I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
John 10:11 (NET)
He Lays It Down
The old man in the chair by the window has the timing down. He watches the mouth, he watches the shoulders, and he laughs a half second behind everyone else, and it has worked on that whole floor for two years. His daughter comes Sundays and talks for an hour, and afterward he can tell you roughly what she talked about.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus said it to people who hadn’t understood what he was telling them.
He also said the hired hand runs. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep, and the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it, and the man runs because the sheep aren’t his and he cares nothing for them. The sheep belong to the shepherd, so the shepherd is still standing there when the wolf arrives.
The old man can keep this up, and his daughter will go on driving home satisfied. He knows which questions come back around, and he has an answer ready for each of them. You can do the same with a passage, and by tonight you can say which it was: something you did today, or something you agreed with and left where it was.
The sheep have something running the other direction. They have an owner who put himself between them and the teeth, and who says he knows them the way the Father knows him. Their part in it is to be sheep.
So the shepherd knows his sheep and lays his life down for them, and what the sheep brought to the arrangement is that they’re his.
Down the hall a woman comes in at nine with the pills, and she waits until he’s looking up at her before she says anything.
A Prayer to Remember
Thank you for laying your life down for people who could do nothing about it, Lord Jesus. I’ve spent years getting good at looking like I was keeping up. Come and find me on the days I’ve lost the thread and won’t say so. Call me by whatever name you use for me.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
