This topic came up at during our small group discussion last night and I've been ruminating on it so I thought I'd write out my thoughts.
During his ministry on Earth, Jesus continued the Old Testament's theme of referring to us as sheep. He is the shepherd and we are his flock (Psalm 23 anyone?). The thing about it is that sheep are, on a good day, very dumb. The evidence is plentiful.
Before talking about it last night , I always kinda thought this was a subtle jab at the human state. We are pretty dumb. Again, the evidence is plentiful. It's plentiful just in my own life, now multiply that by 7 billion. I never thought of it as an insult but rather a reminder that we're not smart enough to navigate life on our own. We need someone that is smart enough to guide us.
I change my mind on that today. I don't think it's a statement of our lack of intelligence. I think it is a statement of our utter helplessness. The sheep's problem isn't that it lacks intelligence, it is that it is completely helpless. Nobody would call a newborn child stupid but just like sheep, if we are not constantly cared for as infants we would die. It's not the sheep's fault that they're cognitively limited any more than it is an infant child's.
This was somewhat eye-opening because if the illustration isn't to show how stupid we are, we don't have the excuse of being too stupid to know we need a shepherd. We can never claim ignorance or say that we sinned because we didn't know any better. While it may be a stretch to call us smart, we aren't so ignorant that we don't know any better. Sort of similar to 1 Corinthians 10:13.
I think it's pretty cool that God made sheep. As he was doling out things such as natural defense mechanisms, survival instincts, and even the instinct for self-preservation, He skipped over the sheep. He intentionally created an animal devoid of all those things and more. He intentionally created an animal that, left to its own devices, would become extinct in very short order. He knew that He would enter the world into a culture that was acutely aware of the helpless nature of sheep and thus have a perfect metaphor for how He is able to (and desires to) care for the equally helpless human race. What a creative God we serve!
