I am the Good Shepherd

Today's Gospel from John  , sees Jesus in the Temple, where he is challenged by the Jews "Are you the Messiah". His response was to provoke them by saying:

"The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice;I know them and they follow me.I give them eternal life; they will never be lost, and no one will ever steal them from me.The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone,and no one can steal from the Father.The Father and I are one."

Hearing this Gospel and reading from the Pew Sheet and then listening to the sermon, highlighted to me a couple of things that I did not know, firstly that Shepherds were among the lowest of Jewish Society, and were not even permitted to give witness in court (they were not to be trusted) and that in itself the Jews would have drawn the comparison of the Good Shepherd to mean something about the Jewish Hero Judas Maccabeus who had managed to restore Religious Freedom and the Temple several hundred years before the time of Jesus.

A fatal error as Jesus was in fact referring to himself as the Good Shepherd who was the Son of God, who was of and one with God and was the Saviour and Messiah, not coming as a warlord and military solution to their problems, but as the answer for the whole of mankind.

It must have been mystifying for the Pharisee's to have had this conversation and to draw the wrong conclusions from it.   Jesus was a man of peace and love, while their longing was for a strong, warlord to lead them out from the Roman occupation. 

It is good to go to church and to learn something that you did not know, and to know that you can apply it to your own life - all to often we see people in one dimension and draw our conclusions from that impression - but if we look into people to see something of the Creator, through Jesus, who is the only representation of God that we have, than perhaps we will not jump to conclusions, but see things as they are.

God is Great.