Sunday Readings: Acts 13.14, 43-52; Revelation 7.9, 14-17; John 10.27-30
“The Father and I are one.”
(John 10.30)
In chapter 10, John gospel makes an extended comparison between Jesus and shepherds who pasture, protect, and water their flocks and by night sleep in the opening of the sheepfold and become its gate. Sunday’s short gospel passage comes about three quarters of the way through this good shepherd chapter. The words speak promise and comfort as a Sunday reading or a funeral reading. Jesus knows us, his followers; we know him. No one can snatch us from Jesus’ hand or his Father’s hand. In the context of the whole chapter, Jesus’ statement, “The Father and I are one,” causes his listeners to reach for rocks to stone Jesus for blasphemy, for making himself one with and equal to God. In John’s gospel Jesus is from above; he preexists with the father. In chapter 10 near the end Jesus counters, “If I do the works of God, put faith in them (10.38).” Faith in Jesus and his works is faith in God.
What insights into our relationship with God as believers do you find in the imagery of the good shepherd?
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