The Good Shepherd

Yesterday, St Peter’s, in common with many other Christian churches, looked at part of the reading from John’s Gospel in which Jesus uses sheep as a metaphor for human beings. Teachers before him had been like thieves and bandits. Jesus, on the other hand, was the gate into the sheepfold, and he taught that whoever enters by that gate will be saved. Jesus is the route to salvation.

Yesterday’s reading stopped short of the best-known part of the metaphor: Jesus as the good shepherd. Perhaps that’s because it’s dealing with a different gift: not the route to salvation but the care of God’s people. In this part of the reading there are also contrasts and these are beautifully depicted in one of St Peter’s windows on the south side. On the right we see a negligent shepherd who abandons his flock when a wolf appears. On the left we see a thief at work, stealing a sheep from a flock which lacks a shepherd. In the centre, we see Jesus, the Good Shepherd, tending lovingly to a lamb. Interestingly, the artist has included foliage at the foot of the centre and left-hand panes suggesting that these scenes can co-exist. That Jesus can love and care for us even while human beings can seek to harm us.

Good Shepherd, watch over us today in all we face and experience.

Never leave us or forsake us and journey with us always.

You know us as no-one else does.

Guard us and keep us, and those whom we love.

Gather us to yourself as a shepherd gathers the sheep, that we might know your Name.

Amen.