Thought for the Week

Scripture frequently speaks of God as being a Shepherd. It also speaks of people being His sheep and His flock. I want to take these next “Thoughts” to examine this subject. We are approaching Easter. Many will think of brightly colored eggs and a bunny. I’d like us to think of a Lamb representing Easter. I do not want to commercialize the Lamb. I want you to consider Him as sacred. He will represent Jesus, The Christ, the Lamb of God, the One Who came to absorb and remove the sin and sins of the world. We will celebrate in a special way, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus, The Christ, from death. In fact, perhaps you want to use the term Easter to mark the bunnies, chicks, candy, eggs, and commercial hoopla. But, perhaps you can save the term “Resurrection Sunday” to mark the holy Day, the sacred aspect of the season. It may be difficult to accomplish this, since we have for generations, mixed the two aspects. We do manage to divide other areas of our life: Consider a father playing football with his sons. They are loud, boisterous, grass-stained and sweaty. They have a great time. They come into the house, get showers, put on clean clothing and come to the table to enjoy the quiet evening meal with the rest of the family. They have a great time. Consider a mother and daughters. They are in the kitchen, baking cookies. They wear old dresses, have flour speckling them, laughing and joking. They have a great time. They get cleaned up and put on nice clothing, pack some cookies in a fancy container and visit the shut-in, elderly lady down the block. They sing with her, pray with her, give her cookies, and make her day special. They have a great time. Same people, same day, different focus different sorts of joy. A church can sponsor an “Easter-Egg-Hunt” for community children one day and a sacred worship service or cantata, inviting the community and celebrating Resurrection on another day. Each is intended to minister to friends and neighbors of the community. But the focus of one is fun and games. The focus of the other is to exalt God and introduce Him to people who do not yet know Him. The ultimate goal of both is to introduce the Shepherd and the Lamb to people whom He loves and who need to know this. The “worldly” seem also to be able to separate these aspects of Easter and Resurrection. They can join in the commercialized celebration of Easter and enjoy it. But they can also reject the sacred celebration of Resurrection and be offended by it. Sadly, I say it: If people want to celebrate, they can and will because it is their desire. If they want to reject and be offended by it, they can and will because it is their desire. On a hillside, near a busy highway, the land-owner erected three crosses. A motorist who passed by that way brought a law suit against the land-owner because the crosses offended him. Yet down the road another few miles, stood an old-dilapidated-falling-down barn, now not much more than rotting-upright timbers and cross-members. (Looked like multiple crosses, if you chose to see them that way) No lawsuit was brought probably because the motorist was not offended. I feel badly for those who have rejected and are offended by the Shepherd’s desire to love and care for them.

Scriptures to Read

Psalm 78:52-58

Psalm 28:6-9

Isaiah 40:9-11

Ezekiel 34:1-10

Ezekiel 34:11-19

Ezekiel 34:20-31

Psalm 23:1-6