Today we look at one of the most enduring (also most endearing) images of divine romance that we find in scripture: the Shepherd of Love. (This builds upon recent posts where we have discussed the too often neglected imagery of the tender romance of God’s Love. We saw that Martin Luther used such imagery, but later followers often neglected this aspect of his thought.[1] We also saw that divine romance imagery is an essential part of the love letter God sends us in the Incarnation--in the events of the Nativity.[2])
Here we turn to the great imagery of the Shepherd of Love, another image that expresses the depths of the tender romance of God’s Love for us. This imagery is suggested in the very first book of the Bible. Before the patriarch Jacob dies, he blesses his son and speaks of the “God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day . . .”; Gen. 48:15, NIV.
Then in the Psalms we find one of the most marvelous poems ever written: a poem of utter simplicity and beauty that has survived the ages. It witnesses: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. … Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff--they comfort me . . .”; Ps. 23: 1-4, NRSV.
Shepherd of Love imagery for God is suggested in other passages of great beauty: “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep”; Isa. 40:11, NRSVCE. Or, note
this lovely passage:
. . . I [the Lord] am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view. As a shepherd keeps all his flock. … I myself will pasture my sheep, I myself will show them where to rest. … I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong. I shall watch over … [them], I shall be a true shepherd to them (Ezek. 34:11-16, JB).
Then, of course, comes our own consent to abide in such imagery: “[W]e are his people, the sheep of his pasture. . . . For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations”; Ps. 100:3-5, NIV.
In the New Testament we find the Shepherd of Love imagery suggested near the very beginning of the Gospel texts: “[Y]ou, Bethlehem … out of you will come a ruler [Jesus] who will shepherd my people . . .”; Mt 2:6, NIV.
In the Christian scriptures Jesus, indeed, takes up the imagery of the “Good Shepherd,” promising in effect that he has come to be the eternal Shepherd of Love among us--in the flesh—intimately with us and never leaving us.[3] His greatest parable--the Prodigal Son--is accompanied in Luke 15 by another parable with essentially this same message: the Shepherd of Love will leave the ninety-nine of his flock (safely tucked into their place, no doubt) to find the one sheep who is missing: i.e., us; whenever we are wounded, lost, or in need--trapped in the brambles of life.
Later, in the First Epistle of Peter the “Good Shepherd” of John’s Gospel is the shepherd, guardian, protector, keeper, and One Who cares for your souls.[4]
And in Revelation, the very last book of the Bible, Jesus is both the
Lamb of God (who sacrificially gives himself to rescue us from our
lostness) and the Shepherd, who has been there all along and will be
here with us for all time (Rev. 7:17; Jn. 1:29, 10:11; Mt. 20:28, 28:20).
Some of our favorite quotations--thoughts we have treasured for many years (thoughts that have sustained us in personally difficult times)—speak in essence of this Shepherd of Love. What if (without most of us even noticing) the stage of history is set within the Great Tender Drama of God’s endless search for us and our pattern of either running away or consent. This is what Thomas Kelly, the author of a wonderful spiritual classic, suggests:
[W]ithin the silences of the souls of men [and women] an eternal drama is ever being enacted, in these days as well as in others. And on the outcome of this inner drama rests, ultimately, the outer pageant of history. It is the drama of the Hound of Heaven baying relentlessly upon the track of … [the wandering soul]. It is the drama of the lost sheep … in the wilderness, restless and lonely, feebly searching, while over the hills comes the wiser Shepherd. For His is a shepherd’s heart, and He is restless until He holds His sheep in His arms [Lk. 15:4-7]. It is the drama of the Eternal Father drawing the prodigal home unto Himself, where there is bread enough and to spare [Lk. 15:11-32]. . . . And always its chief actor is—the Eternal God of Love.[5]
In his Confessions, St. Augustine tells us that our human hearts are
restless until they rest in God. But Kelly is suggesting that our God--the
God of Love, the God of the Shepherd’s heart--is also restless for our
safe return Home to the Love of a Shepherding God.
Kelly (above) refers to Frances Thompson’s great poem “The Hound
of Heaven” (“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days . . .”).
Simon Tugwell suggests similar imagery to describe the endless drama
of God’s tender search for us:
Another picture that our Lord loves to use is that of the shepherd
who goes out to look for the sheep that is lost [Mt 18:12ff]. So long
as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, then we must
often lose heart. But it is the other way about: he is looking for us.
And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not
looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high
rebellion against him. And he knows that and has taken it into
account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where
we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. . . .
Tugwell continues, placing this drama completely in terms of God’s Grace and
providence:
God’s providence means that wherever we have got to, whatever
we have done, that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.
However many cues we have missed, however many wrong
turnings we have taken, however unnecessarily we may have
complicated our journey, the road still beckons, and the Lord
still “waits to be gracious” to us [Isa. 30:18].[6]
God can always find us, these authors suggest! God is both the Shepherd
of Love and the steadfast, patient, never-retreating Hound of Heaven. We
cannot slip too far away, if only we will turn in our tracks to find what we
may mindlessly have dreaded: the eternal Shepherd of Love. This Shepherd
of Love is an image that beautifully portrays the divine romance--even
though in this case the language is not typically romantic in form (in
contrast to some of the imagery in our series of posts[7]).
Before turning to personal reflection upon the Shepherd of Love, we close this
portion with additional passages that suggest the work of this great Shepherd
in our lives. The reader can turn to Gen. 49:24; Ps. 28:9, 79:13, 80:1, 95:7,
100:3; Ez. 34:11-16; Mic. 7:14; Mt. 18:12-14. Also see passages in which the
“shepherd” (who stands in God’s place shepherding God’s people) means
“pastor”: Acts 20:28; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 5:2-4; Jer. 3:15, 23:4;
Mic. 5:4. To some extent each person who has known God’s Shepherding
Love is called to be a “shepherd”: to pass such care on to others.
“‘My Cup Runneth Over’ & the SHEPHERD OF LOVE The SHEPHERD OF LOVE "follows"
in endless, faithful "Keeping"
"all the days of my life."
The Lord is my "Friend" and "Shepherd,"
"I shall not want"!
I am the "apple" of God’s eye;
the lamb held to the "Shepherd’s bosom";
the one whom a "Mother" cannot forget;
the one who says: Lord, my "Father" - "Abba";
the one enfolded in "sweet," gentle 'Keeping'
that will follow me through hill and vale
" all the days of my life" --
" my cup runneth over"
with the SHEPHERD of Love!
* With reflection upon: Ps. 23:1-6 … Ps. 121:5 with Julian
of Norwich [11] … Jn. 15:15 … Ps. 17:8 … Duet. 32:10 …
Isa. 40:11 … Isa. 49:15 … Rom 8:15 [Abba means
Papa] … Julian of Norwich with Ps. 34:8, 1 Pet. 2:25. [12]
“To Win Me (a Meditation)”
And finally, simply in celebration of the season and its lessons:
Meditation in the rain and snow:
(With reflection upon Ps. 63:6-8, NIV.)
❆ ✲ ❆
"To Set the World Apart"
There is a blue that sweeps across the world
as dusk descends—
as if a sapphire glass were held
before our wondering eyes.
Trees silhouetted in darkness,
shadows on the snow,
and the lamplight going on everywhere
to set the world apart.
And still there is a blue
deepening toward darkness,
till it vanishes as if it had never quite been,
save that somehow it changed
the heart.
http://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2017/10/.
http://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2017/.
Bride and the Bride Price”; http://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2018/02/.
http://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-great-sacred-romance-and-its.html.
I love the shepherd image and this really add dimension to it.
ReplyDeleteThis Divine Romance theme is so needed today. Too much forensic language often replaces it.
ReplyDeleteMy wife especially loves the poem "The Shepherd of Love Lingers."
ReplyDeleteI just posted 'All the Days of my Life" on my refrig.--for meditation.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we so prone to ignore this Shepherd, as I did in my youth, before the hard knocks of life taught me better?
ReplyDeleteWell, isn't that the story of most of us? We are here to grown and learn!
ReplyDelete