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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
September 20, 2009
Children’s Sermon first published
in From Small Beginnings in 1986.
© 1986 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Gram, Gramp, Dog, 1968
© 1968 by Bud Grossmann
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THE GOOD SHEPHERD
AND THE PRETTY-GOOD SHEPHERD
When my son, David, was three years old, I thought it was kind of funny to ask him to tell people the name of his preschool, because I knew he would say, “German Shepherd Preschool.” You see, other people called it “Good Shepherd Preschool” or “Good Shepherd Christian Preschool.” David’s preschool got its name from the Bible.
In the Bible, in the Gospel of John, the 10th chapter, the 11th verse, Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for my sheep.” Once again: “I am the Good Shepherd. I am willing to die to save my sheep.”
My grandfather is a shepherd. Grandpa and Grandma Grossmann live on a farm in Wisconsin, and my grandpa has a flock of sheep. It’s very important for sheep to have somebody to look after them because sheep can get into a lot of trouble.
Like, if a sheep steps into a hole and trips and rolls over onto her back, she might not be able to get back onto her feet unless somebody helps her. She’ll just lie there with her hooves pointing at the sky, and she’ll go “Baa, baa, baaaa!” but she has to have somebody to tug her back onto her feet. And when sheep get lost, they need somebody to find them, to bring them back to the flock. If a wolf comes, somebody has to protect the sheep.
My grandpa’s flock has one sheep buck who looks after the other sheep. His name is Pete, and Pete will butt people if he thinks they might bother any of the lady sheep or the lambs in his flock. Old Pete will put his head down and open his eyes so wide that you can see shiny white eyeball all around the yellow-brown part, and you can see the little red blood vessels in the white part, and Pete’s ears will tell you he’s mad, because when he’s not mad, those ears just stick straight out and wiggle a little to chase away flies, but when Pete is mad, oh, boy, his ears flatten down against his neck, and he starts snorting like as if he’s going to blow fire out his nose, and he starts running to butt you, and . . . Now, you see, I think the reason they call it “butting” is because that’s the part of your body Pete goes after—he puts his head down, and you turn to run, and then old Pete bangs his head up under the seat of your pants, and you go flying! I don’t know what would happen if Pete butted a wolf, but he has butted me more than once, and my butt did not enjoy it.
Gramp and Gram own a white German shepherd dog named Spike. Shepherd dogs are supposed to help sheep, of course, and protect them. But Spike doesn’t seem to know he is a German shepherd. Instead, he evidently thinks he is a wolf. And that’s kind of a problem because Spike doesn’t take care of Grandpa’s sheep; whenever Spike gets the chance, he will actually chase the sheep and bite them on the neck. I don’t even want to tell you what he has done. My grandparents have to keep Spike chained to his dog house except when the sheep are locked up in the barn.
Now please recall what Jesus said in our Bible verse. He said, “I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for my sheep.” You might have heard me say good things about Grandpa Grossmann, and you might know other grandfathers or sheep herders, and so I’m going to ask you what you think: if Spike the Dog was about to kill a sheep or if a real wolf came into the sheep pasture, do you suppose Grandpa would lay down his life and be willing to die for his sheep? I’ll tell you what I think, I think Grandpa is a very fine and brave man, and he likes his sheep a lot, but I do not think he would die for them. That’s why I might call my grandpa The Pretty-Good Shepherd, but there aren’t any churches or preschools named after him. Jesus is the one we call The ... Good ... Shepherd.
When Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd and is willing to lay down his life for his sheep, he is really talking about us, he’s talking about you and me. We are Jesus’s sheep. And Jesus loves us so much that he did die for us. He died on the cross, and he rose again on Easter.
And that is why Easter is such an important holiday—we celebrate that Jesus loves us so much that he died for us and rose again. In the Christian church we celebrate Easter on Easter, and we celebrate it and talk about it all year long.
Any day of the year I could say to you, “The Good Shepherd loves you! Happy Easter!”
Amen.
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