The Reverend Jay Wilbur Chapman once published a devotional book called "The Secret of the Happy Day." At one point, he retells the story of a Christian man travelling through Switzerland who came across a young shepherd boy on the hills. He told this boy the gospel; he told him that Jesus wanted to be his shepherd.

He tried to teach the boy Psalm 23, but the boy could not read. So he taught the boy the first five words, one word for each finger on his hand: "The Lord is my shepherd." The wee fellow learnt and committed to memory the substance of Psalm 23.

Sometime later in Switzerland again, the man made an effort to find this wee chap and he went to the home where he knew he lived. The mother of the boy told the man that her son had passed away. Then the mother said, "Are you the man that taught my boy to say something on his fingers?" His reply was that he was. And then she said to him, "My boy, just before he died, told me to tell you if you ever came this way again, that he died holding the fourth finger of his hand."

The personal pronouns that Scripture gives us to use in personal relationship to God and Christ are the oxygen and life of the believer. We have a God in heaven who desires to be known as OUR shepherd and as MY shepherd. He wants all his children who have believed in his name to live as well as die like that young lad, holding on to the fourth finger of promise, that he is and shall always be my shepherd.

This morning in Matthew, we encounter our compassionate shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. We find that there is nothing lacking about Christ's claim to this title. Jesus Christ says to us in the gospel of John, "I am the good shepherd," and everywhere we look, we find the evidence to be so.

Matthew has, in the earlier context, just told us about the day when he, this estranged tax collector, heard the voice and the call of Jesus and he followed the good shepherd. And now Matthew, for the remainder of chapter nine, will pan the camera around to show us just this kind of ministry that the saviour shepherd had.

The Awaited Shepherd Is Here

First of all, I want to begin with Matthew's purpose statement for this section, which is not found at the opening but at the ending. So look first of all at verses thirty-five to thirty-six. Our first heading is the awaited shepherd is here.

It says in verse thirty-five: "Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd."

Here, Matthew is presenting Jesus to us with the metaphor of a shepherd. He shows us that Jesus was moved with compassion over the state of the people, with all their distress, all their dispiritedness; that is to say, their emptiness. We should not miss the background to this metaphor of shepherd as it applies to Christ.

In the Bible, we find that shepherd is a prominent theme. We find even that the first man, Adam, was a type of a shepherd. He was a keeper of the garden, the namer of the animal world, and the head of humanity. We find that Abel, Adam's son, was a shepherd. We see that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all shepherds, and even Jacob on his deathbed identifies God as a shepherd, Genesis 48: "The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day."

We see in the Bible that God appoints one like a shepherd over the nation of Israel through Moses. In Exodus 3, we read that Moses was "pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law". The psalmist tells us that the leadership of Moses to the people was in fact God's own shepherding of the nation, Psalm 77: "You lead your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron." Moses' mantle then falls to Joshua, who led the people into the land of Canaan. Why? Because, as Numbers 27 tells us, "that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd."

Fast forward and we come to David, the unsuspecting king of Israel, faithfully shepherding and defending his father Jesse's flocks from bear and from lion. Then appointed by God to be such for the people of Israel, a shepherd king to shepherd God's flock in the place of that failed shepherd, Saul.

So the Bible focuses upon this theme that we would see our place as the people in God's flock; that we would see that God is a shepherd towards his own people; that we would see him as present with his people, as a protector of his people, and as a provider for his people. All these are attributes of a faithful shepherd.

The Old Testament motif of shepherd was incomplete, however. God intended to shepherd humanity in an incomprehensible way at first to us; that is, to come himself as a man, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The shepherds put over Israel had failed, a better shepherd was required, a true and better shepherd. Jeremiah twelve, verse ten, says: "Many shepherds have ruined my vineyard; they have trampled down my field; they have made my pleasant field a desolate wilderness."

In Ezekiel 34, it says: "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?"'"

In other words, the spiritual leadership of the congregation of Israel had neglected their duty, their mandate before the Lord to rule and to guide the people in the ways of the Lord. And now God was against these false shepherds; but he promised that he would come himself as the shepherd of his people and rectify the issue.

And so again in Ezekiel 34: "For thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for my sheep and I will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.'"

God was coming to be a shepherd to his people.

And so the Scriptures are painting the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with the brush strokes of a shepherd and God's own coming. A shepherd for our straying souls was required, prone as we are to wander and stray. So God himself fulfils our need; he came born as a man, the great descendant of the shepherd king David, the son of David, Jesus Christ.

This is all the background in the mind's eye of Matthew as he presents Jesus as this compassionate shepherd king. God's pledge is now fulfilled in him. A final shepherd, a faithful shepherd, has come for us.

Consider just our indispensable need of Jesus as a shepherd. Isaiah 53:6: "All of us like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him."

So Matthew invites us to consider and come to this shepherd Jesus. And that he is compassionate means that Jesus reflects the burden of God to save that which was lost, to pull us from the brink of our own demise and destruction in hell as a consequence for our sins. His compassion moves him even to suffer for the flock. He himself became as a lamb sacrificed; he put himself into harm's way for his sheep when he died for our sins upon the cross.

Abel, the first named shepherd in the Bible, was a righteous man who brought the best of his produce, an unblemished lamb offering to God. He was then struck down by his unrighteous brother Cain. So Christ too is a righteous shepherd, and the unblemished offering that he brings is himself to God. And he too was struck down, and that for us.

Christ's compassion reveals the saving heart of God. God, despite what man deserves, has reached out with the shepherd's staff not to destroy but to rescue and to forgive.

That Christ is the good shepherd means his presence always goes with us. In John 10:4, it says: "When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice." And so Christ, our shepherd, is not some distant king far away who does not know or cannot sympathise with our needs and our weeping and our tears; but Christ comes near to us. Even the lowliest in his kingdom has full access to Christ our shepherd.

As a good shepherd, Christ makes provision for his church. He provides under-shepherds through elders to serve him. In the church there are wandering sheep, limping sheep, fighting sheep, biting sheep, and Christ tends to them all. Till at last the "quiet waters" and "the green pastures" of Psalm 23 will give way and find their eternal fulfilment in the New Jerusalem in heaven, where “they will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”"

The Labours Of The Shepherd

Second, moving on, I wanted you to consider the labours of the shepherd. In verses eighteen and then verses twenty-three to twenty-six, we see the miraculous healing of the synagogue official's daughter. In the other gospels, we learn that this official's name is Jairus. We do not know much about Jairus, only to note that his daughter has died and, from what we can tell, he knows and has heard about Jesus. He knows that Christ has authority over death and, should he will, will bring her back to life.

Now when Jesus comes into the house in verse twenty-two, you will notice a strange procession taking place. Someone has died and they are playing the flute and so on. It is strange to us, but this describes the custom of the Jews and would have included professional mourners to wail at the death and repeat the name of the person who had died.

Then in verse twenty-four, Jesus says that Jairus' daughter has not died but is asleep, and they begin to laugh at him. Who does this man think that he is? This daughter has died. It is over. It is done. There is no hope. But Christ has just prophesied what he is about to do. It will be as if she is asleep. He sends the crowd out and, taking the girl by the hand, he pulls her not only off the bed but out of the clutches of death.

What is Matthew's intent for us to learn here with Jairus' daughter? I believe Matthew wants us to know our Old Testament here, and particularly the account recorded in 1 Kings 17 of the prophet Elijah. Elijah, with the Lord's power, performed a similar restoration of life to a woman's son. It is what the woman says to Elijah next that I believe Matthew is wanting us to see and apply to Jesus. The woman says to Elijah: "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth is truth."

The miracles of Christ, as I have said before, were to validate his person and his word; that his word is truth. So Christ will be mocked and laughed at at the peril of those who do so, because his word is truth.

The call for us here is to surrender to Christ and to his teaching while there remains opportunity for us to do so.

Secondly, I want you to consider this woman with the haemorrhage. Matthew perhaps accentuates her desperation by inserting her seizing Christ while he moves to Jairus' home. Did you notice that? The transition to move into Jairus' home begins, and then all of a sudden we have this account of the woman seizing hold of Christ, and then it continues with Jairus again. Her desperation is amplified by its insertion here.

The woman who has suffered from a kind of bleeding for twelve years; and what you need to understand is that in a Jewish context, this would make her ceremonially unclean, ritually impure. And because of that, normally, anything she touched would also become ceremonially unclean to the Jews. She was in a very sorry condition.

When a sheep farmer is ready to cull a ewe for any particular reason, he will put a black earmark in its ear so the next draft it will be sent off to the works. Comparatively speaking, this woman has a societal black earmark in her ear. There would be no more forgotten woman than this who has ever lived.

But see how our shepherd can restore anyone to fellowship with God. She lays hold of Christ, which for any Pharisee looking on would be seen as making him unclean. But there is no impurity in our Lord. In fact, she has laid hold of the only one who can make her clean physically, spiritually. And Christ shows this so by healing her body.

Her reverence for Christ was such that she says: "If only I can touch his garment, I will get well." And so by seizing hold of the cloak of Christ, she symbolises her submission, her loyalty by seeking refuge in him.

You see, Christ must be laid hold of by sinners. There can be no healing for the soul if we will not stretch out and seize hold of him. We must stretch out with the hands of faith as this woman does. We must see ourselves in her condition. We are all unclean before a holy God in whom there is no sin or darkness, and we must, like her, be made clean by the saviour.

Christ the good shepherd will say to us, son; or, as here, he will say, "Daughter, take courage. Your faith has made you well." You see, all it takes is for us to believe and put our faith in Christ and all will be well with our souls. There is nothing more we need to do. There is nothing an unclean person such as we are can do but seize hold of Christ, the one who can make us pure, the one who can give us access to God.

What this woman shows us is the necessity of faith. There is no better picture of saving faith than to see a person desperately lay hold of Jesus, to take his benefits for themselves. And so we must ourselves, with this woman, say: "If only I touch his garment, I will get well."

Next, there are these two blind men calling out that you will see. "Have mercy on us, son of David." "Son of David", as we have seen in Matthew already, is a messianic title. Again, in verse twenty-eight, we see an emphasis on faith, on belief. They cry out to Christ just like the woman with the haemorrhage reached out for him. It is desperate people who will find Christ, people who are struck by his presence and who think to themselves, "it is only him! it is only him! it is only him!" who can heal my soul and my sorry state.

Of course, when we hear of the blind being given eyes to see, it is true spiritually as it is physically. Psalm 146:8, says: "The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord raises up those who are bowed down." But understand that the truly blind are not only those who cannot see; it is those who do not believe in Jesus who are truly blind. The blind are those who laughed at the Lord Jesus before he raised up Jairus' daughter. The blind are the Pharisees who in a moment are going to attribute Christ's works to the works of Satan.

So in this case, what is even physical blindness when you can see Christ? It was Fanny Crosby, the blind Christian hymn writer, who wrote: "If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind, for when I die, the first face that I see will be the face of my blessed saviour." She could not see and yet she could see very well. She said: "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life and I thank him for the great dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow, I would not accept it. I might have not sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me."

But note here that as Jesus warns the formerly blind men, he tells them not to tell anyone. An interesting thing, is it not? It is a warning to us. Jesus did not want to be known, nor has God ever wanted to be known by his people, as one who will merely heal physical ailments. This sort of conception of God makes man think more of his body than he will of his soul. To think of God as a genie in the bottle to rub and command; we must never think this way of Jesus at all.

Lastly, at verses thirty-two to thirty-three, as Jesus heals a mute, demon-possessed man, we see the utter uniqueness of Christ. The people say: "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel," for who else can have power over the demonic realm like he? Who else can make the mute speak? And so before the people's eyes, before our eyes this morning, Isaiah 35 comes to pass: "Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but he will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be open, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. And then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy."

The Need For More Shepherds

A third and final heading, very briefly: the need for more shepherds. If Christ here really and truly is the appointed shepherd of the flock of God, then it means that the self-appointed shepherds known to us in the gospels as the Pharisees and the scribes are finally being decommissioned and replaced. The blind cannot lead the blind. This is evident when they attributed the miraculous power of Christ to the works of Satan. In verse thirty-four, have a look again, it says: "He cast out demons by the ruler of demons." Seldom is a more blasphemous line being spoken in all of human history.

So Christ is ending a line of unfaithful shepherds, for he himself has come as the chief shepherd. But he will begin to appoint new shepherds as well, new people who can lead the flock of God to the waters and pastures that are in Christ throughout the world.

See again these final verses, verse thirty-seven, He said to his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest."

Christ is speaking first to the twelve disciples here, and in chapter ten we are going to continue this account. But secondarily, it applies as a principle to the church of what God is doing through his chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. It means that out in the world and the nations, and of tongues of every tribe and nation, there are more sheep that he means to bring into the fold, into the flock. People that he has purchased already with his own blood on the cross. And as that redemption is applied, his shepherds that he has appointed, his people in the world, will bring in that number through the proclamation of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.

They are in the dairies and the supermarkets that we interact with each day. They are in the streets. They are in the homes. They are in the workplace. They are at your farming meetups. It is there that these people are. The harvest is plentiful. The numbers are there. The gospel is to be proclaimed. There are people who need to hear about the good shepherd, Jesus Christ, and the one who can save their souls.

The words of Romans 10:14 can have the last word: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent just as it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.'"

And Christian, that can be you and I this morning. We have an opportunity to be a part of the work of God for the gospel of the kingdom. Take it as a high privilege to serve the chief, the great high shepherd that we have.

Isn't he worthy of it?