The modern world doesn’t hold shepherds in terribly high
esteem: their job is dirty and
exhausting and perhaps even thankless.
Yet in the time of Jesus, shepherds were important; like David, they
were both leaders and companions, offering guidance but also love and intimacy
to their flocks.
In this week’s Gospel, Jesus the Good Shepherd reminds us
that the intimacy he shares with the Father, he is also extending to us: I know
mine, and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. The relationship he is describing is not
casual or superficial: Jesus is willing
to lay down his life for his sheep. This bespeaks of a profound relationship
grounded in God’s Love, a relationship open to all, if only we open our hearts
to accept it.
God loved us into existence; God’s Love is what makes it
possible for us to be called the children
of God. To embrace Christ’s
presence, his death and rising, in our lives is to enter into that
relationship, to embrace the fullness of the experience, to enjoy closeness
with God. It is a taste – but only a
taste – of the perfect union that will be heaven, when there will be one flock, one shepherd.
And if Jesus the Good Shepherd is our companion, what might we be
for one another, day to day, here on earth?
See what love the
Father has bestowed on us that we might be called children of God!
Thank you for this lovely post full of hope.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.