long to work this out. Just watch them trying to decide which way to go when they have no one to guide them. They follow a leader from among themselves in what appears to be an orderly way. The problem is that their leader doesn’t know the way and is as likely to lead them to disaster as to security. That’s the context in which Jesus described himself as a good shepherd. He pictured his society as ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’. I often think of his description of that generation when I look at our own. How did we get to a state in which we take moral advice from a runner-up on Big Brother, or emotional advice from an astrologer in a TV guide? If ever there was a time when we needed a good shepherd, it’s now.
| The king of love my shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never; I nothing lack if I am his And he is mine for ever. Henry Baker, clergyman and hymn-writer, 1821–77 |
To get the hang of what Jesus meant you have to leave the lamb chops cooking on the barbecue and travel back 2,000 years. Picture sheep grazing on a hillside in the days of Jesus – the image that his original audience would have had in their minds. In the valley is a sheep pen with rock walls in the shape of a horseshoe, with a narrow entrance. It is evening, so the sheep have been led into the pen. The shepherd is lying across the entrance. He is asleep – well, it’s an exhausting job! But he has trained himself to wake at any moment should there be a disturbance. If a sheep nudges his body to try to escape, he’s wide awake, shoving it back in. If a wild animal or, worse still, a thief attempts to climb across him to find a free supper, he is instantly alert and ready to protect his flock.
The shepherd is a real human gate. He is literally ‘laying down his life for the sheep’. When Jesus says, ‘I am the gate for the sheep,’ that’s what his audience imagines. What a marvellous picture! It’s about security, but it’s also about freedom. For those whom life has cramped and confined, like sheep cooped up in a pen, Jesus is claiming to be the exit to the liberty of the pastures – out of oppression into freedom. For those whom life has frightened and bruised, he is the entrance into the security of the fold – out of loneliness into protection.
| Stay close to Jesus. Paul the Great, Egyptian desert father (hermit), about 300–50 |
As Jesus pointed out, there are plenty of people prepared to sell you these kinds of security and freedom. Hence the celebrities, the astrologers, and a forest of self-help books. But absolutely none have the integrity of Jesus. He called them ‘hired hands’ – not real shepherds at all. Hired hands run away when a wolf comes anywhere near. What Jesus meant was that a religious fraud offers us spiritual fulfilment for money and is absolutely useless when a crisis arises. But Jesus offers it for love and stays with us no matter what it costs him.
It sounds fantastic and life-transforming. It is fantastic and life-transforming. ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ Fabulous! How do we respond? Well, sheep can be obstinate creatures. And let’s be honest, so can we! But the astonishing thing is that a good shepherd does not love them even a tiny bit less because of that.
What does Jesus the good shepherd tell us about the relationship he has with his sheep? First, he identifies each of them individually. Now, when your closest encounter with a sheep is a kebab shop, that is astonishing. When I look at a flock of sheep, do I see twenty-three individual creatures whom I know by name and can identify by their particular bleat? No, I do not! I see a couple of dozen white woolly blobs. In contrast, Jesus claims that all six billion humans who are alive on this planet are individually known by him, as are the other six billion who have lived in history.
And second, he relates to each one of them intimately. And that too is an extraordinary discovery for people like me who only want sheep to be intimate once they come in sweater format. ‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me,’ Jesus says. ‘Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.’ He knows each one of us as uniquely as he knows God. Amazing! Trust the shepherd.
| Lord Jesus, it’s me. I realize that I’m not the only one talking to you right now. But I am the only one with this unique set of needs, anxieties and hopes. I am so grateful that you intimately understand every aspect of me. I know it doesn’t instantly solve all the problems. But it’s a mighty fine starting point. So thank you. Amen. |
But such a relationship is never exclusive. Jesus’ original Jewish hearers must have assumed that they alone were God’s people. But Jesus speaks of ‘other sheep’ who would come from different religions to swell the church. And he was quite explicit about it: ‘I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.’
Jesus’ words are a warning today to anyone who thinks they can draw boundaries to prescribe who is part of the good shepherd’s flock and who isn’t. Jesus is answerable to no one but God himself. Not even death can tell him what to do. Jesus will save whom he will save, and that will not be dictated by race, by morality, by religion, or by any lines we humans like to draw in order to make it seem that we are the special ones and someone else isn’t. It will be dictated by love. Nothing else, just love! The love that was so extreme that it drove Jesus to lay down his life for the sake of humankind. When you see the unexpected millions who are beside you in the great multitude that meets Jesus in heaven, prepare to feel sheepish!
That is why having a good shepherd truly is a reason for happiness. Thrilling, isn’t it! And it has thrilled people the world over, because there is something about the image of being looked after and guided that appeals universally. Wherever the Bible is translated, the image is developed to be appropriate to the local setting. In South America the sheep become llamas; in the Himalayas they are yaks; in parts of Africa they are goats.
And in Croydon? Well, in Croydon they’re lunch. And I’m already ten minutes late. But when I drive over to Paul’s I shall be bouncing with joy in the car. Oh yes indeed!
| Be happy! Look round your home for wool – in clothes, in carpet, in fabrics. Take a few strands in your fingers, and think about the many other hands through which they have passed on their way to you. All strangers to you; all known to and loved by God. He has every strand numbered. And every human named! |
Be Happy! Day 7
Push past pain
| I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ Lamentations 3.19–24 |
As a teenager in the fourteenth century a woman who lived in Norfolk, whose name is long forgotten, successfully pleaded with her bishop to be allowed the honour of becoming an anchorite. This means that she was bricked up in a room, next to St Julian’s Church in Norwich, which she never left, in order to devote herself to a life of worship. There she lived, prayed and contemplated God until she was seventy. And wrote – she was the first woman to have a book published in the English language! Her cell is still there in Norwich, and visiting it is very moving.
Aged thirty, she had a life-threatening illness. In fact, she believed she was about to fall victim to the Black Death, which was devastating Europe. In intense pain, she had a series of visions of Jesus, during which profound truths about life became clear. When she recovered, she wrote them down in an unremittingly optimistic book called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love. It is still in print today, under the name by which the world knows her – Julian of Norwich.