The Shepherd Who Dies for the Sheep

Do you know what a shepherd is for?

A shepherd is for the sheep. To find them grass. To walk them down to the cool, still water. To count them at night, one by one, and know each woolly face by name.

And when the dark comes, when the wolf creeps low through the long grass and the sheep smell the danger and start to tremble, the shepherd is the one who stands in front.

One day Jesus told the people a true thing about himself. He said, "I am the good shepherd."

"There are some men who get paid to watch the sheep," Jesus said. "A hired man. The sheep are not really his. So when the wolf comes, and the wolf always comes, the hired man looks at the teeth, and looks at the sheep, and runs. He saves himself. He leaves the little ones alone in the dark."

Maybe you have felt alone in the dark. Maybe, deep down, you have wished for someone who would not run, someone who would stay even when staying was scary.

"But I am not a hired man," Jesus said. "The sheep are mine. I know them. I know the loud one, and the wandering one, and the smallest one at the back. I know each one by name. And I do not run."

Then Jesus said the thing that made everyone stop talking.

"The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

He does not only guard them or shout at the wolf. He steps between the teeth and the lamb on purpose. He says, take me instead.

Long before, when the kings and the helpers who were supposed to keep the people safe had run off and looked after themselves instead, God made a promise. He said that he himself would come and be the Shepherd. He would go looking for the lost ones. He would lift the hurt ones up and hold them close to his heart.

I will come myself, God said.

And here he was. Standing in the long grass with us. The Shepherd God had promised, with his own two feet on the ground and his own voice saying each name.

"No one is taking my life from me," Jesus said. "I am laying it down myself. Because I want to. And I have other sheep you cannot even see yet. I am going to bring them home too, until there is one flock with one Shepherd. I will not come home missing anyone."

He knew where this road was going. He knew about the cross up ahead, the way a shepherd knows the smell of evening coming. And he walked toward it anyway. For you. So that when the dark came for his sheep, it would find the Shepherd standing in front.

He knows your name. He always did.

And he is not going to run.