Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 789)
1 Savior, like a shepherd lead us;
Much we need your tender care.
In your pleasant pastures feed us,
For our use your fold prepare.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
You have bought us; we are yours.
2 We are yours; in love befriend us,
Be the guardian of our way;
Keep your flock, from sin defend us,
Seek us when we go astray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Hear us children when we pray.
3 You have promised to receive us,
Poor and sinful though we be;
You have mercy to relieve us,
Grace to cleanse, and pow’r to free.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Early let us turn to you.
4 Early let us seek your favor,
Early let us do your will;
Blessed Lord and only Savior,
With your love our spirits fill.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
You have loved us, loved us still.
Text: Dorothy A. Thrupp; Music: William B. Bradbury; Public Domain
Devotion
This has always been one of my favorite hymns. But I have trouble understanding why in the second stanza we are asking Jesus to “befriend us,” when we know that Jesus is our shepherd and our savior who has “bought us” through his death and resurrection.
As in Luke’s Parable of the Lost Sheep, where the shepherd leaves the 99 other sheep to find the one that is lost, we are reminded that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who always goes after the lost sheep, and as the “guardian of our way,” we don’t have to beg him to hear us “when we pray.”
Whatever questions the hymn might raise, we know our prayers are always heard. As J. B. Phillips says in Your God is too Small (1953), Christians sometimes unconsciously see God as a “parental hangover.” Therefore, whatever failures our parents had are reflected in our understanding of God and must be transformed until our appreciation of God is more accurately biblical.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for hearing us when we pray, and for guiding us through every confusion into new understanding. In Jesus’ name. Amen.