If you're looking for a quick read, I'd highly recommend Margaret Feinberg's Scouting the Divine, which tells of her time with vintners, farmers, beekeepers, and shepherds as she learns about how to translate ancient teachings into our modern world. I live in a city where the only encounter with sheep I have is when I'm in the meat department at the grocery store debating if I want to make lamp chops. Not a very pastoral image of a caring and nurturing relationship, is it? I've yet to see the poster "Everything I Need to Know about God I Learned in the Frozen Food Section".
It's work to be a shepherd, but it's a relationship that's formed. Sheep aren't just nameless and faceless creatures the shepherd tolerates. To be a good shepherd, you have to love the sheep. You have to know the sheep. You have to protect the sheep, even if it means putting yourself between danger and the sheep. Being a shepherd isn't a quick path to fame and riches, and some days you're just trying to keep the sheep alive, so it takes a dedicated person to be a shepherd. Over time, the sheep learn to trust the shepherd and to follow where the shepherd goes. The shepherd leads them, which means the shepherd goes first, and the sheep follow.
Jesus is trying to teach us a lot. He's trying to help us see that he'll go first, that he'll take the risk first, that we can trust him, that he cares for us. It's a lot to grasp, for the disciples and for us, but ultimately, it's about realizing that we're in danger but have an advocate who not only cares for us but also endangers himself so that we might live. In the modern world, it's easy to lull ourselves into such a comfortable place that we forget how dangerous the world is. Maybe it's because it'd be overwhelming to truly realize all the peril that surrounds us, but it's healthy to have some awareness of how fragile life is. What a gift it is to know that someone is caring for us, and is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that our fragile lives are in the strongest hands possible, and that even if the worst on earth should happen, we are saved forever because of the work of the shepherd!
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