The Good Shepherd

Jill Masters complains, “the world… portrays [Jesus] as a soft person with a silky-smooth voice and a long white robe, suggesting a weak, unreal ‘do-gooder.'”

Sometimes I think we want to make Christianity suitable for babies. As a child matures, he might be tempted to discard Jesus along with Santa and other baby toys.

When Jesus asked us to think of him as a shepherd, he wasn’t talking about a man in a glowing white robe cuddled with smiling lambs.

As Masters says, Eastern shepherds “lived out in the mountains in the biting cold and scorching heat. They were often kept awake most of the night. They trekked for miles with heavy packs such as even modern, highly trained, professional soldiers are not required to carry. They daily defended the flock against wolves and other beasts… Never forget that the shepherd who will trek miles to save lost sheep, bind their wounds and carry them home is the very same shepherd who will draw his sword and thrust it through a wolf.” (Lessons for life 1, Jill Masters, 1991, p. 182-3)

I read this description to the boys, and asked them to draw a shepherd (for coloring at Bible school), and here is what they came up with:

Contrast: