The Good Shepherd

Sheep are not glamorous animals. They are not fierce like lions or swift like horses. They wander. They panic. They are utterly dependent on someone who knows the way. Jesus chose this image deliberately when He said, "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11), and if we are honest, the image fits us better than we like to admit.

Jesus draws a sharp contrast in this chapter between the good shepherd and the hireling. The hireling holds the job but not the sheep. When the wolf comes, he runs, not because he is necessarily evil, but because the sheep are not truly his. The good shepherd, by contrast, lays down his life for the sheep. This is not a metaphor Jesus is reaching for; it is a prophecy He is walking toward. He is describing the cross before He has climbed it, and He says something stunning about it: "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John 10:18). The crucifixion was not something that happened to Jesus. It was something He chose, for you, with full knowledge of the cost.

He also speaks of knowing His sheep, and being known by them, in the same breath that He describes knowing the Father. "I know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father" (John 10:14-15). That is a staggering elevation. The intimacy you share with the Shepherd is patterned on the intimacy within the Trinity itself. You are not a number in a flock. You are known.

And then there is the promise that has steadied countless trembling hearts across the centuries: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:27-28). Two hands are mentioned, the Son's and the Father's, and the sheep are held in both. Whatever you are facing today, you are not slipping through those fingers. Rest in that.