Soldiers are no strangers to suffering, especially from the elements.  They suffer extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme wet, and other extremes all for their fellow   Soldiers who are enduring the same.  The coldest, hottest, and most miserably wet I have ever been was while in the Army.  These times are some of the most vivid memories of my 21+ year Army career.  Enduring such things is probably why I seldom feel the need to prove myself with physical feats.  As the saying goes, in some way I’ve probably already “been there, done that”, just like many other Soldiers past and present.

At this point you are probably asking yourself what this has to do with the passage from Jeremiah 43.  Well, when I first read the scriptures I wasn’t sure what I could learn about shepherding.  However, a lesson for me came to mind as I studied them further and considered the prophecy’s mental image.  But first, the historical context.

Jeremiah 43 concerns the end of the monarchy for the Jewish remnants in the southern kingdom of Judah.  The northern kingdom Israel has already fallen to the Assyrian Empire.  Now Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt vied for dominance.  The prophecy of Jeremiah 43 is a warning for Jerusalem’s inhabitants not to flee to Egypt for safety as Nebuchadnezzar, chosen by God as His instrument of punishment for Judah’s spiritual rebellion, will defeat Egypt, thus establishing 70 years of supremacy coinciding with the Jew’s 70 years of Babylonian captivity.  Of course the Jews did not listen and fled to Egypt, where in a short matter of time they were captured in Egypt by Babylonian forces in approximately 568 B.C.

While the historical context and meaning of these scriptures is important, the mental image of the shepherd wrapping his cloak around him took on another meaning to me as I studied these scriptures trying to determine what I could learn and apply as a shepherd of God’s people.

As shepherds we are tending God’s flock on His behalf, just as God charged the patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets to do in early history.  However, time and time again, under both good and bad leadership, God’s people have rebelled against Him and His commandments.  God then punishes the transgressors directly or, as in this time in history, through some other means.

God leaders today are also to exercise punishment on God’s behalf.  In other words, at some point the shepherd no longer has open arms to embrace the lost sheep and protect them from the elements by wrapping them in his cloak.  At some point the shepherd is no longer braving the elements or putting himself in harm’s way for the lost sheep.  These sheep have rebelled, they fail to listen, they endanger God’s people (in this case represented by Jeremiah), and they put their faith in others (in this case the Egyptians) instead of God.

As shepherds, it is hard to let go of the lost sheep but scripture is clear about blatant rebellious sin and how to deal with it (1 Corinthians 5:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, Titus 3:10).  Like the Soldier who sacrifices and braves the elements for those around him, we shepherds willingly sacrifice sleep, comfort, health, safety, security, emotional vulnerability, and a host of other things for the lost sheep.  Because of our sacrifices we do not want to give up on our sheep that have wandered away.  Yet sometimes, if that sheep continues to lead other sheep astray or has fallen off a cliff then we have to let them go.  That doesn’t mean we don’t fight for them.  That doesn’t mean we don’t admonish them and encourage them and love them.  However, sometimes it is to no avail, just as Jeremiah encountered.  Then we have to give them up for the good of the flock, wrap our cloaks around us, and move on, praying that someday the lost sheep will survive that fall off the cliff and find their way back to the flock.

In Jeremiah’s time Jerusalem’s inhabitants flee back to the land of Egypt, the very land from which God led them out of slavery some 900 years earlier.  Even today God’s people sometimes return to the slavery of sin.  Just like Jeremiah, we warn and if they do not listen we conduct the punishment directed by God, we wrap our cloaks (garments) around us, and they are cut off from the body so that their souls might be saved (1 Corinthians 5:5).  It is difficult.  It is unpleasant.  But, this is the price and duty of leading God’s people and looking after the well-being of the flock which the Almighty has entrusted to us.

May your blessings exceed mine today and all your days. – DEM