Some thoughts on Good Shepherd Sunday


This Sunday, like every fourth Sunday in Easter, is Good Shepherd Sunday. Our gospel reading is always from John 10. We are invited to reflect on how John uses the good shepherd tradition, which begins with the 23rd Psalm, to depict how Jesus lives out the character of God the good shepherd. This tradition is based on the hard and dangerous life of shepherds across the Middle East and speaks to the reality for so many and shaped their understanding of God.

Many elements of that tradition are found in what Jesus does in John, and what he says in the two conversations with Jewish leaders in John 10. God is the good shepherd who honours the sheep and leads them to safe and good pasture. God is the good shepherd who enters into the wilderness to search diligently for, find, gather and bring back the lost sheep. The good shepherd knows the sheep by name and calls them. The sheep know the voice of the good shepherd and follow only that voice. And in John Jesus is the good shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep, paying the price so that they may be freed from all that enslaves them. In Jesus we see God the good shepherd at work.

All of which makes me wonder how that tradition carries on today. In what ways do we hear and follow the voice of God the good shepherd? What other voices compete for our attention? How are we good shepherds?

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