All We Like Sheep...

have gone astray...(Isaiah 53:6)

The week before Christmas, we were privileged to visit a local church and their live exhibit called Bethlehem Nights. It's a living scene of the city of Bethlehem, in which characters dressed in Biblical garb guide each small group through the well re-created city until you come to the angels singing (from top of a really tall building, I might add), and finally to the baby Jesus. This amazing re-enactment is complete with all kinds of living animals...goats, donkeys, and sheep.

That night almost turned tragic, however, when 3 huge, wooly, and unruly sheep escaped and literally charged for the oh-so-trafficky street, just as the children were innocently petting the little animals in the petting zoo while we awaited our turn to enter the city. The shepherd (complete in shepherd guard, mind you) chased after them, while various people tried to rope them in, all to no avail. I was standing there horrified (as every other parent was, I'm sure), thinking of what all the children were about to witness that night, and grieving over how this scene would be engrained in their memory forever.

Thankfully, the traffic came to a haulting stop (probably because hosts of angels were singing), and the sheep took a safer turn and ran for a nearby neighborhood, where they were herded into some helpless soul's backyard until a rescue could be had. Or so we're told.

But all that made me wonder, "What can I learn from this? There must be a lesson here. Sheep, shepherd, running away, destruction..." And indeed, there is. We are the sheep. Before Christ reaches out and saves us, we are running, charging even for destruction. But then Christ, our gracious and loving Saviour rescues us from devastation. Oh what grace!

So this year I'm pondering these things, and reminded recently in my studying of 1 Peter, that we "were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls." (1 Peter 2:25)

1 Peter 2:24, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed."

*illustration by Amaleah