Today is Good Shepherd Sunday and I want to start and end with a question that I would like all of us to ponder and that is – do you know Jesus as the Good Shepherd?

I’ll start by looking at our gospel and give a little Jewish background on what Jesus is saying, then see what we can learn from sheep, and then come back to knowing Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

In today’s gospel, Jesus starts off by describing Himself as the good shepherd. He says:

whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice,
as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

So, he’s using the image of the sheepfold in the towns and villages where shepherds would bring their sheep to spend the night and there could be multiple flocks. These pens had gates with a gatekeeper. In the morning, the gatekeeper would let the shepherd in, he would call his sheep by name and they would recognize his voice and follow him.

2 points about Jesus I want to pick up here. “the shepherd calls his own sheep by name”. He knows us.  Ps 139

O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me!
² Thou knowest when I sit down and when I rise up;
    thou discernest my thoughts from afar.
³ Thou searchest out my path and my lying down,
    and art acquainted with all my ways.

And it goes on, how he knows us intimately, personally, by name. BTW, this psalm is great to bring to prayer. 2^nd point “and leads them out.” He leads us. From our psalm today (Ps 23 – another great psalm for prayer):

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul

…
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side.

He’s with us! He guides us. So that’s the first image.

Then, he changes the image and in verse 7 he says:

I am the gate for the sheep

…
Whoever enters through me will be saved,

Now He’s using the image of a sheepfold out in the countryside. This is a pen with stone walls and an opening where the sheep would go in and out. But in this case, there’s no gate, instead, the shepherd lies down in the opening, and he becomes the gate. He lets his sheep in, and he keeps predators out. The point here is that Jesus is the way into the sheepfold, and He protects us from the enemy.

So, He’s the good shepherd who knows us, leads us, guides us, protects us, and is the doorway to eternal life.

Okay, now what do we know about sheep.

Sheep are wayward. They tend to just wander off. A sheep can get distracted and just wander off to something that attracts his fancy and the next thing he knows, he’s lost. And he has no idea how to get back to the herd. The shepherd has to come find him and bring him back. Many of us can probably identify with this.

Sheep are weak. They have no way to protect themselves. Every other animal, it seems, has some characteristic that protects him from his predators, but not sheep. Without the shepherd, they’re dead meat. What can a sheep do against a wolf? That’s us without Jesus. Without Jesus, what can we do against the flesh, the world, and the devil?

Sheep flock together. They’re safer together. A lone sheep is in big trouble. We are better, we are stronger, we are more secure, more at peace when we’re united together under Jesus.

Lastly, sheep know their shepherd. They know his voice and they follow him.

Last week I asked the folks in our small group if they have experienced Jesus as a good shepherd, and if so, what did that look like. One person said He guides her, gives her direction, and she went through some very challenging times with her work. He was there. Another person said that she recently was on a retreat and being able to quiet down she had this overwhelming feeling of His presence when a priest prayed over her. I would say that when He answers our prayer, it tells us that He knows us, He hears us.

St. Augustine once said there are 3 things necessary to be a Christian. The first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility. One of the guys in our group, talking about being guided and led by the Lord, said that when he got married, he didn’t know how to be a good husband, so he turned to God. When children came along, especially daughters, he didn’t know how to raise them, so he turned to God. He also turned to others. What really struck me was his humility. He knew he needed help, that he had a responsibility that was beyond his ability, and he turned to God and others. And he became a great husband and a great father.

One of the things I love about Jesus is that you don’t have to be somebody important to be one of His sheep. He almost seems to favor the weak and the broken. Who was the first person that he promised would be with Him in paradise? A thief. Who was the first person He appeared to after rising from the dead? A woman who had been possessed by 7 demons. Who did he pick to be the rock on which He would build His church? A man who 3 times denied he even knew him. We don’t have to be anything special! We just have to turn to Him. We have to be like Peter when he said “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

So, I come back now to my original question. Do you know Jesus, do you experience Him as a good shepherd? If not, I really want to encourage you to take this to prayer. Ask God to reveal to you why not. Talk with someone, a good friend, your spouse. What’s blocking? And keep asking until you can name it. A sheep with his Shepherd is totally at peace, totally free.

Jesus said, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Let us be like good sheep – hear his voice and follow him.