Bible Studies

---

...than all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him...
Luke 15:1


I found these words disturbing to me this morning, though disturbing may not be the correct word. But a veil of sadness fell as I realized we don’t see ‘sinners’ and ‘tax collectors’ drawn today. I cannot help but ask myself WHY? How is it that we keep the magnetism of Jesus covered today? How have we hidden His heart from the multitudes passing by each day? Because the multitudes are still there. Man hasn’t changed. Nor his need.

Might it be that we don’t acknowledge the flock, that we fail to have a love for the sheep? Could Jesus even speak the parable of the Lost Sheep to our hearts today and expect us to care or respond?

How greatly we have changed in relating to others in today’s world. Where there use to be a sense of greater community of looking out for and caring about one another, a spirit of isolation, or maybe it’s crippling self-centeredness seems to have hardened today’s hearts.

I don’t know that we would go after the missing one, for I’m not too sure we even really care about the ninety-nine. Especially when we realize the ninety-nine aren’t limited to the ‘believing’ community, but to the sheep ‘of all God’s creation’.

We’ve become a people adverse to carrying burdens, but very adept at palming them off. I’m not talking about our cares that we’re to cast upon the Lord. I mean the burden of loving others that Jesus refers to here.

The Pharisees and scribes to whom Jesus spoke certainly wouldn’t have understood, for the burden-handling they practiced involved laying burdens upon the flock...certainly not carrying burdens of the flock upon themselves.

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus advocated. I’d never caught it before, nor the joy it would bring. But Jesus knew. He understood. It was the very work He came to do, and it drew the flock. As true love always does.

I’ve recognized the willingness, the sacrifice, the work of seeking out the lost sheep before. But I’m grieved to admit that’s where I left it. Now, looking closely at Jesus’ words, I realize the most important picture He was painting I’d carelessly passed right by.

And when he found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing!

A true shepherd understands the significance of shoulders. They’re where burdens are borne. Not their own ‘burdens’ but the burdens of picked-up love. That place where eyes have seen a need, and love has compelled them not to pass by, but to pick it up and lay it upon their own shoulders, and rejoice in the privilege of carrying a lost and weakened sheep back.

Yes, Jesus is the Great Shepherd. But caring for the flock He so loves He’s entrusted to our hearts, our hands, our shoulders. On His behalf, aren’t we to seek out the lost, the confused, the hurting. As His body, aren’t we to be stooping down, as He stooped down, into the brambles and the mire? Aren’t we to be picking up and laying across our shoulders, shoulders which He strengthened, shoulders born to carry a cross, those whom His heart so loves?

I don’t see it. Not in my own life. Not, if I’m painfully honest, in those who fill the pews each Sunday. No, I don’t see it. Nor, I fear, do the multitudes, for they keep passing by. Where have we put the Jesus that draws ‘sinners’ and ‘tax-collectors’ unto Himself?




Dearest Jesus, my own Good Shepherd, You who carries me so faithfully upon Your shoulders of love, mold in me Your shepherd’s heart. Create in me a love that looks beyond myself ... a love that looks like You. Lord, forgive me if my hardened heart has draped about Your shoulders the Pharisaical cloak of a burden-maker, blinding the sheep to Your love that seeks them out. Lead me to Your lambs that need lifted, that need carried, and let me rejoice as I lift them up in Your name and carry them home.




© 19 April 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE