Some Good-Shepherd Equations

Yesterday we kept Good Shepherd Sunday. Today, Good Shepherd Monday.

Our divine and human Shepherd said, As the Father knows Me, and I know the Father, so I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me. (John 10:14-15)

Jesus Christ knows us as the Father knows Him. How sublimely, then, does He know us!

Almighty God knows Himself and loves Himself. God’s knowing Himself = His eternal Word. Nothing has greater unity, greater communion, greater friendship, than God has, with Himself. That eternal, triune communion involves the Father and the Son knowing and loving each other, infinitely and perfectly.

In other words, the Father’s knowledge = the Son = the Truth. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” We Christians answer: “You’re looking right at Him!” To live in Christ = to live in the truth.

We need His shepherding. Because the struggle of our pilgrim lives = to let the Truth purify our own wayward and darkened minds.

The Son, in His human mind, beholds the full and intimate truth, God. He beholds the divine simplicity that unifies everything. The Christ shares that insight, that wisdom, that pure and rapturous contemplation with us. We, the stumbling pilgrim sheep, DO know the Shepherd. Not by sight, but by hearing. We hear and recognize His divine and human voice. And we believe His words.

To believe the words of Jesus Christ: that is how we fulfill the meaning of our lives. And it is also how we achieve genuine unity, genuine communion. The Apostles couldn’t believe it at first. God has granted life-giving repentance not just to us Jews who believe in Christ, but to the non-Jews who believe, too! (Acts 11:18)

The Shepherd in Whom we believe can and does unite us all, in the truth.

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