The Good Shepherd - Mark 6:30-44

Who do you think of when you think of a great leader? Winston Churchill? Jan Smuts? Nelson Mandela? No one comes close to any of these people today. There seems to be a dearth of real leadership these days. Where are the leaders in the world who lead with integrity, fairness and humility? Who inspire hope, who genuinely serve their people and are not in it fleece as much money as they can from their people? Who resist the temptation to lord it over their people as tyrants and oppressors, and instead lead people in liberty and freedom and peace?

Today all our leaders seem to be able to do is disappoint us (not only here is South Africa, but around the world). Corruption, abuse of power, oppression of people. It’s easy to lose hope. There is something in us that yearns to put our trust in those who lead us, that they would be our heroes and inspire us to be better people.

In our passage in Mark’s Gospel this evening, we see Jesus ministering to the leaderless people of Israel – culminating in him miraculously feeding the 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. For so long they had endured bad leadership by shepherds whom God had entrusted to lead them. Now at last, God’s true, good shepherd arrived to shepherd his people. This is a really important event in Jesus’ ministry – it is told in all four Gospels.

What we’re going to see this evening is that because Jesus is the Good Shepherd of his sheep, in him we can find true rest and satisfaction.

Preacher: Rev. Antonio Coppola.