How Jesus is inviting each one of us to become his friend

Extracts from this tenth chapter of St John’s gospel, in which Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, have been read at Mass on this Sunday in Eastertide for the last 1500 years, since the time of Pope St Gregory the Great in the sixth century and possibly as early as Pope St Leo the Great in the fifth. Even earlier, what’s thought to be the earliest example of Christian art, a still discernible mural dating from the middle of the second century in the Catacomb of Callistus, the oldest of the tunnel-like burial grounds under the Via Appia Antica, the ancient road linking Rome to the heel of Italy, depicts Jesus as a young shepherd, carrying on his shoulders a sheep.

It is little wonder that the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd is so indelibly imprinted on the Christian imagination as to be, to us at least, uncontroversial and even obvious. But to those who first heard it, it was far from obvious. In describing himself as a shepherd, Jesus was identifying himself with what had become by his day a despised underclass. At the same time, by describing himself not just as a shepherd, but as the Good Shepherd, he was also launching a broadside against the religious authorities who, in the past, had been called the Shepherds of God’s people.

Unsurprisingly, we’re told just before the passage in today’s gospel that those who first heard him speak of himself as the Good Shepherd had difficulty understanding what he might mean; and just after this passage, we’re told that his words caused division. Shepherds in the world Jesus knew were as rugged and weatherbeaten as their sheep, more like men of the road than gentleman farmers. Living permanently outdoors with their sheep and in almost total isolation from other human beings, they were themselves regarded as only half-human. Along with sailors, camel drivers, and butchers, they were universally despised and feared in equal measure as disreputable, dishonest, and untrustworthy, notorious for invading others’ land and pilfering as they went. They were given to selling sheep in their care for private profit, such that people were warned not to buy anything from them - wool, milk, or lambs – as they would be more than likely buying stolen property.

One Midrash says that “there is no more disreputable occupation than that of a shepherd” and the Jewish philosopher, Philo (25BC-45AD) says that looking after sheep and goats was “a mean and inglorious” occupation. The low standing of shepherds was such that their witness was inadmissible in a court of law and they were barred from entering into legal contracts. But disreputable and untrustworthy as they were thought to be by other people, shepherds were trusted implicitly by their sheep: indeed, the close rapport between a shepherd and his flock was as close then as is the rapport now between a shepherd and his or her sheep dog. Each was known individually by name, and sheep distinguished their shepherd’s voice from any other. When they were called from the common overnight pens, for instance, they knew who was calling and trustingly followed. So, to grasp what our Lord was conveying when he called himself the Good Shepherd – the word used is not ‘good’  but ‘beautiful’, bearing a broader connotation than mere competence or efficiency – you have to remember that, given the reputation of shepherds, to speak of a good shepherd was almost an oxymoron.

But it was precisely by speaking of himself in this way that Jesus contrasted the relationship between him and his sheep with the total lack of rapport between the false shepherds of Israel, the Scribes and the Pharisees, and their flocks. But the characteristic that definitively distinguished him as the Good Shepherd, as opposed to a false shepherd or a hireling, was his willingness, because the sheep of Jesus’ flock were his own, to sacrifice his life for the sake of his own sheep. “I know my own, and my own know me.” In this chapter of St John’s gospel alone, he repeats no less than ten times: “A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” But this too is a far from obvious allusion. Since all shepherds at the time would have been hirelings and none an owner, they would not have been known for their heroism. And, anyway, it’s questionable whether in real life a shepherd should lay down his life for his sheep if they came under attack from wild animals: what would happen to the remainder of the flock, if he did? At the very least they would be scattered and lost.

But this is precisely how Jesus draws a paradox from this puzzling allusion: his death leads, not to the scattering of the flock, but to its coming together. Having freely laid down his life for his flock (his friends) – there is no greater love – he is raised up again, and we, his friends (his flock), are raised up with him. His self-description as the Good Shepherd thus illustrates more graphically than any tome of theology the rationale of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. He came as one of us so that that we might have life with him when, having accepted death as a consequence of being one of us, he was raised from death. By his death and resurrection, he has restored us to the original relationship for which we were made, a relationship so precious to God that he accepted suffering and death in order to convince us, by becoming human, of his love for us and to share his life with us. God became one of us, in other words, to restore us to friendship with him and one another.

Of course, as Aristotle says, “No one can make someone else their friend”, not even God: forced friendship is a contradiction in terms. Rather, by first offering and then proving his friendship - “greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friend” – he invites us freely to become his friends; he invites us and enables us, that is, to share his life, his risen life, for all eternity.