Not many people today are very familiar with shepherding as it was done in the first century. They are familiar with the frequent use of the image of sheep and the shepherd if they have a background in the scriptures. Many pictures portray Jesus as a shepherd. It is embodied often in stain glass windows or in children's Sunday school materials.

Still, it is difficult to conceive of any other image today which would as satisfactorily communicate the caring and sacrificial nature of Jesus' ministry. What would convey the ideas as fully in the largely urbanized and industrialized culture of western civilization as a whole? Perhaps it would be the care that some people give their pets, though that would lack the sense of a flock that needs the care of a shepherd.

Perhaps it would be the doct…