It was at the Alabang Dairy Farm that I saw sheep for the first time.  We went there to buy fresh cow’s milk.  We watched the workers hand-milk the cows and put the milk in a pasteurizing vat.  While we waited for the milk to reach the right temperature we watched the sheep.  Unlike the sheep in the movies which resembled thick fluffy clouds, the sheep at the dairy farm had shaggy uneven coats of wool which were the color of dust. They seemed to behave like goats, munching away at the grass in front of them.  Next I thought how easy it was to herd them if they were anything like goats: the herder could just bring them to a grassy pasture and leave them for a day to eat their fill, bring them to the trough so they can drink and basically they require very little attention, just like goats.  How wrong I was.

It is for lack of information on sheep and how to raise and care for them that when I was a teenager,  phrases in the Bible which compare humans to sheep were incomprehensible to me.  For instance, from reading Isaiah 53:6 which says “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way” I gathered that sheep were stupid because they did not know where to go or else why would they lose their way and go astray?  Also from Isaiah 53:7 which says “he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” I gathered that sheep were not only stupid, they were absolutely weak and clueless, gullible and without any instincts that warn them of danger, or else, why would not a sheep protest as it is being led to be slaughtered?

From the verse in John 10:25 which says “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me” I gather that sheep are spineless, compliant creatures who have no will of their own.  As I never felt myself to be stupid or gullible or spineless, I refused to see how humans can be compared to sheep.  I could not understand how the Psalmist could say in praise to God that “we are his people and sheep of his pasture” unless he meant that we belonged to God and God took care of us just as a shepherd took care of his pet sheep but somehow that didn’t make sense to me either.

When I was younger and something incomprehensible bothered me like an itch, I go and ask my mother.  I remember that after I told her what was bugging me, she stopped to look at me hard as if she was trying to decipher if I were just mocking her.  She must have seen how serious I was because she went to the bookshelf and took down a book written by Philip Keller entitled A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.

I tried to read that book but I suppose that I wasn’t intellectually prepared to understand the parallels back then.  So years later, while browsing through the local bookstore, I found a re-print of that same book and I bought it for sentimental reasons.  I re-read it and I found some insight.

First, I will have to mention that Philip Keller grew up in East Africa where the natives still herded sheep in a similar way to the sheepherders in the land of Israel. When he was a young man, he owned and managed a sheep farm for eight years. Later he became a pastor and he began to draw on his experiences as sheepherder to enlighten people on the parallels drawn by Scripture between sheep and people and between Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd of his flock. The book is a compilation of his lectures and sermons on the subject.

He explains that it is not mere whim that God likened men to sheep.  Our patterns and life habits are so much like sheep that it is embarrassing.  For instance, sheep go astray not only because they are stupid but also because sheep are  stubborn. They follow their own fancies and go their own way deliberately and often, to their own disadvantage.  Just like sheep, the self-determination of most people, so rooted in our self-pride and self-assertion, is often destructive.

If left alone, sheep would nibble on every blade of grass it can find even in areas which they have polluted with their own excrement.  They will drink in the same puddle of water they had urinated in and the same puddle they had put their muddy hoofs in.  Sometimes, even if there is a shepherd leading the sheep to new and fresh pastures, the sheep will insist on going down the old paths they have known even if they have already nibbled up the grass all the way down to the roots.  Sheep are very self-willed and so are people.

Sheep are herd animals.  They like going wherever everyone else is going. They need to belong to a herd, they follow the herd even if the whole herd is grazing on bare earth and the shepherd is leading them to a fresh pasture land where the grass is abundant.  Sheep stick together for their own protection, they keep huddled together, not desiring to be different from the rest of the herd.  We people also conform to the society we find ourselves in.  We rarely question what traditions and practices we have been raised on even if the traditions and practices destroy our souls. We listen and imbibe the influences around us, rarely stopping to ask ourselves if the values of the society around us pleases God.

Sheep are unmindful of danger.  When grazing, they keep their heads down and concentrate on the grass, not thinking if the patch of grass he is munching on conceals a snake pit or if the grass has poisonous herbs growing with it.  They just keep on munching.  They do not bother to look up to see if they have gone too far from the herd or from the sight of the shepherd.  Sheep often fall over cliffs because they are too concentrated on their grazing.  Much like people: we are engrossed with the business of living our lives in the patterns and habits we have been accustomed to, we rarely pause to take stock to find our spiritual and moral bearings until it is too late and we have fallen in sin.

Sheep have thick coats of wool that often disguise diseases on their skin and injuries in their bones.  Their thick coats conceal the imperfections and life-threatening state of their health.  A wise shepherd knows to part the wool of the sheep to see the skin underneath, to expose the pests, the bruises, the wounds and the infections under the thick coat.  He knows how to run his palms along the bones of the legs to find injuries.  We humans often keep up a front of well-being, we smile and parade our trappings of wealth and accomplishment, totally unmindful of the disease and injury that sin brings to our souls.

Stubborn and stupid, sheep need to be led by a shepherd but most sheep refuse to be led.  They insist on going their own way.  For stubborn sheep, the shepherd has a rod and a staff to keep them in line.  How so like sheep we are: we are often clueless as to how to live our lives.  We insist on living our lives our own way even if we always end up falling flat on our faces, but we refuse direction and guidance.

In our society today, stubbornness is often seen not as a self-destructive trait but often a virtue.  Take note that the song most often sung on the karaoke and videoke is Frank Sinatra’s My Way.  We insist on doing things our way.  The most recited declamation piece is Invictus the famous lines of which says:” I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul.”  We often hail as role modes those men who have risen from rags to riches as “self-made men.”

It is a marvel then why Jesus Christ would consent to be our Good Shepherd.  How loving and patient he is with us, always looking for us when we are so apt to go astray. How diligent and just he is for disciplining us when we insist on our own way when our own way leads to our destruction. How tender he is when because of our stubbornness, we get injured and he cares for us. And most of all, how selfless our Shepherd is: he gave his life for his undeserving sheep.  He gives his stubborn and self-willed sheep eternal life and he is always drawing them to him for fellowship.

All we like sheep have gone astray — that is the story of our lives.  We have turned everyone to his own way — this is a habit with us.  And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all — this is the consequence of our self-will: we cannot save ourselves and so someone else had to to die in our place to pay the price of our self-will.  Thank God for the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us sheep.