John 10-11--The Shepherd

In the Jewish society, shepherds were the lowest of the low. They worked with dumb and dirty animals, were often smelly themselves, and were, by and large, poorly educated. How ironic is it, then, that the Son of God would call himself a shepherd? When we think about it, though, in order to protect their flock, the shepherd had to be willing to put himself in harm's way, because the sheep couldn't take care of themselves. The shepherd, as Jesus says, would sleep in the doorway of the sheep-pen, so that robbers or predators would have to go through the shepherd first. The shepherd's tools, the rod and staff, were used to protect and defend the flock. As much of an outcast as a shepherd might have been, it is the perfect metaphor to use in describing Jesus.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we humans are like sheep in many ways. We can be stubborn, we need constant direction or we get lost, and sometimes we can be just plain dumb. Thank God for a Shepherd who will take care of us and lead us and make sure that we don't get ourselves too far off the path! Jesus doesn't just protect us from ourselves, though. We are under a constant threat from all those other things that seek to separate us from our flock and shepherd, including an adversary in Satan that would like nothing more than to carry off one from the flock of God. The shepherd, though, stands in the way. He has already laid down his life so that his sheep might be protected from the attempts of the evil one. Our shepherd stands watch over us, making sure that none of us are lost and that we are tended.