Taking the opportunity to join the lost sheep in prayer
God is due thanks for looking after his lost sheep.
It was a fascinating video – a segment I came across on my informative RTE (Republic of Ireland) News app. The 60-second video reported on a flock of sheep being dug out of the snow in the Galtee Mountains of Ireland. It is a fascinating, picturesque report, and one that you can easily find online.
The snow came in fast, hard, and almost without warning that day, and the sheep, out in the pasture, apparently fled to a valley-like crevice to shelter themselves from the wind. But their effort at self-preservation turned out to be a poor choice, because their haven almost became their cemetery. The winds and the snow engulfed them in drifts too large and heavy to escape.
The farmers, fortunately, employed their trusty sheep dogs, who picking their way carefully across the icy drifts, sniffed the sheep encased in their frozen would-be tombs. Farmers with shovels then carefully dug until they found the helpless sheep, tenderly extracting them out of the depths and the drifts.
That entertaining rescue video circled back into my consciousness the very next morning most unexpectedly This year, I have returned to the Book of Common Prayer, that rich, centuries-old spiritual resource of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. I begin each day with Daily Morning Prayer, a liturgy containing prayers and readings from sacred scripture. The observance, which takes me about 30 minutes, is immensely rewarding.
After the opening sentence of scripture comes the Confession of Sin, where the participant is invited to confess his/her sins with “penitent and obedient heart.”
The prayer of confession begins with these profoundly moving words that will be recognizable to many of you, “Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep …”
I have read and prayed this prayer innumerable times, but never had I seen a video of hapless, helpless sheep being dug out of snow drifts, utterly unable to rescue themselves. Those simple animals would have frozen to death without the keen noses of the dogs and the willing shoulders and shovels of the farmers.
And so, though I would rather escape the comparison, although I would rather consider myself to be a clever, resourceful soul who can pull himself out of almost any ditch, I was confronted in my daily prayer with the fact that in many ways I am just a dumb sheep, in need of divine rescue from the drifts of my own cleverness, selfishness, vanity and deception. The sins I have committed and the good which I have left undone have often put me in snow-filled crevices beyond rescue, save by the grace of God.
However, you understand the cross of Jesus (The church has debated the meaning of the cross for 2,000 years), the death of the Good Shepherd is mysteriously is a part of our rescue from the depths. Thanks be to the God who seeks and rescues lost sheep.
