IF I were to ask my young readers, What was the most ancient employment of man? I doubt not but that I should have the answer — Attending to the garden. So it was. “God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.” Well, what was the next employment of which we read? It was this — the keeper of sheep. Quite right. Abel was this. Cain tilled the ground; “Abel was a keeper of sheep.” And don’t you think it must have been a beautiful flock over which he watched? We know that it was outside of the garden; but one can imagine the beautiful flock, with its no less beautiful shepherd, feeding on the hills, and resting in the valleys, and quietly reposing beside the running rivers of the beautiful plains first trod by the foot of man, fresh from the creative hand of God.
No menial employment was the shepherd’s in ancient times. Alone among the inhabitants of the earth, to Egypt was the shepherd an abomination. This is what we should expect of Egypt, for its very name stands for a mark of this present evil world. All the patriarchs were shepherds. The shepherd-king was the most renowned in Israel. And He who was the root and the offspring of David could say, “I am the good shepherd.” We require nothing more than this to stamp the shepherd’s occupation as honorable.
But it is not so much of the shepherd as of the flock of which we wish to speak. Neither is it of the flocks of men; but of the flock of God. His flock of all flocks is alone called “beautiful” — “Thy beautiful flock.” Sad indeed is the wailing of the prophet for Judah’s sin. “Where is the flock,” he says, “that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” Scattered they might be, wandering they were, but still the beautiful flock, because they were God’s flock, given indeed to the care of shepherds, who proved themselves unfaithful to the trust, and who little realized their value, and little prized the precious bestowment.
And this reminds us of another beautiful flock, of which the Good Shepherd speaks in the tenth of John. “Other sheep I have,” He graciously says, “which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd,” or, as better rendered, “one flock.” That is, He was going to do away with all folds, and in their stead to have one beautiful flock, with Himself as the one beautiful Shepherd. Hence, we must never now speak of “folds” or “flocks,” but of the one Shepherd — Christ, the Head of the Church; and of the one Church, which is His body — the fullness of Him who filleth all in all.
You will recollect that there was a great difference of old between the flocks of Laban, and the flocks of Jacob; the latter were all “ringstraked, speckled, and grilled;” the former were all white. If you read the thirtieth chapter of Genesis you will know all about it. Now Jacob or Laban, looking at any time upon their flocks, could easily and at once discern whose they were. And so with the flock of Jesus — the sheep of His — the beautiful flock. He knows each one. He loves each one. And why? Because He laid down His precious life for them. “The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” He could not give more, could He? But when does one become His sheep or His lamb? The moment He is trusted and loved. But the lamb’s love to the Shepherd is nothing like the Shepherd’s love to the lamb. None can know it in its fullness. And it is a love which ever abides. It is a love past, present, and future. Past — as shown in the cross; present — as proved in His constant care; and future — as will be known in the exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Oh! can each one who reads this, say: —
“The Shepherd’s bosom bears each lamb
O’er rock, and waste, and wild;
The object of that love I am,
And carried like a child.
And whither carried? Right on through the world up to the glory. There shall the dear, beautiful flock be at last gathered; and there shall the dear beautiful Shepherd’s joy be full. Oh! if you would not miss the joy of that day, go at once to Jesus, and accept His love, and be numbered amongst His beautiful flock.
A. M.