Crucified Shepherd

Songs of the Church Devotion for April 13, 2022

?“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”?st. 4.

?“My Shepherd, now receive me; My Guardian, own me Thine. Great blessings Thou didst give me, O Source of gifts divine. Thy lips have often fed me With words of truth and love; Thy Spirit oft hath led me To heav’nly joys above.”

?Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.?The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep!”?When we think of a shepherd, we think of pastoral scenes… green pastures with sheep grazing, the shepherd standing nearby.?We don’t often think of the shepherd hanging on a cross, crowned with thorns, body wounded and bleeding.?

?Yet that is the picture we see here in this stanza.?The one whose “sacred head” is wounded is called “My shepherd.”?Why the scares, the bleeding, the suffering of the cross??Because in order to receive us as His own, in order to guard us from sin, death and Satan this is the sacrifice our shepherd had to make.?

?This stanza is not out place in a hymn about the suffering and death of our Savior.?In fact, I believe you and I need to see clearly what it took for Jesus to be our Shepherd.?This is how much our shepherd was will to do – to sacrifice even His own life for us, His sheep.?He did all that so that “Great blessings Thou didst give me, O Source of gifts divine. Thy lips have often fed me With words of truth and love; Thy Spirit oft hath led me To heav’nly joys above.”

?Seeing Jesus, dying on the cross, we say with King David “The Lord is my shepherd.?I shall not want.”