Good shepherds and the Good Shepherd

Farming practices have been changing ever since the industrial revolution of the mid-1700s. Without going into details, there became fewer farmers and bigger farms. Advances in machinery and technology meant more arable land and more efficient farms. Less people could look after more land and more animals. Herd sizes grew in kind and today sheep farmers can have stock numbering into the thousands.

But this story isn’t about that. As it is most of the time with me, this is about a book. Two books actually.

Each night I have been reading my wife a short story from the popular vet and author James Herriot. We love how Herriot captures the changing rural landscape of England in the mid 20th Century. He embeds his stories with humour, nostalgia, and organic characters (both human and animal) that you can’t help but empathise with.

In one of his short stories, Herriot recounts a conversation he had about the nature of a new, big business farm. He writes,

“we had just about decided that the man with a lot of animals couldn’t be expected to feel affection for individuals among them. Those buildings back there were full of John Skipton’s animals – he must have hundreds.”

This makes sense. With so many animals to care for, surely a farmer cannot care for every individual.

Surprisingly, after further observation, Herriot changes his mind. He notices that the farmer, rather than being callous or indifferent, actually cares deeply. The farmer had two horses which were too old to work. They cost him money in vet bills and needed constant care and attention, for no material gain and return. However, Rather than taking the economic route, John Skipton cherished the horses. He hand fed them every day, even in the bitter coldness of English winters. He housed them and enlisted the vet to care for their medical needs. Of this, Herriot ponders,

“What made him trail down that hillside every day in all weathers? Why had he filled the last years of those two old horses with peace and beauty? Why had he given them a final ease and comfort which he had withheld from himself? It could only be love.”

We see a strikingly similar image to this in the Bible. Without knowing it, Herriot has written about what Jesus spoke of many years earlier.

12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”

Matthew 18:12-14 (NIV)

Our heavenly father knows all of his sheep, and more than that, he cares deeply for them. How deeply? We see exactly how deeply in John 10.

11 “I (Jesus) am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

John 10:11-15 (NIV)

This is the difference. Jesus laid down his life for the sheep.

Jesus is the good shepherd. He died so that his flock might live. That is radical love on an unprecedented scale. God became man, to suffer and die for mankind, in order that we may live. He truly is the good shepherd, like no other.

In our nightly stories Herriot meets many caring and compassionate farmers. Each time we read about one my wife and I are thankful to the good shepherd, who cared enough to go to the cross for us.

‘What made him come down to earth to face trials of every kind? Why had he given mankind hope and forgiveness? Why had he served them, when they refused to serve him? It could only be love.’