The procession of Jacob and all his family down to Egypt is bittersweet. We know the rest of the story. This ends with the people of Israel being subjugated for 400 years. Even though that ends with their freedom, there were generations that only knew slavery.
This was a way to preserve their heritage. It allowed them to live through the immediate threat of famine. We also don't know what threats could have emerged in Canaan during these years that could have wiped everyone out. Plagues in that day were especially deadly and a tribe in its infancy as they were could have been very susceptible to disease.
God tells Jacob in the dream not to be afraid. His family would become a great nation. The prosperity of his offspring would be reflected in the increased numbers. If this doesn't outweigh the difficulties they would face as captives, it at least helps us to see past the suffering.
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Shepherds keep the sheep together.
Sometimes they wander off, but the shepherd knows
that life comes with the herd.
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We hear of the derogatory Egyptian outlook on shepherds at the end of the chapter. The nomadic lifestyle seems at odds with those urbanites who make permanent residences. To set up buildings that last is the epitome of Egyptian culture. The pyramids are markers that continue even to this day. What is a tent dwelling in comparison?
And yet, cities are fed by these shepherds. Though they look at them with contempt, they have a strange symbiosis in that the shepherds supply them with meat and the cities supply the shepherds with needed trade goods.
It wasn't much different in the time of Jesus.
And yet, as consistent with their heritage, the angels come to shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus. Jesus tells many stories involving shepherds and sheep. And we see the wonderful image that Jesus shares in John 10:11-18:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Within today's reading, the Egyptians of yesteryear might not acknowledge that there could be a "good shepherd." The Romans in the first century might not have understood this imagery either. But we know of one. He keeps the wolf at bay.
As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn mist hides the hills,
as the clouds veil the blue of the sky,
so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of your face from me.
Yet, if I may hold your hand in darkness, it is enough.
Since I know that, though I may stumble in my going,
you do not fall.
Amen.
Prayer from unknown source, traditional Celtic.
Photo by Nick Amoscato via Flickr.com. Used under the Creative Commons license.
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