HAS NO CONCERN FOR THE SHEEP

At 4,8-12; Ps 117; 1 Jn 3,1-2; Jn 10,11 -18
22 APRIL – IV SUNDAY OF EASTER – B
God is the Pastor of Israel since always. Prophetic and priestly mediation is born with Moses. Royal mediation will be born with Samuel. Being both the priestly and royal mediation by descent according to the flesh, these two ways from ways of salvation for the government of the people became ways of perdition for all the people. The Lord has always intervened to straighten them, but in vain. His pain reaches the peak of suffering in the prophet Ezekiel. Not only does God decide to govern the flock himself. He promises it a shepherd who will be in the person of his Messiah.

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel (in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places). In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord God. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal (but the sleek and the strong I will destroy), shepherding them rightly.

As for you, my sheep, says the Lord God, I will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats. Was it not enough for you to graze on the best pasture, that you had to trample the rest of your pastures with your feet? Was it not enough for you to drink the clearest water, that you had to foul the remainder with your feet? Thus my sheep had to graze on what your feet had trampled and drink what your feet had fouled. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now will I judge between the fat and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and shoulder, and butt all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them out, I will save my sheep so that they may no longer be despoiled, and I will judge between one sheep and another. I will appoint one shepherd over them to pasture them, my servant David; he shall pasture them and be their shepherd. I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken. I will make a covenant of peace with them, and rid the country of ravenous beasts, that they may dwell securely in the desert and sleep in the forests (Cf. Ez 34,1-31).

Jesus announces and reveals himself as the true shepherd of the Father. He also makes the difference with the mercenary. This only looks after his profit. He cares nothing about the sheep. Before the wolf, between his life and that of the sheep, he chooses to save himself and abandons the sheep to be torn to pieces. Instead, Jesus not only defends the sheep, interposing himself between them and the wolf, he also gives his life to them and for them. We know how Jesus gives his life: from the cross for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. In the Eucharist as bread of eternal life so that the sheep also live for him and as He lives for the Father. Jesus will take back his life given on the cross with his glorious resurrection. While he will never recover the life that he gives in the Eucharist. His life will always be given so that every disciple makes of his life a gift to the Father for the redemption of his brothers. Salvation is only from the life given.

I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.”

Every pastor in Christ and for Christ, if he wants to be a good shepherd too, must give his life for the sheep. But how do you give your life for the sheep? Living to fulfil every Word of Jesus, just as Jesus lived to fulfil every Word of the Father.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints, give us shepherds faithful to Christ.