The Shepherd of Bethlehem

Darkness on the hills outside Bethlehem. The sheep are bunched together, bleating. Something large is moving in the brush. A lion has taken a lamb. And a teenage shepherd, with nothing but a stick and a sling, runs after it.

David has been anointed by Samuel, but he is not king yet. He is still Jesse's youngest son, from Bethlehem in Judah, and his job is the sheep. Jesse is now an old man. His three eldest sons, Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah, have gone to war with King Saul. The Philistines have gathered their army in the valley of Elah, about fifteen miles west of Bethlehem. The two armies face each other across the valley. And every morning and every evening, for forty days, a giant Philistine warrior named Goliath walks out and shouts a challenge. Send me a man to fight. No one goes.

David goes back and forth between Saul's camp and his father's sheep at Bethlehem. One day Jesse sends him with a delivery. Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves to your brothers, and hurry to the camp. Take these ten cheeses to their commander. See how your brothers are doing, and bring back some word from them. Very ordinary instructions. A father worried about his sons, a packed lunch, a message. So David gets up early, leaves the sheep with someone to keep them, loads up, and sets off. He arrives just as the army is going out to its battle lines, shouting the war cry.

David hears Goliath's challenge and sees the soldiers run in fear. Who is this Philistine, he asks, that he should defy the armies of the living God? His words reach King Saul, and David is brought before him. Don't let anyone lose heart, David says. I will go and fight him. Saul looks at the boy. You can't. You are only a youth, and he has been a warrior since he was young. Then David tells the king about his everyday work. Your servant kept his father's sheep. And when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it. I struck it and rescued the lamb from its mouth. And when it turned on me, I caught it by the jaw and struck it and killed it.

David does not boast that he is strong. He says who rescued him. “The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Out on the hills, with no one watching, David had learned that God was with him. The lonely, unglamorous work of protecting sheep had prepared him for this day. And Saul says, go, and the Lord be with you. You probably know what happens next: five smooth stones, a sling, and a giant who falls. But it began with a shepherd who would risk his life for one lamb.

Lions and bears really did threaten flocks in ancient Israel. The law of Moses said that if an animal in a shepherd's care was torn by a wild beast, he should bring what was left as evidence. The prophet Amos, himself a herdsman from near Bethlehem, describes a shepherd snatching from a lion's mouth two legs or a piece of an ear. A good shepherd fought for every animal, because he was answerable for each one.

You'll find David's story in First Samuel chapter seventeen. David, the shepherd of Bethlehem, became Israel's shepherd king. And a thousand years later, on those same hills, shepherds heard that a Saviour had been born, who would call himself the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. So here is a question to carry with you. What ordinary job are you doing now that God might be using to prepare you for something more?