All We Like Sheep...

"You're never too far down. I promise you'll be found. I'll reach into the mud, the miry clay, pursue you to the end. Like a faithful friend, nothing in this world will keep me away..." - Audio Adrenaline 

A couple of summers ago, some of my family (my mother, step-father, and 5 brothers and sisters) lived in Crete, Greece. While they were stationed there, I was a college student at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga. Fortunately, because I was a student, the government paid for me to travel to visit my family there in Crete. When I found this out I was beyond excited! You know me, I love to travel! I packed my bags as soon as the semester was over and headed out on the next flight. Greece was an amazing and beautiful place! The sand on the beaches ranged in color from black to white to pink and the water was always bathwater warm and crystal clear. I couldn't believe I'd been granted a free visit! What wasn't to like? My whole trip was an experience that I'll never forget and one day, when I write a book, I intend to write about it and the lesson I learned while there. 

For now, however, I'll simply share it with you here on my blog. Many of us have heard the age old comparison of Christians to sheep. We see in Isaiah 53 where it says, "All we like sheep have gone astray..." and in John 10, Jesus talks about how He is the good shepherd and lays down His life for the flock (as He did for us on Calvary). While I was in Greece I saw this picture, the meaning of this idea that He is the shepherd and we are the flock, come to life as I had never seen before. I never knew the depth of the love the shepherd has for his flock until I experienced it first hand. I was blown away.

It happened like this: my family and I were driving down the one lane, dirt paths that are considered roads near my mom's house. As we were driving, she or one of my siblings would point out things here and there like olive tree groves, little personal house churches, and caves. Everything I saw had this old world feel to it; as if I were in a time long past and long forgotten. After a little while on the road, I noticed how slowly and carefully we were driving. My step-father is not known for driving slowly in deer-infested Leesburg, Georgia, so I was unsure as to why he was doing it here where there were clearly no deer. So, of course, I joked on him about it. My mother was quick to explain his reasons. She told me this, "there are only two things that the Greeks around here care about and that is their olive groves and their sheep. And, since I don't expect any olive trees to jump out at us, we are watching for the sheep." Now, this I could understand, not wanting to hit sheep. But seriously? Five miles an hour in an obviously deserted part of the island? Again, my mother had an answer for this: "they are everywhere! They blend in! There are little caves off the sides of the road and they sometimes wander in and hop out unexpectedly. You just never know."

Ok...got it. Watch out for suicidal sheep. I stored this obviously important information in the back of my mind for safe keeping. Over the next several days, I came to see that my mother was right. There were sheep every where in Crete! In fact, my mother lived next to a pasture where a shepherd and his flock would walk daily. It was an interesting experience to actually see a man with a stick herding a large group of sheep. I'd never seen it before; not like that. He had little lambs that would jump to a fro (yes, fro) near their mothers. It really was darling to see. My mom came outside that night and we got to talking about Greece and all the things she had experienced since living there; things about the culture and the people and their ways of doing things. Eventually, the conversation steered back towards the topic of sheep and she told me just how important they were.

On the Greek island of Crete, there are two main ways of making a living: 1) planting and cultivating olive groves to produce olives for things like olive oil and 2) raising sheep. It seemed to me that that was obvious since there were a billion of each everywhere you looked. My mother told me that these two things were so important to the Greek farmers that, in the event of a fire, the first things they would try to save were these groves and these animals (after family of course). Houses could be rebuilt, things could be repurchased, but the sheep and the olives were their livelihood and they were first priority! That idea in and of itself was foreign to me; protecting what is essentially a job, before the house and things. That is not the case here in Greece. These animals and groves are not just a source of income but they are almost life itself; it is the way that they survive. For them, there is no getting another "job" because there really isn't anything else. Once I understood this, I was able to semi-understand the second explanation my mother gave me about why they try really hard not to hit sheep when out driving in town.

When my mother first told me this second reason, I wasn't sure how much to believe because it just seemed so impossible! She told me, in a very serious tone, that if you hit a sheep and there are witnesses, you could be in for some serious financial hardships in the future. I thought this meant you'd simply have to pay for the sheep you hit or something in that ball park. Oh no...it goes so much deeper than that! If you hit the sheep, you not only have to pay for it, you also have to pay that shepherds' best estimation on how much money he would have made off of its' meat and wool over the course of its' life. Secondly, you would have to pay the shepherds' best estimation on how many offspring that one you hit would have produced and then, again, how much he would have made off of their meat and wool in their lifetime. Can you imagine having to pay that much money for hitting a single sheep? Here in America, you'd have to prove I hit it in court before we would even pretend to determine a price tag. If you could prove I hit your sheep, you'd never be able to get more than the cost of that sheep out of me.  I was mind-boggled as I had never been in my life!

As crazy as I thought all of this sounded, I was also able to see a deeper truth in it. I learned the dire importance of the flock to the shepherd. I learned that his love for them was a thing rarely seen in this day and age. As I looked out at the shepherd and his flock walking past my mothers house, I was able to see them as I hadn't before; with comprehension. I was able to comprehend just a little bit more about the love our shepherd, Jesus Christ, has for us, His sheep. The best example of His love towards us was his death on the cross. He willingly gave Himself to die for the sins of the world.  John 10:11-15 says this:

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep."

 There is no greater love than that. And to take it furthur, Jesus not only mentions the sheep that are currently His (Christians), but He also expresses His desire to bring the other sheep (the unsaved), into the fold. John 10:16 says this: "and other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd." He expresses His desire to love us all and to call all of us His own. He talks in Luke 15 of how, if one of us were to wander away and get lost (and we do), He would leave the flock to come and rescue us.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'"

Picture: By Melissa Edmondson, Greece 2007

To me, this was a very powerful illustration. The love Jesus has for us is amazing and unparalleled and I got to see an earthly example of that first hand.  I love it when God uses earthly things to show me heavenly truths. It resonates like nothing else and I can only pray that I am open and available every time He wants to show me. I hope that you, too, will open yourselves to Him and be prepared for what He might have to say. If you're not saved, I pray you'll turn to Him. He is ready and waiting to take you in to the fold. Who can resist that type of love? Who would want to?