Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent
The shepherd and the lamb is a central Christian image. I’ve read today’s gospel passage countless times. I’ve heard it preached on even more. It has hovered about my head since childhood. Yet, until now the image in my mind was always set in the springtime. I’ve always imagined a shepherd surrounded by lambs, munching on green grass on a sunny day. While annoyed and perhaps a little afraid that the shepherd has left them to find a lost sheep, they are still fairly comfortable. It never occurred to me that these passages could be set in a more precarious setting. Looking out the window at the snow and ice, the frigid cold, and my dead grass, I have come to read today’s passages in a different way.
The first passage exhorts the prophet Isaiah to speak words of comfort to God’s people. These words of comfort remind Jerusalem that all things of this earth are temporary. The highest mountain will someday be leveled. The flower fades. The grass withers. However, the word of God is eternal. Thus, the people of God will find comfort in the eternal, like the shepherd gathers her lambs together for warmth and comfort in the midst of winter.
In the second passage, from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus poses a tough question to his disciples. Is it better for the shepherd to leave the flock to find the lost lamb or is it better to let the lamb remain lost for the good of the flock? Jesus is rather clear that the Father rejoices in the former rather than the latter.
However, it is one thing to accept this in the context of a fairly comfortable flock, it is more challenging when we think of the flock in winter. The shepherd leaves his cold and huddled sheep in order to find the one who is lost. Of course, this leaves the flock in a precarious situation. It seems that the shepherd is confident in the strength of the flock to handle adversity. It is not simply a calculated risk. It is faith in the community established by the shepherd.
We are, it seems, both sheep and shepherd. We take comfort in God’s eternal embrace, like sheep gathered by the shepherd. But we are also shepherds, who must leave comfort and security to seek out the lost, hungry, and exposed. It seems we are challenged to not only embrace those who return but also to take the warmth and comfort of God’s eternal word to the lost.
Today let us ponder in our hearts how we comfort the lamb in winter.
- Adam Sheridan