Ewe are worth it!

I begin this journey on Easter Saturday during an Easter like none other. Due to the virus-related lockdown, our usual gathered community is now meeting through electronic screens and messages, sharing communion, prayers and reflections with each other at a distance. Within this unexpected and unwanted disruption to my normal Easter pattern I have found Keller’s opening observations of how much it costs to be a shepherd to be a helpful Easter reflection. Keller writes of his sheep,

“They belonged to me only by virtue of the fact that I paid hard cash for them. It was money earned by the blood and sweat and tears drawn from my own body during the desperate grinding years of the Depression. And when I bought that first small flock I was buying them literally with my own body which had been laid down with this day in mind. Because of this I felt in a special way that they were in very truth a part of me and I a part of them. There was an intimate identity involved which, though not apparent on the surface to the casual observer, nonetheless made those thirty ewes exceedingly precious to me.” (p19)

To become my Shepherd Jesus didn’t use human currency but He paid the price for my sin through the currency of sacrificial love – through His body, through His blood. And I know that my identity is defined not by what I do or don’t do but by what He has done for me and that I, as one of his sheep, am exceedingly precious to Him.  In this current climate where life is being threatened by a virulent virus, I take comfort in knowing that I have a loving, caring, protecting, generous, sacrificial Shepherd who is watching over me. He chose me, He bought me with a great price, I belong to Him and I am so grateful. Ewes me Lord, for Your Glory!