The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
Once again they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left them.
O: Jesus teaches such a beautiful, amazingly glorious thing here: that His sheep can know Him the same way He knows His Father. He boldly declares His love for His sheep, and just how close to them He will be if they let Him.
And yet, in that last verse, I can see how ordinary He might've seemed to the Jews. Can you see Him, hot-footin' it away from the authorities?
A: I could be so, SO much closer to Jesus. So much closer to The Father. I think, even now, the ordinariness of what it takes to really do that is the very thing that keeps me from it. I haven't yet really grasped the sanctity of the mundane. Or maybe I just haven't turned my heart to my God enough in my mundanity.
I think one of the Jews' biggest obstacles was Jesus' own ordinariness.
P: Father, gently help me remember to turn to You in all things. Show me how to see things Your way. Show me how to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. In His Holy name, amen.
