My wife and I hired a cast of natives in Israel to depict some scenes from the life of the Savior. We so wanted to capture the feeling from Luke Chapter 15: "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?"
We were very familiar with this verse but as we were shooting I noticed two things from the story: 1) The Lord refers to a sheep, not a lamb, and 2) He doesn't hold it to His bosom, as we might imagine, he lays it on His shoulders. "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing."
I loved how the Shepherd in the scriptural account could not contain His rejoicing: "And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost."
This was a very difficult shot. Adult sheep are very heavy and want to get away from a stranger at all costs. It took four strong men to get the sheep up onto the man playing the part of Jesus. Our direction was simply, "Show us how you think the Lord would have felt bringing one back who was lost."
Our amazing actor here is 28 years old and he was born and raised in Nazareth.