Different Jobs, Same Profile

This new year, the Our Daily Bread notes brought home to me an intriguing truth: shepherds and kings have more in common than we realise.

We have just emerged from the Christmas season with its stories of the Bethlehem shepherds and the wise men (often depicted as Three Kings). We assume that the two groups are worlds apart. In many ways that's as it should be. It is an important truth that Jesus's magnetism attracts all sorts of people, the great and the humble alike.

Yet both shepherds and kings need a certain skill set in order to carry out their particular work well. A good, conscientious Shepherd will care for, control, govern and protect his flock. Surely a good king is expected to do no less?

Young David was a shepherd boy who also hailed from Bethlehem. When the prophet Samuel came to his father Jesse’s house in search of the man who should succeed Saul as king of Israel, he was out tending the flock. The last thing on his mind was ever becoming head of God’s people. Yet, guided by God, Samuel was unerringly prompted to choose and anoint him as the successor to Saul.

David’s wealth of pastoral experience soon came into its own. When God’s people were being taunted and threatened daily by the Philistine giant Goliath, it occurred to David that his shepherding skills might come in handy in saving the nation and restoring God’s honour. He duly felled Goliath using only the simple sling and stone that served him in warding off wild animals from his flock.

God arranged things so that David would have oft-repeated reasons to draw on his shepherd days for wisdom about kingship:

He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
from following the nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Jacob his people,
Israel his inheritance.
With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with his skilful hand.

Psalm 78:70-72 ESV

Amid all the fame and pomp and glory of kingship, King David never forgot the lessons taught him in his former calling. He saw God Himself as the ultimate role model for shepherds:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 23

Jesus the descendant of David, the Messiah, was supremely the Good Shepherd. Yet He is also described as a sacrificial Lamb! His death on the cross is a sacrifice atoning for our sins. In an extraordinary verse in Revelation, the risen Lamb once more becomes the Shepherd, looking after those faithful souls who have passed through the great tribulation:

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Revelation 7:17

Thank God for a great Shepherd whose skills never become rusty through disuse. Will you place yourself under His sure protection?