A Thought for Christmas.
We must receive and send hundreds of Christmas cards in our life time.
Some of them we remember for the image, or the greeting. Some we do not.
Of all the cards I have received there is one which has stayed in my mind….. for its greeting.
It said quite simply, “Rejoice, the Shepherd is here!”
So simple; so true; so much the message of Christmas.
The Shepherd, the Good Shepherd is among us.
The Shepherd foretold by the Prophet Ezekiel.
The Shepherd who promises:
“I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out….
I will feed My flock and make them lie down….
I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away;
Bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick.” Ezekiel 34v16.
This is the promise of the Shepherd whose birth we celebrate.
And how we all need to hear this and to believe it.
And how we all need to be embraced by that Love;
The lost; the broken; the sick; the refugee; the rejected;
Those who feel themselves to be unloved and unlovable.
We are all included in the promise of the Shepherd.
Father God,
In a world of chance and fear,
A Child is born; a Light in the darkness.
In a world of change,
We rest secure in that Light,
And in Your eternal changelessness.
Amen.
“Rejoice, the Shepherd is here!”