I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
Ezekiel 34:15-16 (NIV)

Zeke and his fellow Israelites are strangers in a strange land. Having been forced to make a thousand mile march some ten years before, they have been making due eking out a life for themselves far from home. There’s no temple for worship. The thing around which their entire lives were centered for centuries. There are no pilgrimages. No feasts. No sacrifices. Everything they had is lost. They themselves are lost.

For ten years there was at least the hope of returning home one day. Then, in yesterday’s chapter, word came that Jerusalem had been destroyed. Solomon’s temple had been destroyed. Even the little hope that remained is now lost. There is no longer a home. In short order there will be more exiles arriving. King Zedekiah, his eyes gouged out after witnessing the slaughter of his own children will arrive in chains with the other leaders and “shepherds” of their people.

There are no shepherds. The flock is scattered with no one to protect the lost sheep.

That’s the backstory of today’s chapter. It’s important to know what Zeke and his fellow exiles are feeling as the prophet begins to share his message from God.

God Himself will be their Shepherd. God Himself has always been their Good Shepherd.

The temple and the sacrifices were never really the point in an of themselves. They were an object lesson to point His people to something much larger. He said so Himself in Psalm 50.

I have no need of a bull from your stall
    or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
    and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?

In today’s chapter, God foreshadows the Good Shepherd, the Messiah. There are so many parallels to Jesus’ teaching and parables I hardly know where to begin.

“When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

“I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.”

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

“Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’”

Right at the moment when Zeke and his compatriots are feeling hopeless, God reminds them where their true hope lies. Their hope is ultimately not in an earthly city or a temple made with hands. Their hope is in the living God who has always been a Good Shepherd

Who led Abraham to Canaan and made a covenant with him

Who led His people out of slavery in Egypt.

Who provided for His people for 40 years of wilderness wanderings.

Who led His people to a Promised Land.

They may no longer have a nation, or a city to call home, or a temple around which to worship, but it was never ever about the rituals or the religion. It was always, and still is, about the relationship. They still have a Good Shepherd who will “search for the lost and bring back the strays” who will “bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking back to stretches of this life journey when I was lost and trying to find my way. I often hear people say that they found God, but the spiritual reality is that God found me. I was the lost sheep, but I have a Good Shepherd and because of that I have a living hope no matter where I find myself, even if like Zeke I find myself a stranger in a strange land.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.