The Good and True Shepherd (No Breaking Legs Here!)

I seem to have fallen into a series of posts at this point about misunderstandings in the church that have often come about through tradition.  Sometimes you can't even tell where the tradition got started (remember my friend Tevye).  A few years ago, I researched an analogy I have heard often in the church.  Before I get to the analogy, I'd like to start with the subject: a shepherd.

God is often described in the Bible as a shepherd.  I did a word study on shepherd to discover what the Bible says regarding God as a shepherd.  Here's a compilation:

The Shepherd led Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Gen 48:15).
The Shepherd shepherds Israel (Gen 49:24).
The Shepherd provides for the needs of his people (Ps 23:1).
The Shepherd carries his people (Ps. 28:9).
The Shepherd leads his people (Ps. 80:1).
The Shepherd gently tends his people, gathering them and carrying them (Is.40:11).
The Shepherd gathers his people to him (Jer. 31:10).
The Shepherd gathers, delivers, feeds, seeks, heals, strengthens and protects his people (Ez. 34:11-31).
The Shepherd rules his people (Mic. 7:14).

Shepherd imagery, when it is used in the Bible of God, refers to God as a protector, guide and healer.  The image is of a tender, gentle shepherd gathering his sheep into his arms.  This is also clear in the New Testament.  In John 10:11, Jesus declared, "I am the good shepherd."  What is Jesus' relationship with his sheep?

Jesus feels compassion on lost sheep (Matt. 9:36, Mk. 6:34).
Jesus lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11).
Jesus knows his sheep (John 10:14).
Jesus guards the souls of his sheep (1 Pet. 5:2).
Jesus rewards his sheep (1 Pet. 5:4).
Jesus guides his sheep to eternal life (Rev. 7:17).

Once again, the imagery is gentle, a shepherd guarding, guiding, tending and ultimately giving his own life for the sheep.  The shepherd imagery of the Bible applied to God, to Jesus, is positive and loving.

So what is the analogy then that I take issue with?  For years I have heard this analogy: "Shepherds break the legs of willful sheep and then carry them around on their shoulders so that the sheep learns to submit to his will.  This is what God does to us at times to get us to submit to his will."  My problem?  This analogy is no where in the Bible.  No where does it say that God as Shepherd breaks the legs of his sheep.  In my research, I actually found a shepherd's own website that refutes this myth: Sheep 101.  I also found other shepherds that found the analogy ridiculous.  Anyone who says a shepherd would break a sheep's legs, they said, has never had to take care of an injured animal.  A sheep could die from such an action and it would be a shepherd purposefully maiming his own product.  It just plain doesn't make sense.

I did find where this story may have originated from.  A book written by a man named Robert Boyd Munger in 1955 mentions the story.  Then it was placed in a book of sermon illustrations in 1979.  Of course, that means it has found its way into many books of sermon illustrations since then.  This means the story gets used over and over by pastors and repeated by parishioners.  The problem is that shepherds themselves deny this story.  Someone along the way somewhere told this story and in fact, it is myth.

When I did my study on the term shepherd in the Bible, I did find analogies of shepherds treating their sheep wrongly--and they were all human.  God uses the term shepherd at times to describe leaders of people and when they mistreat the sheep he calls down judgment.  He does this to Israel's destructive leaders (Ezk. 34:2), Edom (Jer. 49:19) and false prophets (Zech. 13:7).  God declares of bad shepherds, "Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock ! A sword will be on his arm and on his right eye! His arm will be totally withered and his right eye will be blind" (Zech. 11:17).

God is not like the bad shepherds.  In fact, God promises a shepherd that will come and be a true shepherd: "Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the LORD have spoken" (Ezk. 34:23-24).  This descendent of David, this one that will rule as a Good Shepherd is Jesus Christ.  Thus Jesus declared rightly, "I am the Good Shepherd!"  He is the shepherd who gently tends and heals, protects and guides, dies and lives to redeem the sheep.  Our Shepherd is the Good and True Shepherd.