Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42
January 15, 2023
- Being the Sheep we were created to be
Birthdays matter. Malcom Gladwell, one of my favorite thinkers and writers came across a very interesting fact about children’s sports. A lot of time and trouble and energy and money goes into developing children to be great athletes one day, but the one factor that contributes the most to children advancing in sports is their birthday. The earlier a child is born in the year before the cut off for a sports level, the bigger and stronger and more developed and more able they will be, and that means the coach is more likely to invest game time in those children. So guess who gets the advantages in childhood sports? Those with the early birthdays. In other words, what happens to the ones who are born closer to the league cut-off dates, later in the year? They are smaller and weaker and less developed being 6 months, 8 months, or even 10 months behind, and that matters for children who grow and grow and grow. When does the smallest/youngest kid get to play?
This is a pressing question if you ever had the privilege of coaching a children’s sport through your years. Trying to keep all the parents happy, you try to play all the kids, and it may not matter all that much at that age. I coached beginning soccer one year, and because we did not officially keep score (but we might have unofficially… my team was undefeated – but I don’t know how I know that), playing all the children was fine. And who knows? The little ones might develop skills and strength and size and be better players one day. If they get to be older and are still smaller and weaker, though, that is a different thing. I put the question to my wife, the lifelong PE teacher, and the best she could come up with for sports for the little people was horse racing. Bless the jockeys. Unless you are building a team of jockeys, you see what the 99.9% of sports knows: the small and weak do not have a place in serious athletic competition. Sorry, Rudy. This is born out right now in one of the great convergences of sporting seasons. Football is wrapping up and basketball is ramping up. There is plenty to watch, plenty to cheer, plenty to win and lose. But coaches are throwing their best and strongest and biggest in to win. A great deal is on the line in this arena, especially true as America watched the recent tragedy of the Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin, who gratefully is doing better and better each day after literally dying on the field in a game. The world takes sports seriously, perhaps too seriously.
Thankfully, there is more to life than sports, and there is even a place for the weak and small and less developed. Call him sheep.
No one refers to the mighty sheep. No one compliments anyone by admiring them as a sheep. In fact, being “sheepish” is the opposite of strong or bold. “Herd mentality” is ideal for sheep. I have no doubt that sheep have their good qualities, but they are not admired much. And still, every picture of John the Baptizer in classical art has him with a sheep. The domesticated sheep are not the biggest or strongest or boldest in the animal world. No one would give these sheep a second look at the animal Olympics, but they are essential and crucial in the salvation of humankind and the redemption of all creation.
The story goes back to Exodus and a cruel oppression of God’s people in the land of Egypt. The Hebrew slaves, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, were freed following a final plague of death itself. Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt after the Angel of Death swept through the land in the original Passover for the Hebrews. To make sure this happened, they were to all take a spotless lamb, a young sheep, and kill it and eat it, but the key was to wipe its blood around your doorway to signal your place among God’s people for saving. The blood of a sheep around the door was the sign of life.
The sheep was a common animal in Hebrew history. It also became a symbol of God’s work in their lives. That small, stupid, timid, weaker animal was the animal David shepherded. The sheep herder or shepherd became the symbol of being the king of Israel. That simple sheep became a symbol of the lost children of God, worth the risk of the 99 to find one lost. A sheep was God’s Savior.
The image is perfect. You are sinking in quicksand and crying for help, whistling and calling and hollering with everything you have. Then comes help: it’s not Lassie or a horse with a dangling bridle or an elephant with a strong, trained trunk, or even a strong, friendly ape. Your savior animal trots up with fleecy coziness and bleats as you sink lower and lower. Not a very inspiring savior. What can a sheep do? A sheep is not anyone’s true savior.
Well, it turns out that that one thing a sheep does very well is die. It is an odd thing to say, I know, but we have already seen sheep giving their lives for the people in the Exodus story. In Revelation, a curious image is painted in chapter 5 when no creature in heaven or earth was worthy to open the scroll of God except for the Lamb who had been slain. That lamb, that sheep, was Jesus. He did not have to fight or win or beat anyone to be victorious and worthy. All he had to do to be the Savior of the world was to die in the love of God. You should see the connection to the example of the first Passover. Jesus became the true, perfect, forever Passover for us all.
The Isaiah passage is another way of hearing the sheep’s story. It begins with the confidence and certainty that we all want to have in God’s plan, that we were chosen and loved into life before we were ever born. With God’s blessing, we want to be strong and powerful and successful, but we are still sheep – every single one of us. We have not demonstrated God’s might in our lives. We don’t have God’s muscles. It is easy to feel frustrated and ashamed. We know we are God’s people, but we feel more like sheep. Still, we are God’s sheep.
Notice how Isaiah ties up that thought. The glory of God is not something we create. God’s might is not in our muscles, but God’s sheep are how the light is shared with the nations. It is God’s glory that shines through us, with us, and even in spite of us. It is God who shines; it is God who wins; it is God who conquers; it is God who redeems; it is God who saves. We follow where God leads us. We find our life in God, now and forever. God gives us this grace in Jesus. I may not be able to win on my own, but with God, all things are possible.
It is not an accident that the word for our gathering, our church family, is a congregation. The very word literally means “those who flock together.” The greg part of con-greg-ation is the word for sheep. It is in our religious DNA because God has a value for sheep that the world does not see. We are God’s precious created creatures that do not depend on our own might but God’s.
It is truly fascinating how time and again, God made sure the people of Israel were not the strongest or most powerful. When the Israelites had too many, God sent them home. Their victories came from being smaller numbers and weaker armies. Their victories came from God’s strength, not theirs. This is what God has always wanted us to know. We need God, and God loves us enough to care.
Like the mentally disabled man caught out in the snow of Buffalo in the winter catastrophe before Christmas who was rescued by a stranger who heard him hollering out in the street, we are a people who specialize in being God’s living love in this world. The miracle of Sha’Kyra Aughtry rescuing Joe White from freezing to death was not her strength or might or power or giftedness. It was her willingness to open her home to a stranger in need. That is sheep power. That is the love of the Lamb. That is giving sacrificially for the good of another. That is what it means to hear God and follow.
That is where the text from John leads us. Once Jesus is hailed as the Lamb of God, he attracts the attention of fellow Jews who need God’s direction. They believe Jesus is the real Messiah, and they bring others to flock with Jesus. They begin attracting more and more, and we are still working to bring others into the fold thousands of years later, not because we are so big or strong or wonderful, but because we are willing to love where others are not. We are willing to love and trust and go where God will lead us. When Jesus says, “Come and see,” he is not inviting the lions, and bears, and elephants, but the sheep, those who will hear and follow. God wants the people who need God the most. God wants the people who know they cannot do it without God. God wants good sheep, faithful sheep, loving sheep. If we believed for a moment that we didn’t need God, then we have no reason to be here, but we are here, and when we leave, we follow our Lord and Savior (the Lamb who was slain). We are held in hands that will never let us go. In God’s world, sheep are most precious. Thanks be to God that we are sheep. To God be the glory. Amen.