by Lisa Allgood, Executive Presbyter

Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.                                                                                                                          – Psalm 100:3

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.                                                                                               – Isaiah 53:6

I’m a city kid.  What do I know about sheep? 

I’ve encountered some rather comical ones traveling in Wales and Ireland and Scotland – and in Israel.  They’re curious – aaand, not too smart. Especially when they are both of those things in the middle of the road you’re trying to travel on.

Sheep are a huge part of the landscape in Israel, and always have been. Job had fourteen thousand sheep (Job 42:12), and sheep were sacrificed at the dedication of the first Temple (1Kings 8:63).  The Hebrews in exile in Egypt kept sheep and goats (Exodus); the specific sacrifice of a lamb for the Passover was a particular abomination to the Egyptians, who considered sheep sacred – the ram coincided with their astrological spring, and the head of a ram depicts the Egyptian god Khnum.

Sheep abound in Scripture, mixing practical sheep-keeping reality with symbology.  Sheep are washed before they are shorn; hence the meaning of Isaiah’s comparison of forgiven sins with the whiteness of wool (Isaiah 1:18). The ram’s horn was used to carry oil; Samuel took a horn of oil to anoint David as future king (1Samuel 16:1), and Solomon was anointed king by the oil in the horn of Zadok the priest (1Kings 1:39). Mosaic Law called for the sounding of the shofar (the ram’s horn) at certain times (Leviticus 25:9, Numbers 29:1, and in the fall of Jericho; Joshua 6:4), and they were used to gather the faithful (Jeremiah 4:5). Trust me, it isn’t easy to make a sound with that thing. I’ve tried.

But practically – sheep tend to wander.  They herd to some degree, but often one is tempted by a particularly juicy looking branch, and wanders away from the herd.  There are predators that scatter and terrify the herd, and uneven ground (particularly rocky ground in Israel) that causes them to stumble.

And so in Scripture sheep are a metaphor for us frail, feeble, fearful, fragile humans.  Who also tend to wander, find other things that tempt us away from safety, and stumble over the uneven ground of our world.

And all we, like sheep, are utterly defenseless and totally dependent upon the Shepherd, from birth through our lives.  Sheep truly do recognize only the voice of “their Shepherd,” and will not come when another Shepherd calls. Praying that you hear and heed the voice of our Shepherd, our Savior, Immanuel – God with us. This Christmas. And until the end of the age.