The gospel for Sunday (John 10:11-18) seems curious at first.  It opens with Jesus saying, "I am the good shepherd.”  As we read it though we wonder what it has to do with Easter. 

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Most of us have little experience with sheep beyond seeing them in petting zoos or as we’ve driven by sheep farms.  But in Jesus’ day people would have seen them routinely.  The sheep roamed the land even close to cities.  Sheep provided wool, food, and were sacrificed in the temple, so they had religious as well as economic and nutritional significance.

Sheep behave differently from cattle.  Cowboys herd cattle from behind, prodding them to keep moving, driving them in the directions the cowboys want them to go. If you do that with sheep they scatter.  Sheep have to be led by someone they trust.  They follow a voice and recognize a person’s unique way of walking and gesturing.  It is a subtle but significant relationship.  Some herders who have worked with both sheep and cattle think that sheep are smarter because of this trait.  Today we tend to think of sheep as stupid.  In Jesus’ day his audience didn’t take the metaphor this way.  They understood that there was a bond between the sheep and the shepherd and that a good shepherd had this bond. Shepherds were important for protecting the sheep from wolves, but also keeping them from wandering too far from the herd and getting lost.

At the same time, shepherds were pretty rough characters.  They lived outside, didn’t bathe often and had to be physically tough. They weren’t educated and weren’t paid well.  Saying "I am the good shepherd,” meant that Jesus was identifying himself with a class of people at the margin of society.

Jesus’ difference was that he was the good shepherd.  In Greek, the word that we translate as “good” includes a sense of “honourable, beautiful, right, proper”.  These attributes go far beyond our idea of “good”.

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When Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me...” his listeners understood that sheep’s trust was built on a mutual relationship.  Jesus was describing himself as a shepherd and his followers as sheep. He doesn’t prod us like he would prod cattle, instead he leads us and invites us to follow.

Jesus continued, “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  Jesus’ relationship with his father was the model for his relationship with his sheep.  It wasn’t forced.  It was something that each wanted.  The same kind of intimacy and love that he had for his father is the love he has for his flock: us.  It is what he wants to share with us.

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This is where Easter comes in.  As a good shepherd, Jesus is prepared to sacrifice everything, including his life, for us.  He made the choice to stay with us, not to run away.  That part occurred on Good Friday.

A dead shepherd is of no use to the sheep. Jesus lives. “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again.”  While Jesus protected us to his death, his father raised him up, gave him back his life, to show that he approved of what Jesus had done. 

We celebrate Jesus’ constant presence with us as our leader.  He invites us to follow him.  The choice is still ours.

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  • What other mutual relationships do you know that would be similar to this gospel and could deliver the same message to a contemporary society?  (Would you say a teacher and student, or a coach and a hockey team?) Where would the metaphor break down?
  • What is the strongest mutual relationship you have?  Is it with a parent, a spouse or a child?  Would you see it as a model for your relationship with God?  Why?  Why not?
  • Who do you think of as a model for an appropriate relationship with God?

Peace

Michael