church to its
former position of prominence. But then maybe this is just the time that is
surely coming, when a post Christian age allows shepherds and sheep to see
Christ raised again to the only prominent position that counts. “We preach
Christ crucified,” is how the apostle Paul said it. Martin Luther offering
advice to a fellow shepherd said it this way. My dear Friar, learn Christ and
him crucified. Learn to praise him and, despairing of yourself, say, 'Lord
Jesus, you are my righteousness, just as I am your sin." Christ the King
crucified, the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, is the righteous
Branch who executes justice and righteousness by virtue of his suffering and death
on the cross in every age, no matter what we call it. Perhaps the word that
Jeremiah had for the sheep of his day might be the word needed for shepherds
of today. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. I am your Shepherd. Take a day
off.
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