Matthew 23:1-7; Ezekiel 34:1-6

After the interactions with the various parties of the leadership, with no one left to question Jesus any further, Jesus proclaims His final public discourse.  It is the pronouncement of woe on Israel’s leaders.  These strong words were spoken to the multitudes and to His disciples.

As we take several days to study this we will want to pay careful attention to what it is that Jesus sees in these religious leaders.  Again, they are the shepherds of Israel.  Several times in the OT the prophets warned these shepherds, For example, in. Ezekiel 34 where they are contrasted with the true Shepherd, the Messiah, the Shepherd God will choose to care for His people.  Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 23 are other passages that address the failure of Israel’s shepherds.  You will remember also that in John 10 Jesus addressed the leaders in His Good Shepherd sermon, condemning them as thieves and hirelings.  

In God’s view those who are leaders of people are shepherds.  Their calling is to move people along like a shepherd, caring for them and watching for them.  Let us use Ezekiel’s description in Ezek. 34:1-6 to understand what Jesus expected of these men, especially the Scribes and Pharisees.

·        34:2-3: They were to feed the flock (give them the Law, the word of God).

·        34:4: They were to

o   strengthen the weak (those whose diet of God’s word was sufficient),

o   heal the sick (those who were sick with sin),

o   bind up the broken (those who were injured by the difficulties of life),

o   bring back those that were driven away (perhaps by storms of life or other troubles),

o   and seek the lost (those who were driven so far away that they could not find their way back).

·        34:5: They were to

o   retrieve those who were scattered (because they were somehow separated from the shepherd),

o   and they were to save those who were attacked by wild beasts (like Satan, the roaring lion, 1 Peter 5:8).

At the time of Ezekiel’s ministry, during which the temple of Solomon was destroyed, these shepherds were not doing what they were called to do.  They were taking care of themselves but not taking care of the sheep.  In Jesus’ day the same things was going on, and the conclusion of Jesus’ sermon is a prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple (Mt. 23:37-39).

Again we encourage you to pay attention to this discourse.  It’s not simply that Jesus condemns the shepherds.  In the process He reveals to us the characteristics of a shepherd.  That is what we need to hear and heed!