The Good Shepherd

John 10: 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”

Have you set yourself on a Lenten path of sacrifice, searching, and repentance? How is that going for you? As for me, for as long as I can remember I’ve been successful at giving things up for Lent, saying extra prayers, and getting to Easter in one piece. For this year I put the task of writing a page a day in front of me as my Lenten journey knowing I’d have to give up time wasting activities to do get it done and I’ve failed over the last several days. It takes self-discipline, the kind I apparently lack, to take something on and put aside other mindless activities. It is a lesson in failure for me but one that may be embedded deeper than those chocolate or soda free Lents of my past. While in college I took an Art History class mostly because I couldn’t draw, paint, or sculpt and I needed the “humanities” units. Our professor assigned us the task of finding a piece of art and sketching it out and then writing about the elements of the piece using our sketch to demonstrate our points. After many hours of trying to sketch out a simple charcoal drawing by Rembrandt and failing miserably just to get a semblance of his sketch on paper I was forced to give up. I couldn’t get the thing to fit the page or when I did the angles were completely wrong, and then the shading… I knew I was going to get my first F of college but I wanted to turn in something so I wrote “A Lesson in Failure” which was rewarded with an A and the explanation that my struggles in all the areas I described had given me a unique perspective and that the narrative of my struggles demonstrated that I had learned more that way than if a simple sketch came with no thought at all. Other artistic students had done some pretty nice drawings but were not rewarded as nicely as I had been. Now you know one of the reasons why I’m writing in the search for my creative side. We can learn from our Lenten mistakes because we have a good shepherd to take care of us and teach us.

Jesus is the good shepherd and it took the ultimate in self-discipline for him to lay down his life for us, his sheep. He sets the great example for us; surely we can lay aside rather simple self-seeking pleasures to take on the Kingdom purpose in our lives. If Jesus can lay down his life, I can set aside watching so much mindless TV, explore my creative side, and write a page a day. I can set aside being a mindless driving machine and be kinder on the road, set aside a driven goal at work and be a kinder colleague, or set aside my routine to listen to somebody in need of an ear before church service. I can.

John 10: 14 – 16a “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.”

He is our shepherd, we know him, he knows the Father and through him we know the father. We must be like him and recognize when we are to be in the role of the good shepherd and lovingly tend the sheep that the Great Shepherd brings to us to care for. There are other sheep not in the sheep pen and we must bring them also and must protect them from the ravening wolves, those thieves and robbers who do not come through the gate to the sheep (John 10: 7-10). Jesus is the gate and we enter the pasture through him, become shepherds by him, and obtain the rewards of knowing the Father because of him and his sacrifice.

Good shepherds; find your sheep, tend your flocks.