Gifts from the Crucified Shepherd - Contentment

Psalm 23:1

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

We were riding around in his pickup truck.  Jimmy was giving us a tour of his ranch.   As we drove along we heard one his cows just bellowing away.  It turned out that one of her calves was trapped in the fence.  The calf had one leg and her head tangled between two sharp pieces of barbed wire. Why?    The calf had been trying to eat the grass on the other side of the fence.  There was plenty of grass on his side but for some reason that just wasn’t good enough. 

What a picture that provides of our sinful condition.  It started with our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Think about it. God had provided them with more than they would ever need.  The only thing he withheld from them was the fruit from one tree - on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The could have everything else.  Somehow that wasn’t enough.  They just had to have that forbidden fruit.  After all, the fruit of that other tree looked “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.”  Eat that fruit, the devil told them, and “You will be like God, knowing good from evil!”  They gave up the contentment of the life God had provided.  They stuck their head through that barbed wire fence…They had to have that greener grass. They wanted to be like God Himself.  Instead they  got a life that could never satisfy… a hole in their lives that they were powerless to fill… a life that yielded thorns and thistles, pain and struggle.  Instead of divinity, they ended up with the ashes of death. . 

You and I are no different.  Again and again we stick our heads through that barbed wire.  Again and again we covet the grass on the other side. That same spirit of ingratitude works in your heart and mine – every time we turn up our noses because we’re having meatloaf not steak… every time we feel envy because someone else got chosen not us… every time we covet our neighbor’s newer gadget…  That’s what is going on with every spouse that commits adultery… Every time we think – if only I had a bigger house… if only I made more money… if only I got my way – then I would be happy.  Yet every time we get whatever it is we think we have to have – the hunger isn’t satisfied… the  thirst isn’t quenched.  Enough is always more.  Why?  Because the hole in your life and mine is a hole only God can fill.  Without him we are trapped in the barbed wire.  The greener grass is always out of reach. 

As soon as Jimmy saw the calf he stopped the truck.  He put on some gloves.  While himself getting cut up and scratched by the barbed wire, he freed the calf.  “That’s what Shepherds do.  That’s what our shepherd did.  Actually he did more than that.  He who was the Lord of Heaven and earth, took to himself the dust and ashes of our flesh.  Although He was God Himself, Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing…”  The shepherd came into this world to free us from the barbed wire of sin and death.  It cost Him more than a few cuts and bruises.  To free us our Lord Jesus had to carry the full weight of our sin.  He had to give up everything, even His life for you and me.  He did all that because He loves the world.  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  That’s what Jesus did.  Then on the third day, having carried our emptiness to the cross, He filled that emptiness with life.  He rose from the dead.  He took up His life so that you and I might have life and have it abundantly.”

Then He came looking for you and me, His lost sheep.   In the waters of baptism… on the day that faith was born in our hearts, He freed you and me from the barbed wire.  He cleansed the wounds of sin, healed them with His forgiveness.  He filled the God shape hole in your life and mine.  He filled it with His Spirit… His life… His love.  Contentment you see is a gift of God.  It. is never a matter of how much you have or don’t have.  Contentment is the fruit of faith that knows that in Christ God has hold of you…the faith that knows that whichever side of the fence you are on, the Good Shepherd will take care of you.  Contentment is the gift of the crucified Shepherd.  Paul describes it like this.  “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

This side of heaven the struggle with greed goes on.  That day that Jimmy pulled the calf free I asked him, “Has he learned his lesson?” “Probably not,” Jimmy replied.  “But I will set him free again tomorrow.”  Isn’t that what our shepherd does every day, every time we stick our head back through that fence, every time we cry out, confessing our sins?  He pulls us free, free once again… again and again – because that’s how much He loves us, that’s the kind of shepherd He is. 

I love a story I heard along time again about a little boy in a Sunday school program.  It truly describes our Lord’s gift of contentment..  His part in the program was to speak the first verse of the 23^rd Psalm.  “The Lord is my shepherd,” He began.  Then he stopped.  He couldn’t remember what came next.  The teacher whispered to him, “I shall not want.”  The boy just stood there.  “I shall not want,” she whispered again..  He still couldn’t hear her.  “I SHALL NOT WANT.”  At last a big smile spread across his face.  This time He had it.  Now with a voice that was loud and clear He said his part.  “The Lord is my shepherd – That’s all I want.”  Amen!