For they suffer no pain;
their bodies are healthy and sleek.
They are free of the burdens of life;
they are not afflicted like others (cf. Psa. 73:4-5)
Today we can be glad if we are not strong and strong because God tells us that "the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly." The sleek and the strong always run the risk of too much self-sufficiency. "Thus pride adorns them as a necklace; violence clothes them as a robe" (cf. Psa. 73:6). This sort of attitude makes it really hard to trust in the shepherd to provide all we need. The LORD himself wants to pasture us and give us rest.
I myself will pasture my sheep;
I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
He wants to bring us all to the restful waters of baptism, spread the table of the Eucharist before us, and anoint us with the oil of the Holy Spirit. When the LORD guides us in this way we want for nothing. But if we are proud and self-sufficient the care of the Good Shepherd cannot be important to us. Then, instead of wanting for nothing, nothing is enough to satisfy us.
We can rejoice if we feel lost, if we have strayed, if we are hurt or sick, because the Good Shepherd himself wants to seek us, bring us back, bind us, and heal us. All things must ultimately be subjected to Jesus. If the sovereignties, authorities, and powers that oppose him are to be destroyed what do we imagine will happen to the smug sheep that refuse to let him be their shepherd? In "Christ shall all be brought to life" but what of those who refuse to come to him? What of those who refuse to "dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come"?
You set them, indeed, on a slippery road;
you hurl them down to ruin.
How suddenly they are devastated;
utterly undone by disaster!
They are like a dream after waking, Lord,
dismissed like shadows when you arise.
Jesus offers his love to all of us. Let us not be so sleek and strong that we imagine we don't need it. We can be assured this morning that Jesus knows and cares about all of our needs. Are we worried that we are perhaps a little too strong, a little too independent? Then let us share in the weakness of our fellow sheep. After all, this is just what Jesus does. He himself is so closely united to his sheep that he says:
'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
If we are having difficulty realizing our dependence of Jesus by ourselves we are invited to realize it together. In the mystery of his plan, the one to whom all things must be subjected, the one who shepherds the sheep, is also the very least and most afflicted of all the sheep. When we are tempted to self-sufficiency we find the antidote here. As our apparent strength is put at the service of our brothers and sisters we learn that it is much less strength than we thought. Indeed, on our own we can do nothing. The weakness and surrender of the Lamb of God is the only strength that matters. We realize that we depend on the shepherd just as much as the least of the sheep.
This morning Jesus offers to shepherd us. When we forget we need a shepherd he helps us to realize it. He makes himself so present because he loves us. He does not want to see us so sleek and strong that we miss out on all he has for us. In our fellow sheep we can see that weakness that is also in ourselves but that we fail to see. We realize, too, that we have no solution for this weakness within our own power. But as long as we depend on Jesus for strength then only goodness and kindness follow us all the days of our lives.
And these will go off to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life."
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