I am the good shepherd

Good Friday

Good Friday is also called Holy Friday, Great Friday or Black Friday. It is observed by Christians to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Golgotha. A few suggest that Good’s connotation is God while other Catholics believe that the word has to do with the idea of selfless sacrifice and martyrdom.

Christians spend this day in prayer, repentance, and meditation on the agony and suffering of Christ on the cross. Good Friday is often a day of fasting and abstention from meat. Especially during the three hours between 12pm and 3 pm, no food is taken.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.

John 10

When Jesus stood among crowds and spoke of sheep, it is likely that images of fields and grazing sheep came to the minds of his hearers. It is likely that biblical images of God gathering lambs into his arms crossed minds as well. But these wouldn’t have been the only images that came to mind, particularly for those who heard Jesus in Jerusalem. “My sheep listen to my voice,” he said, “I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).

Standing in the temple of Jerusalem, preaching to worshipers and religious leaders, Jesus’s words about sheep would have evoked a bold awareness of the sounds and activities all around them. At tables nearby, bleating sheep were being sold and carried further into the temple, where they were led through a door to the place of sacrifice. Far from the peaceful setting of a pasture, Jesus spoke of sheep in the place where they were about to be slaughtered. Unlike the shepherd among passive lambs in many of our pictures, tending these sheep requires something more than a gentle hand and a watchful eye. These sheep needed to be saved. So it is quite telling that Jesus first identifies himself, not as the Good Shepherd, but as the gate for the sheep.

In the ancient walls of Jerusalem, there was a gate on the north of the city, by which animals were brought in from the countryside for sacrifice. It was called the Sheep Gate. Once inside the city and within the temple courts, there was only one door where the sheep went in, and no lamb ever came back out after entering the temple. They traveled in only one direction, and there they were sacrificed for the sin of men and women. For first-century hearers of Jesus’s words about sheep, such knowledge added to the shock of his words: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.... I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:7,9).

In the temple filled with sheep on their way towards death, Jesus declared there was a way out: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11).

Jill Carratini
www.rzim.org


Another meditation for today: Isaiah 52 and 53 might be worth some time.