All we, like sheep…
Image courtesy Unsplash
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - May 11, 2023
Friends in Christ,
While I was away, my wife Karyn (with our dog) spent some time down at her parents' farm in Walla Walla (near Albury), where they still live in retirement. She told me a couple of lovely stories about sheep that remind us of beautiful biblical truths.
The back of their farm is a throughfare for neighbouring famers moving stock to and from different areas. One day she spotted a single lost sheep. She soon worked out it had been left behind from such stock movements... It was now more vulnerable to foxes and not necessarily with easy access to water.
But next day she spotted the farmers with their ute, a couple of quad bikes, and some farm dogs all devoted to chasing and rounding up that one single isolated sheep ...that stubbornly didn't really want to be found!
It reminded us of these Scriptures:
Our reality: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way... – Isaiah 53:6a
Jesus' attitude: Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesnt he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? – Luke 15:4
Of course, how Jesus rescues the strays is by "laying down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11) a reference to his death for sins, in our place, on the cross.
The other lovely contrast was with Alf, the hand-raised orphan lamb, and now retained to live out his days on the farm, even when, with retirement, other stock were sold off.
Other sheep on modern farms tend to run away from the humans. But even as an adult sheep returned to mob, when Alf heard Karyn's dad or mum call his name, he'd come running over for a pat or a scratch behind his ears.
Scripture again...
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. – John 10:28
As once straying sheep now rescued by Jesus, are we listening to and delighting in the voice of the Good Shepherd?
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney