The weight of that conversation is still sitting heavily on my soul. ‘Do you love me more than these?’, ‘Do you love me?’, ‘Do you love me?’…‘Feed my lambs.’ ‘Take care of my sheep.’ ‘Feed my sheep.’ As if it were not enough for Jesus to forgive me and make his peace with me, he then tells me to look after everyone. I know that God can do all things through the power of the spirit but, at the same time, I am aware of how fragile and vulnerable I will become if I do anything but trust in God. I am conscious that there is no room to be lukewarm in my commitment. It is either all or nothing. It is like standing with my back on the edge of a precipice but looking forward to paradise. I am still fearful that I might lose my balance and fall back.
I must admit that despite all that Jesus is, how he speaks of the others seems quite old-fashioned. Almost romantic. No one could describe any of us as pretty! Quite the opposite. Most of us are hardy, practical people. Some of us look more like spent wrestlers than rabbis. None of us looks vulnerable, like lost sheep But I understand what Jesus is saying and why he is saying it. We might look strong and rugged on the outside but on the inside, we are weak. How we all behaved (apart from the women) – how we all scattered and denied all knowledge of Jesus once he was taken from us – shows what the worst in us can amount to if we lack courage. I also understand that Jesus is pointing to how God wants his leaders to be good shepherds of the sheep, and how I must be different from those who have failed in the past. Part of me wants to be a leader; the part that wants to react, confront and commit. Meanwhile, another part of me so easily longs for the journey to end here, and to settle for the quiet life. Sometimes I have the boldness of a lion, but the timidity of a mouse.
I was thinking the other day and remembered that time when we were travelling with Jesus, and He spoke about how he was the ‘gate for the sheep’. It took place just at the point where things were beginning to turn nasty. We were in Galilee and we knew that some of the leaders were already plotting to kill Jesus. So, we urged him to go to Judea. We thought, ‘What have we got to lose?’ If we stayed in Galilee, the authorities would catch up with us. Besides, how could Jesus raise his profile whilst hiding away in some rural backwater? In the end, we went on ahead and Jesus followed in secret. We could see the tension between the leaders and the crowds. They were losing their grip. The scent of fear was already in the air. Those who wanted to know about where Jesus was, or say anything positive, whispered it. Then, halfway through the festival, Jesus appeared at the temple and began to preach.
He was like a cat in a snake pit as the teachers of the law questioned his authority and ridiculed him when they saw the people’s hopes raised. When the people began to think for themselves and question whether Jesus could, indeed, be the Messiah, the leaders tried to ridicule Him, along with anyone who supported him, by saying that he was demon possessed. But Jesus confounded them all with his plain-speaking, his claim that he had been sent by God, and the promises that he made to the people. The truth has something about it that is resistant to ridicule; the more they tried to decry Jesus, the worst they looked. Then, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus came across some Pharisees and Teachers who were about to stone a woman for adultery. Again, the leaders tried to undermine him, by asking whether he would obey the law. Jesus silenced them by writing on the ground. I don’t know what he wrote before wiping it clean, but whatever it was, they shuddered with apprehension. When Jesus said, ‘Let he who has no sin cast the first stone’ they scattered. These exchanges were relentless. On another occasion, as Jesus talked with the people and declared that he had been sent by God, the authorities were keen to twist this and accuse him of blasphemy. But Jesus was clever. He said enough for the people to make up their own minds, helping them to piece together the fragments with answers that all pointed in the same direction. I remember one of the clearest statements being, ‘You are from below, I am from above.’ He was nonetheless still lucky to escape intact. Then, the final straw for Jesus came on the Sabbath, when he healed a man who was born blind. Despite all the evidence – not only from the man who was healed, from all those who had seen the change in him, and from his parents, the Pharisees would still not accept that Jesus was from God. Jesus, the misfit from Nazareth, whose parentage was questionable, and who did not possess any formal learning qualification, did not fit their understanding of the kind of person that God could be at work in, let alone the kind of person who could lead a band of disciples and form a community.
Then Jesus lost it. To be honest, he did not lose it. Jesus never did anything without reason. But it was one of the few times – apart from when he turned the tables in the temple – when I saw an outpouring of His righteous anger. He was indignant. He shouted, ‘I am the gate for the Sheep’…‘I am the good shepherd…’All who have come before me are thieves and robbers’…’I am the gate…whoever enters through me will be saved. In other words, I am not like these leaders. I am faithful: they are not. I can be trusted: they cannot. My message comes from God and is pure: their message is human and self-centred. But the Pharisees could not understand Jesus’ figures of speech. So he pressed the point home relentlessly. He declared with such force; ‘I am the gate; whoever enters by me will be saved. They come to rob, kill and destroy: I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.’ In other words; ‘Choose Life. Choose me and only me.’ The response from the leaders was much the same. Discredit Jesus by saying that he was demon possessed. But not all of them were convinced. Some did begin to think. If Jesus was possessed, how come he managed to heal the blind man in the first place.
As I think about Jesus being the gate I am led to think about my role, and how Jesus is urging me to stay with – to abide with them. I am just realising that to follow him is to give my life to this work and to support the others. It is to live, breathe and sleep alongside them. It is to preserve His teachings nd deter those who would prefer to domesticate them – or to distort them do that they might be used to justify and armed uprising. Our task is to follow Jesus wherever He leads. The Kingdom of at God is in hand. God is doing a new thing. There is no room for being lukewarm or complacent. Stepping back is not an option.