This coming Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday: the speech Jesus gives about the thief trying to steal his sheep, but his sheep know his voice. During this week's sermon brainwave, Rolf Jacobson told a story about this farmer who raised sheep. He was at the fair and talking with this guy about his sheep. When he got home, he discovered strange tire tracks and went in and discovered his sheep were gone. A few weeks later he went to the fair in the next county and discovered his sheep, which had been re-tagged. But as he approached the pen, the sheep began to bleat - they recognized their true shepherd.
This story hit home for me today when thinking about the thieves that come in and steal us from God. For those who don't know, I lost my cousin this last Friday to alcoholism. The "thief" that stole my cousin came in the form of a Jack Daniel's bottle - offering an escape from pain, an escape from loneliness, and the potential for "happiness" at the bottom of a bottle. This is a story that is told far too often in this world. I don't make excuses for my cousin - he made his choices, he sought these things out long ago and opted to go down this path. Once alcoholism got its talons in him, leaving that lifestyle behind was virtually impossible. That is how addictions work - you allow them to enter into your life, and they take over it in ways you never imagined. These addictions lead to other things - lying, denial, violence, etc. Whether he really wanted help or not for his problem, I'll never know. And there are waaaay too many family systems at play for me to go into all the things that played a part in this destructive path. And they're all a moot point at this juncture.
My cousin was so entrenched in the thief's den that it took his life. But two days before we pulled him off life support, we called in a chaplain who said a prayer around his bed. Now my cousin had been placed in a drug-induced coma in order to manage the pain and was unable to breathe on his own. Prior to the prayer, his heart had been racing around 98 bpm, he was twitching and struggling... as the chaplain proclaimed the love of Christ and the comfort of our Heavenly Father, he visibly relaxed and his heart rate dropped down to 74 bpm. He remained much calmer and more peaceful for the next few days until we pulled him off the ventilator and he died.
What I take away from this, however, is the power of the Shepherd's voice. There is no doubt in my mind that the Shepherd's voice broke through all of the sedation and made it's way to my cousin. He was not a particularly religious individual, never went to church, wasn't big on prayer, etc. etc. - but I know he occasionally talked about how he felt God had become too removed from our everyday lives. Of course, when he spoke of these things, they didn't always ring true for those of us who knew him best, for those of us who had seen his ugly side. For those of us who were not as in denial over my cousin's addiction. They seemed like very empty words coming from someone who acted and behaved in ways that were anything but representative of Jesus Christ.
However - perhaps, looking back, there was an important truth my cousin was speaking whether he recognized it or not. Christ has been removed from the daily lives of many. Christ had been removed from his life for a very long time.
But at the end - he still knew the Shepherd's voice.
