Welcome to Pastor Sheepherder's sheep camp ...

Welcome to Pastor Sheepherder's sheep camp ... a place to drop in for conversation about our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Your host is Pastor Sheepherder: a real pastor (open-country Lutheran congregation in SW Nebraska) and a real sheepherder (since 1960, when I got my first sheep as a foster kid placed with a ranch family.) We're in the middle of lambing (arrival of baby lambs) at the ranch right now. We're not quite half-way through the lambing season. We're grateful for good weather so far, and for an adequate barn that shelters the flock as it waits to give birth. We're having a baby-boom in the congregation I serve. We've had 10 babies born since late last summer, 8 of them baptized so far and two more scheduled to receive this Sacrament in the coming weeks. In addition, three young boys and a sixth grade girl are being prepared for baptism at this time; their parents are preparing to join the congregation by affirmation of the faith into which they were baptized earlier in life. Back to lambing for a minute ... When we have an orphan lamb, we will graft it to another new mother ewe who has lost her lamb. (This beats raising the orphan on a bottle!) We do this by removing the hide from the dead lamb, covering the orphan with the hide, and introducing the lamb to its new mom. The mother smells her own lamb on the hide and usually will accept the oprhan as her own with little or no problems. This intersection of lambing time and the baby & baptismal boom at church reminds me of Galatians 3:26-28 (Contemporary English Version): 26All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. 27And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. 28Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. A lamb covered with the bloody hide, being adopted, may seem like a stark contrast to the baptismal candidate being brought to the font, often dressed in the purest of white. Yet there is a reminder of the blood of Christ, shed for us and for our salvation on the cross, the blood that washes us pure and white, freeing us from sin's power, making us righteous in God's sight. And as for adoption, we wrap our newly baptized brothers and sisters in quilts mae for them by the women of our church ... "Holy Comforters" to remind them of the Holy Spirit's presence in their lives and their adoption as children of God, heirs of and in God's reign, and co-workers with us in the holy service of God and neighbors. Anyway, those are some opening thoughts. Drop into the sheep camp, imagine yourself being greeted with an outstretched hand (maybe a bit dirty from chores) and a warm welcome in the name of our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. If I could figure a way to do it online, I'd also offer you a cup of strong, hot sheepherder's coffee (or a cup of cold water or hot cocoa or, even tea!) You're always welcome ... Pastor Sheepherder