23 April 2018
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Jesus is not only our Shepherd, leading us to Heaven and guarding us from the lion (1 Peter 5:8), but He is also our pasture, in a sense, being the food and drink that nourishes the flock, strengthening them for the journey. Today He reveals that He is something else as well: the Gate. He tells us, “whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.”In other words, those that would tend and lead the flock of Christ do so only through Him. Notice such a shepherd walks ahead of the sheep who follow him; he doesn’t drive them before his steps. A true shepherd of Christ’s flock leads by example, but also goes before his sheep to scout ahead and confront any danger, any evil that lies in wait, just as Jesus went before us in all things: even into death.
Even Resurrection.
Jesus our Shepherd, our Pasture and Living Stream, the Gate to the sheepfold of the Church; Jesus our Everything. Could we have hoped for a better Shepherd than the Son of God? Could we ever have dreamed that God could show such care for us? Though “we had all gone astray like sheep, all following our own way” (Isaiah 53:6) God “…feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, leading the ewes with care” (Isaiah 40:11). Shall we follow Him, then, trusting in our Good Shepherd and those to whom He has entrusted His flock?
Pray for your pastors; pray that, like David in his youth, they may be shepherds after the Heart of the Good Shepherd Himself, that we may, in their voices, hear His Voice and not the voice of a stranger, that we may run to the green pastures that away us, that even the valley of the shadow of death may not dismay us, having the Lord always at our side (Psalm 23). Our Shepherd leads us not to death and destruction, but to life, and not merely life, but life abundant and overflowing.