12-26-2016

      Good Morning All,

      Matthew 9:36; “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” 

    Have you ever felt like sheep without a shepherd?  The imagery that Matthew is using here is very powerful.  This isn’t just a few sheep wandering around aimlessly; this is a whole flock which has been battered and bruised.  They are bloodied and beat up from the attack of wolves and thieves.  They are bloodied from a shearer who doesn’t know how to properly shear the sheep and he doesn’t care.  They have been chased from one valley to another by other shepherds protecting their own grazing land and by the dogs that harassed them night and day.  They have no one to turn to and no one to protect them; they are lost and scattered; beaten and bloodied.  Have you ever felt like that?

    When we feel like that, when our life is in complete turmoil; we have a place to go, we have a place of refuge.  Jesus is our good shepherd to lead us, protect us, guard us and heal us.  We can take great comfort in this verse.  Yet it has a much larger meaning to us as well.

     This verse occurs right before Jesus sends the 12 disciples out on their first missionary trip.  He tells them to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send more laborers in the harvest.  So in this verse, Jesus is beginning the work of the church, to minister to the lost, the bloodied, the beaten up and the beaten down.  This is part of the reconciliation which the church (that’s us) is to be engaged in.  Every other false hope has led to disaster and the only hope is found in the true Shepherd, in the saving redemptive act of Christ’s death and resurrection. 

    Now that you and I find our comfort and hope in Jesus, we have the certainty of our salvation.  Jesus tells us to pray for workers.  Then he empowers us to be those workers, going about with the same compassion which He had for the people.  We are to pray for the workers of the harvest and we are to trust in his divine authority to act on his command.

     We as Christians, as the Church, are to have compassion on the people, on the harassed and helpless sheep.  Matthew makes it clear that the mission of the Church is the extension of Jesus’ own ministry here on earth.  We are to continue this ministry until Christ returns.  This is part of our life here on earth with our fellow man.  We share what Christ has given to us with those around us.  God uses us to minister to the people of this world and he uses the people of his church to minster to each other.  When we are the harassed, Jesus comes to us through the hands of his church.  When we see others who are harassed we are those hands.  God empowers us, as his church, to shepherd the lost and to bring them to redemption.

Dear Father in heaven, we give you thanks for the ministry of your holy church to bring comfort and compassion into the world.  Give us that comfort when we need it Lord and use us to bring comfort to those around us.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret