The Sheep are in Danger!

Last Saturday if you walking in the Riverside Park in Huntingdon you may noticed a rather strange sight.

The River Ouse had broken its banks and was flooding over the fields on both sides. That’s nothing new, and probably most of us have seen that before.

But the field on the Godmanchester side is home to a flock of sheep at the moment, and as the floodwaters rose around 30 of them had become cut off on a slightly raised piece of land opposite the boathouse with the fast flowing river on one side and a massive lake on the other. Take a look at the Christ Church Huntingdon blogspot to see a photo, or there may still be one on the Huntingdon Living facebook page. When I saw them, they were beginning to start fighting and butting each other!

Well a flurry of social media posts and photos later and the illustrious whatsapp group of our neighbourhood received a message that eventually a land rover had been spotted and rescue was on the way, though it sounds like it took a couple of attempts to get them.

 Well there’s nothing like a good local drama to get us all excited!

Turning to our Bibles for today’s thought for the day, where sheep stand for people, and the Shepherd pictures Jesus Christ, here are two lessons to draw from this slightly amusing incident.

First of all. We aren’t always the wisest of creatures. The Bible says that “we all like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). How often have we followed the crowd, followed our own devices, followed our appetites and got ourselves into a bit of a pickle! I don’t know how much danger they were really in, but I don’t think a sheep would survive that long being swept away by a swollen river.

Secondly, we need a Shepherd. We need a rescuer and a ruler who can take care of us even when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death”. As Psalm 23 and Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise puts it! Well Christians want their friends and neighbours to know that Jesus Christ is that Good Shepherd: he loves us, he cares for us, he rescues us, he leads us. There is no greater safety and comfort than to know him. And he is only a prayer away! Get in touch if we can explain more.

Charlie Newcombe, 15/03/2023