TITLE: “The Compassion of the Shepherd”

 

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read from Mark chapter six.

What does it mean to be compassionate?  Compassion is a loaded word for us, isn’t it?  To many it means basically love, or looking out for the other person, hospitality, of maybe sacrificing for someone else.  Jesus in our text is described as having compassion on the multitudes, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. As we look at our text today, we will see how Jesus has compassion on us, and then we will see that this compassion moves Him to draw us to Himself.

First of all Jesus is compassionate because He knows our needs.  Look at our text again.  The disciples have just come back from teaching and preaching around the country, and Jesus urges them to rest. Or look at how He handled the crowds.  They were exhausted, and so right after our text He feeds them, over 5000 men plus women and children.  He has compassion because he knows both the physical and the spiritual needs.  He saw that the people were like sheep without a shepherd.  They were so ignorant they didn’t even know that they were in spiritual poverty!

That is so often the case for us, too, isn’t it?  Just like the crowds and the disciples, we have no idea what’s good for us.  We’re like little children that only want what makes them feel good, or even like a drug addict who can only think of how to get the next fix.  We want to be self-reliant and take care of things ourselves, but when it comes to spiritual matters, we are helpless and unable to know or do what’s good for us.  What could be more offensive to our ears than being described as sheep?  Sheep are dumb!  Sheep don’t know where they’re going or what they’re doing!  And no matter how much we may try to convince ourselves otherwise, that is how each one of us is by nature.  We are dumb and ignorant of our poverty and need for a Savior.

Jesus is really being hard on the religious leadership of Israel as well.  He is saying that the people had no pastors, no shepherds.  Now Israel had plenty of pastors.  There was no lack of official religious leadership but these were blind leaders of the blind.  Like Nicodemus, the teachers of Israel needed to be taught themselves.  Many of the shepherds of Israel at that time tended their flocks only so that they could shear their wool and later even eat them.  God rebukes the faithless shepherds of every age through the prophet Ezekiel (ch. 34): Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves!  Should not shepherds take care of the flock?  You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.  You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.  You have not brought back the stray ones or searched for the lost.  You have ruled them harshly and brutally.  So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.

You see, the shepherds of Israel tended the flock in ways that served themselves.  So Jesus looked upon the shepherdless sheep of Israel and pitied them and had compassion for them.  He began immediately to shepherd them Himself and to tend to their needs for they, like us, were needy people indeed.  The prophet Ezekiel continues, For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. . . .  I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord.  I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.  I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy.  I will shepherd the flock with justice.  God here promises that He will take care of His people; He will not abandon them.

Notice too that motives have little to do with Jesus work for them and for us.  The disciples come back and all they care about is what happened to them.  It’s kind of like everyone gathering around the dinner table at night, and everyone so much wants to talk about their day that no one cares what happened to the others.  This was Jesus’ disciples, and the crowds were no better.  What they really wanted was a king who would feed them and take care of them.  They didn’t want a teacher; they wanted someone who would just serve them and their selfish desires.  But Jesus had compassion on them despite their lousy motives.  And that is true for us as well.  Jesus compassion is not based on if we do so well, or if we fulfill this or that law.  God demands perfection, and He knows that we cannot fulfill it.  That is why He sent His Son to take care of us.

That brings us to the third point about Jesus compassion.  It was one of ownership.  He has compassion on us because we are His sheep, we are His children.  This is so important for you to understand about yourself.  You are not your own.  You are God’s, and He bought you with the price of His Son’s death.  It was the highest price, the life of His only Son.  What this means for you is that He is not going to forget, He is not going to just let you go by the wayside.  As Jesus said in John 10, I am the good shepherd; and I know my sheep, and am known by My own (Jn. 10:14).

This brings us to the second part of compassion: love moving in action.  The text says that Jesus had compassion on them (and on us).  So what?  What does that mean that He will do?  There are two things that He does for us: He shepherds, and He saves.

Jesus shepherds.  This does not mean that He rules us with an iron fist, forcing His will upon us.  No.  He leads and guides us to where we need to be.  How does He do this?  He does it by teaching.  St. Mark notes the content of Jesus’ shepherding.  What is the content of Jesus’ shepherding?  He taught them many things and He fed them by His hand.  Jesus invited the people into His presence, and He bade them to lie down in the green grass.  St. Mark informs us that the grass is green.  “The Lord is your shepherd.  You shall lack nothing.  He will make you to lie down in green pastures.”  Jesus invited the shepherdless sheep of Israel into His presence, to enjoy His company, to recline in green grass and He proceeded to feed them with His Word.  He began to teach them the things of God, the things of life, the things of heaven, of the kingdom things that will not pass away. 

I have once heard it said that the job of a pastor is to help people to interpret reality.  Jesus taught the people many things.  Reality.  And this reality really has two sides to it: first, that you are a sinner condemned to hell, and second that you have been redeemed by Christ the crucified one. Law and Gospel, to use the Lutheran terms.  But that is reality, whether we recognize it or not!  That is the world that we live in, and that is the world that we die in.  Jesus “began to teach them many things.”  This is what Jesus taught.  Reality.

This compassion moves Him to shepherd, and it moved and continues to move Him to save.  It was out of His great compassion that He died on the cross for your sins, rose again, and is now seated at the right hand of God.  It is out of His great compassion that He now forgives you your sins.  That is why we gather here in this house. We come to this place to receiving the gift of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

If you think about it, the Divine Service is really much like what Jesus did that day on the hill so many years ago.  He taught them from God’s Word, and He fed them.  Here He teaches us, and here He feeds us with the food that never decays, namely Himself in the Lord’s Supper. 

Compassion, all out of His great compassion for you.  Jesus comes to you, He shepherds you, He continues to care for you throughout the days of your life.  You dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

And now may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn

Pentecost 9B (August 13, 2000)

Mark 6:30-34

 

 

 

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Last Revised: August 14, 2000