I am the good shepherd.
A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
In general, most shepherds worked for their own livelihood and that of theirs families. They expended effort because they had to take care of themselves. They had their own problems about which to worry. If they ever did anything brave or heroic to protect the sheep it was nevertheless not the sheep who were their primary concern. If they didn't take care of themselves, they thought, no one else would. Only Jesus, because he abided in the abundance of the Father, did not need to make a choice between himself and others. He didn't have to provide for himself or protect himself. His life was thus able to become, entirely and completely, a gift. It's true that other shepherds did not do this, not because they were bad shepherds, but because they were not the good shepherd. Good in this sense was like when the rich young man called Jesus good teacher, and Jesus responded that none were good save God alone (see Mark 10:17-19). It was a goodness of a different order, properly only to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It was the goodness that resulted from noncompetitive transcendent abundance.
A hired man, who is not a shepherd
and whose sheep are not his own,
sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away,
and the wolf catches and scatters them.
A hired man had to choose between himself and his sheep. And as Jesus says, he typically chose himself. This wouldn't have been a problem in an idyllic paradise with no wolves to threaten the sheep. But this was no longer such a world. Sin, death, and the devil, conspired against everyone. They used vice, addiction, and fear of death to manipulate and control people. In the face of such opposition the shepherds, who were not so strong as to triumph against such foes, fled to self-protection. This they did although they had been called by God to struggle heroically for the sake of the sheep. But at heart, they too were sheep in need of a shepherd. What were they to do but try to make the best of things and earn their promised pay?
I am the good shepherd,
and I know mine and mine know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;
and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
Jesus had a deeper relationship with his sheep than was possible for any of the hired help. He had knowledge of them was so complete that it was how the sheep were in fact created. It was that knowledge that continued to sustain them in being moment to moment. How might we describe knowledge of this kind? We get a glimpse of it from Jeremiah when God said to him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" see Jeremiah 1:5). The psalmist also sang of this mystery:
Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them (see Psalm 139:16)
The mystical knowledge of Jesus expands not only to what we now are but even unto our fullest potential. Thus when we allow him full access to ourselves and acquiesce to his desires for us, when we begin to believe what he tells us is true about ourselves, rather than what the world and the devil tell us, his knowledge transforms us ever more fully into what we are meant to be. This is the mutual gaze of love described by Paul:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (see Second Corinthians 3:18).
That transformative gaze of mutual mystical knowledge is the same one spoken of by John in his first epistle: "we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (see First John 3:2). We are meant to be so transformed by his loving gaze that we begin to experience a similar abundance to what he himself feels from being known by the Father. The more we have this experience the more we are able to make gifts of our own lives, without counting the cost. The cost, from that vantage point, is only temporary. It can no longer threaten our true treasure, that which matters for eternity, God himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment