LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1989, Page 79

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

“

Or. Stephen Carter

cause they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without
a shepherd.”

Crowds—always crowds around Him—bringing the
sick, listening to His words, following Him wherever He
would go, crowds that He identifies as “harassed and help-
less, like sheep without a shepherd.”

I guess we know what “harassed” means: troubled,
wearied. But when you look at that Greek word for har-
assed, at least in the active voice, it means to flay skin. In
a sense harassed means to have your skin laid open, to
have open wounds. The crowds were in need. And helpless,
helpless as an animal lying on the ground unable to defend
itself. Yes, helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Immediately we think about the problems Ezekiel talks
about in the Old Testament, when the leaders had let God’s
flock down spiritually and as a result (Ezek. 34:5), they
were scattered because there was no shepherd—and when
they were scattered they became food for all the wild an-
imals. What a predicament.

We think of crowds today as well. Recently, in St. Louis
I attended the VP Fair over the fourth of July weekend,
where on the riverfront, by the Arch, 500,000—750,000,
even a million people at fireworks time, gathered together.
Everyone was milling around. I wondered, What’s behind
all of the looks of the people, and what are the needs that
are there? We could hardly move.

We think about yesterday’s stirring mission presenta-
tion in the morning. We were reminded of five or six billion
people around the world, so many of them not knowing the
Shepherd. We think about the fact that more and more
people are being crowded into cities around the world,
where many languages and cultures and religious back-
grounds are all thrown together. Crowds, harassed and

LIFELIGHT BIBLE STUDY 719

helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

But dare we move by this verse without being willing
to count ourselves among the crowds? Are we ever har-
assed and helpless? Externally, we’re a crowd at this con-
vention, and there are many things to harass or distract
us—to make our way through a huge book of reports and
resolutions, to try to settle into a new city and a convention,
to figure out parliamentary procedure and amendments
and amendments to amendments and substitute motions
to validate our boxes for voting purposes, to stand in food
lines and ride on buses. All of these things can cause us
to feel harassed and helpless. But on a deeper level, what
is it like in your life right now? You’re here, you're official,
you’re serving the Lord in the church. But how is it going
in your heart and life, as spouse, as parent, as worker in
some capacity. What needs are there. Do we sometimes
lose purpose and run dry? We have so many needs, yes,
even open wounds.

How wonderful it is that our Lord on a mission looks
at the crowds and has compassion on them, on us. Com-
passion. Not a pretty word from our understanding, be-
cause the Greek suggests bowels or intestines, a very
visceral word. We would say heart. But what it means is
that from the very depths of His being, Jesus the God-man
had compassion—and has compassion on the world. Just
taking the word in Matthew, we travel back, and we think
of crowds following Him when He was trying to go to a
lonely place to be refreshed, and He sees the crowds, and
He interrupts his vacation to have compassion on them.
Or preaching out in the wilderness. He didn’t ask them to
come there, and they’re hungry, and they ought to take
care of themselves, but with compassion he feeds 4,000
people. Or in the parable He tells about the king who had
a servant who owed $10,000 talents, millions of dollars.
With compassion he forgives the whole debt. And then on
His way to Jerusalem, there to pour out His lifeblood with
the sins of the world upon His shoulders, He stops outside
Jericho for two blind men, and with compassion He heals
them.

Oh, what a compassionate Messiah we have! Thank God
for that. How I love the words of that hymn “Love Divine,
All Love Excelling,” which says: “Jesus, thou art all com-
passion, / Pure, unbounded love thou art; / Visit us with
thy salvation, / Enter every trembling heart.” Jesus, on a
mission—teaching, preaching, and healing, showing com-
passion for the harassed and helpless crowds like sheep
without a shepherd. We remember the Ezekiel 34 verse
attributed to the sovereign Lord: “As a shepherd looks after
his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look
after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where
they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.” And
we move on.

Jesus’ mission. He begins to prepare the disciples to go
on that same mission. Verses 37-38: “Then he said to his
disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers
into his harvest field.’ ” A shift in imagery: from sheep to
a harvest. Around Him the fields white unto harvest. Ev-
eryone knew when it’s ready, you gotta get out there with
the workers and take care of it. And how well many Mis-
souri Synod Lutherans understand that living in the wheat