Ezekiel’s Word for Sheep and Shepherds
Today is the day the church has set aside to praise God for the work he did through the ministries of Peter and Paul. This is counterintuitive to people with an evangelical background like me. Why focus on what men accomplished? Also, this is church not a history lesson. Let’s focus on what God has accomplished. Because, we’re here to worship God and thereby have our souls refreshed and restored. And revering other Christians doesn’t always age well. Sometimes, too often, our heroes fail us. This is true for the Christians we’ve turned into mega-stars and it’s true for local pastors, choir directors, and every level of notoriety in between. So when God does amazing work through the leaders he’s appointed, like Peter and Paul, preaching that first sermon in Acts 2, bringing many into the first days of the church, or building up the saints through reflection, writing the actual Bible, and performing miracles, when God does such things through the leaders he’s appointed and they finish well, there is much to give thanks for. We can look at them and thank God for what he has done through them. And as we find ourselves in this church season after Pentecost, where we reflect on the outworking of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, building his kingdom in and through the church, we give thanks that Jesus worked through Peter and Paul to help usher in the final age before he comes again and we experience eternal rest in the new creation. When faithful Christian leaders are used by God to build up his people, it’s a tangible way to experience God’s care for us. But if you’ve lived long enough and you’ve been around enough places, you might be unfortunate enough to find out that people in positions of leadership in the church can sometimes be more in it for themselves than for the people they are supposed to serve. And that’s what we see at work in Ezekiel’s passage, so let’s turn there again. If you brought your Bible, it’s Ezekiel 34.
The comfort that we find in our passage is in sharp contrast to the tone in the verses before. So if we’re going to understand our passage today, we need to see it in context. Let’s look at verse 1 of Ezekiel 34. It’s a brutal indictment of the self-interested leadership of Israel at the time.
Ezekiel 34:1–10 ESV
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; 6 they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them. 7 “Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
As a pastor, reading words like this in a church service, there’s a temptation to give only myself a sermon here. And believe me, I take these words to heart. I haven’t seen enough quantifiable success in ministry to be this evil yet. But I have seen it happen and find it revolting and grieve over it. So while this background is for pastors to take to heart, the passage in our reading today is for the people of the congregation to take to heart. And so we move into the words that follow the rebuke of the shepherds found in our passage for today.
There God promises to show up. He will look for his sheep and rescue them from the places they’ve been scattered and gather them back to Israel, the land of promise. He says he’ll do this on a day of clouds and thick darkness. So this act of gentleness toward the scattered sheep takes place on a day of wrath for those who didn’t feed them and scattered them. There’s a sense in which there was a return to good shepherding under the ministries of Peter, who preached the first evangelistic sermon to the lost sheep of Israel, the scattered Jews who were gathered for the Jewish feast of Weeks, and the ministry of Paul who was sent to the lost sheep of the Gentiles. And in fact all faithful Christian ministers are doing the work of the good shepherd.
But the good news of this passage isn’t just good news for faithful pastors. There is a bigger hope that shines through what is accomplished by all of them. Look at verse 13:
Ezekiel 34:13–16 ESV
13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.
The LORD is your shepherd you shall not want. The Lord cares about you. Where the church has failed you, he will not fail you: you, as an individual. He will come to you personally and seek you out and find you and bring you rest and nourishment and heal your wounds and make you strong.
And when the church is functioning like it’s supposed to, under faithful leaders, like Peter and Paul, under-shepherds of the Great shepherd, you find yourself healed and strengthened and nourished and saved from whatever danger you’ve wandered into, and given true peace, rooted in Truth himself.
But beyond the work of Peter and Paul, beyond the work of faithful church leaders, whether your experience of church throughout your life has been good or not so good, our passage gives us a picture of our final hope.
After Jesus finds us and rescues us and gives us a home that nourishes us, that abounds in peace and security. After he even dies to give us those things, then whether or not we find them in this life, and I pray we all do, we will find them fully in the age to come. He will gather us to himself to live in the new Jerusalem and he will wipe away every tear. And he will bring justice: justice to the sheep, and justice to the shepherds. So when you encounter faithful leaders in the church, the blessings they bless you with are a picture of the blessing that’s to come in the new heavens and new earth.
And while this is a blessing, and something to find hope in, you might be wondering, does this mean something for my life now? What do I do with these words about leadership in the church? And I’ll say that to walk away with hope in future fulfillment of Ezekiel’s words, is enough. But I can also point you to our epistle reading for today.
There Paul tells Timothy to preach the word, to rebuke and exhort with patience and teaching, like a good undershepherd of Jesus would do. He tells him this because, as we see in vs. 3:
2 Timothy 4:3–4 ESV
. . . the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
The words for reflecting on changing the way you live your life this week are here.
Do you endure sound teaching? Or do your ears itch for a myth that you can wander off into? Do your passions lead you away from the truth? Does your personal interpretation of Scripture overrule sound biblical teaching? Here we need the help and presence of the Holy Spirit. Because there we find discernment, and there we find one of the fruits of the Spirit which is self-control. We need to hear the voice of Jesus our Great Shepherd as found in his Word and be formed by him by what we find there. We can always find a book or a podcast or a so-called ministry that will help us develop our passions, making them so captivating that we can’t hear the voice of Jesus in his Word. If you want to believe you’re a prophet of the sun god Ra, or the supreme chancellor of the intergalactic star children, you can find a book or a podcast, or an AI chatbot to help you chase your dream as far as it goes. It’s never been easier to wander off into myths. And when we do, we sadly lose our appetite for the truth. And we eventually lose all spiritual sight. So seek the truth. Seek the Lord while he is able to be found. Don’t give your heart free reign, but aim it towards Him. Align your heart with his Word. Point it to the Cross of Jesus. Your Good Shepherd has made his love for you easy to find. Don’t wander from it for whatever delights you think might await you in the myths of this world. But look up and find him and draw near to him. Ask him for help. Ask him to restore your sight. Let the Cross of Jesus be your North Star, the fixed point you use to find your bearings and navigate life. And the promises of the good, eternal life found in Ezekiel will be yours at the end of the age, and Lord willing even now.
I also want to encourage you this week, in light of our passages today, to pray for every pastor you know, including this one. May God continue to raise up leaders and make them like Peter and Paul, who were not flawless, but were faithful, so that many can say with them, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Let it be so, here and everywhere the good news of Jesus is preached.
