Shepherds and lambs

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A man dressed like a shepherd carries a lamb  or a young ewe.

In the pastoral civilizations of the Middle-East, the images of the shepherd and his lamb are loaded with meaning. The representation of the shepherd has a double meaning: on the one hand, he is a strong man, one who defends his flock against all the dangers, on the other hand, he is gentle and full of solicitude, the one who sets out to find his lost sheep, the one who carries the sheep too weak to be able to walk.

This man is Jesus who has always been presented as the shepherd or pastor of his people, either keeping his flock or, more often, carrying the young ewe or the lost lamb on his shoulders.

John the Baptist is not a shepherd but an ascetic, wearing the skin of a camel or of a goat and living in the desert. But as John the Baptist proclaims, when he is about to baptize him, that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the lamb is henceforth associated to Christ.

It is therefore sometimes difficult to distinguish John the Baptist with a lamb from Jesus the Good Shepherd. John never carries the lamb on his shoulders, he is generally rather young and, in his hands, he holds a very thin cross instead of a shepherd’s crook. He announces the Lamb and points at him. This also explains that John, as a child, plays with a lamb and the cross in the company of the Christ Child.

The biblical narrative

 Jesus

The Gospel according to John, chapter 10

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep… I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:11-15).

 John the Baptist    

The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 3

And the same John had his clothes in camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, went out to him And were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. (Matthew 3:4-6)

The Gospel according to John, chapter 1

These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me: for he was before me. (John 1:28-30)

Comment

Jesus is the Good Shepherd par excellence, the God shepherd of his people as Psalm 23 already says; the one that Abel the Just was considered to foreshadow (see Abel and Cain). The lamb is either on his shoulders or on a rock, out of which sometimes four rivers, those of Paradise, are running.

But Jesus is also the lamb. This animal is also the symbol of purity and innocence, its offering to God is a tradition. It is Abel’s ewe that God accepts as an offering, it is the ram that the angel designates to Abraham as a substitute for the sacrifice of his son (see The Sacrifice of Abraham). And it is above all the lamb that the Israelites kill before leaving Egypt and whose blood protects them against the death that strikes the Egyptians. This rite of the lamb is repeated at every Jewish Passover.

For the Jewish prophets, the lamb is the image of the ill-treated just; all the New Testament designates in Jesus the lamb ready to be delivered for the sacrifice.

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