Fearless Sheep
“Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.”Luke 10:3
Our world today seems to be filled with well-prepared and strategic wolves and loss and confused sheep. We live in a world where Truth no longer matters, where human life is no longer regarded as sacred. Just in the City of Philadelphia this year nearly 250 (or more) innocent lives have been lost due to gun violence and other senseless acts. Who would have guessed that about 2000 years after the Resurrection, we would be living in a world where death is still seemingly winning?
From today’s First Reading, we hear in Third Isaiah the Lord telling the people to rejoice and exult. But the Israelites were returning to a Jerusalem that was no longer the same. It has become desolate, like a wasteland. It was not as glorious as it once was, there was no life, but God had told them to rejoice. Why? Because He will bring life once again.
Jesus, the Prince of Life, commissions 72 disciples to go out into the towns and villages to cure the sick and proclaim the Kingdom, warning them that they are being sent like sheep among wolves, yet to bring nothing! How can this make sense? One minute He tells them they are being sent out like defenseless sheep among hungry wolves and the next He tells them to not bring anything. On face value it does seem contradictory, but if we look closer, it really is not. Jesus is telling them to be like sheep, for sheep relies and depends entirely on their shepherd. They know that the shepherd will protect them from the wolves so they need not worry or fear. They are called to be the fearless sheep of the Good Shepherd.
The Lord further outlines what they should do — enter and stay and be gracious guests and if they are no longer welcomed to leave, shake off the dusk from the feet and keep moving, all while proclaiming the truth of the Kingdom. Brothers and sisters we are called to be fearless sheep, who are unafraid to walk in this world that is filled with hungry wolves. We are called to depend utterly and radically on God, His Word, and His Providence. God will provide. To do this, we only need to do one thing: put prayer first. We must put our relationship with God first, then all that we need will be given to us when we are ready to receive them.
We are fearless sheep not on our own accord, but we are the fearless sheep of God, the God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, the God who sent His only begotten Son into the world, and the God who raised His Son from the dead so that we might no longer live in fear for His Son has conquered all things, even death.
