Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction        

Among his vari­ous descrip­tions or present­a­tions of Jesus, the author of the Gos­pel accord­ing to John views Jesus as a good shep­herd. He rightly dis­tin­guished and dif­fer­en­ti­ated him from the hired work­er, who though pas­tures the sheep, but is not iden­ti­fied with the sheep. This iden­ti­fic­a­tion and present­a­tion of Jesus as the good shep­herd comes after the great com­mis­sion­ing, and the open­ing of the dis­ciples’ minds to under­stand the Scrip­tures and be able to bear wit­ness to the Gos­pel. Adopt­ing net­work term, between the hired labour­er and the sheep, there is no link, no con­nec­tion. The issue is not being a shep­herd, but know­ing the kind of shep­herd a per­son is. When Jesus saw the crowd, his heart was filled with pity for them because they were like sheep without shep­herd (cf. Matt 9:36). Sheep and shep­herds are a large part of the Medi­ter­ranean world. This was also the case in the Bib­lic­al times. Sheep were every­where in the Near East­ern world. Sheep and shep­herd­ing were.…

The good shepherd

In the words of John, and accord­ing to his under­stand­ing and theo­logy, a good shepherd:

1. Lays down his life for the sheep because he sin­cerely cares for them and loves them too;
2. Knows the sheep one after the oth­er. That is, he knows them indi­vidu­ally and can always identi­fy them any­where, everywhere;
3. The good shep­herd care­fully and con­tinu­ously leads the sheep.
4. Calls the sheep to order; pro­tects them from danger and if injured, dresses the wound.
5. Lives for the sheep.

Conclusion

Today is the Sunday of the Good Shep­herd. The day we are reminded of the need to be good shep­herds accord­ing to our vari­ous voca­tions and mis­sions. Jesus said he is the gate to the sheep­fold, and that all those who came before him were thieves and ban­dits. This obser­va­tion must be taken ser­i­ous. If those who came before Jesus were thieves and ban­dits, many who came after him have not ceased thiev­ing and van­dal­iz­ing. They are even worse because they now steal in and with the name of Jesus. They are mes­si­an­ic impost­ors who prom­ise their vic­tims heav­en and earth, when their only inten­tion is to take advant­age of them (cf. Acts 5:36–37). Con­cern­ing these same bad shep­herds who instead of feed­ing the sheep, fed them­selves, God sent proph­et Ezekiel to let them know that He is not happy with them the shep­herds who have failed to feed the flock, make the weak ones strong, band­age the injured ones, and have even exposed them to wild anim­als. Hence, God swore to take His flock out of their charge. He prom­ised to res­cue His sheep from those bad shep­herds and to stop them from feed­ing from the flock they were sup­posed to fed (cf. Ezek 34:1–16).

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the FOURTH Sunday of Pascha (B) is found in vol. II pages 193–201. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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