Shepherd and sheep have few resonances for most today – the only likely contact most have with sheep is the mutton on our dinner plate or as sheepskin winter wear. Sheep exist merely to feed us and to clothe us. In antiquity this pastoral imagery was familiar and popular for a different reason. Violence, enslavement, injury and death were commonplace. In this context the emphasis was on the protective role of the Shepherd.
This imagery was used in the Old Testament to speak of prophets and kings whose duty it was to care for the Lord’s flock on behalf of the true Shepherd of the flock, namely the Lord himself. The surrogate shepherds fail repeatedly, and it is only the Lord who proves to be the true Shepherd of his people – as the psalmist puts it: “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” The shepherd image was also employed by the Roman emperors who portrayed themselves as shepherds ensuring peace and prosperity for the people. The idyllic images of emperors as shepherds were only one side of imperial propaganda, the other was the threat of force to impose the exploitative peace. Depictions of shepherd and flock appear both in sumptuous Roman villas and in the catacombs. It is important to revisit the expectations of the hearers of Jesus’ discourse on the Good Shepherd – the Jews expect him to speak of the Lord defending and vindicating his people – the Gentiles expect him to speak of a strong leader who will enforce justice and peace. Perhaps, we also today look for a God who will sort the world for us, will set things right or perhaps more honestly prove us to be right. Jesus offers no such certainty.
Jesus introduces a new element to the image of the Good Shepherd for both Jews and Gentiles, an element so unusual that he repeats it five times in just eight verses. Did you hear what Jesus said so often? Are you hard of hearing or of understanding? “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” This is the extraordinary emphasis of Jesus. To us unfamiliar with sheep husbandry, the absurdity of such action is not immediately obvious. If a shepherd lays down his life, what hope has the flock of surviving without him? Surely a pack of wolves will devour the whole flock. The self-sacrifice of the shepherd appears pointless. It is radically at variance with the imperial Shepherd ideology of enforced peace or with Jewish expectations of vindication.
Jesus is not playing his expected divine role. Jesus has taken flesh, become one of us and in the language of the Fourth Gospel pitched his tent among us. The implications of this are not only a human birth, a Christmas, but also a human death, a Good Friday. Jesus fully shares our humanity, but he also transforms our humanity. Jesus lays down his life, but he then takes it up again. The loss of life is real – Jesus’ body will lie in the tomb. This is not the end. Jesus takes up his life – death is no longer the end for human life. Jesus shatters the bars of death. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life so that the flock may have life eternal. Good Friday is followed by Easter Sunday.
When Jesus takes up his life again, he is opening up a new existence to us, his flock. Jesus said to Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom of God unless that one is born again. Nicodemus asked how could this be? Jesus’ resurrection makes this new birth into eternal life possible for all. Importantly, Jesus speaks not only to his own contemporaries but also to us. He has other sheep that are not of this flock, who will hear his voice. As Jesus knows us, so we are invited to come to know him and his great love for us. This changes our outlook on life. Even if at personal cost, self-giving love is the dynamic of eternal life.
Fr Luke Macnamara OSB