I give them eternal
life…
Are we ready to accept it?
In John’s Gospel, Jesus the Good Shepherd makes a promise to
his sheep: I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Jesus himself will surrender his life for
the sake of all; he will hand over everything for sake of humankind. What would it mean for us to do the same? Or even simply to believe, to live without
fear, knowing that if we trust in the Shepherd, we can be confident that he
will lead us to live in safety? For the eternal life that the Good Shepherd
offers is not limited to heaven; Jesus suggests that eternal life is a life we can share with him in the here and now,
safely: No one can take them out of my hand.
The Jewish community in Antioch in Pisidia are not open to
the Good Shepherd’s gift; they reject the
Word of God and, Paul says in Acts, prove themselves to be unworthy of eternal life.
For the door to eternal life
is one of faith, and Paul and Barnabas will have better luck with the Gentiles: All who
were destined for eternal life came to believe. They are willing to enter into the eternal
life of Christ, to share in this life, which is possible so he lives in them
and they in him, participating together in the eternal. This is what allows them to transcend the
everyday, to be filled with joy and the
Holy Spirit… as we, too, are called to be.
They have been shepherded by the
Lamb referenced in Revelation, and the Lamb has led them to springs of life-giving water; through
baptism, we experience the Passion of Jesus, passing through death and
resurrection to new life, eternal life.
Transformed by the dying and rising of the Good Shepherd, we
are called to live eternal life, not only
in the future, but in the present, today, now.
As people of the Lord, his people,
the sheep of his flock (Psalm 100), we are called to live resurrection, not death, to
emanate resurrection, to be life, indeed, to be life-giving water, sacrificing our lives for the good of other,
following as true disciples in the footsteps of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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