John 10:1-10

Jottings on John…Easter 4…2017

When I was a child, our local paper ran a weekly page for kids. One feature was a riddle column. One riddle it took me a long time to work out was, ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s ajar!’ Victor Golyavkin¹ poses a different kind of door riddle; a poem by him called, ‘The Door’ runs, ‘This door had no hinges. And it had no handle. And it had no keyhole. And it wasn’t entirely a door…..’ That door was in fact serving as a bier for his dead father!

The Easter stories make much of a locked tomb & locked doors. Our passage & its continuation pose a double edged riddle: ‘When is a door not a door?’ A: ‘When it’s a Shepherd!’ Why does Jesus refer to Himself as both Gate, &, Shepherd? Both metaphors appear to be about being let in to the resurrected life of Christ’s flock, & being lovingly cared for in the course of our new raised life in that flock. They are also a warning that we’re excluding ourselves from both if we persist in a) remaining on the wrong side of a locked door, & b) shunning the caring arms of the Good Shepherd?

 Whatever the answer, it has to be applicable now. Not in some future. That present tense that’s the Essence of God, the Eternal “I AM”, is compelling. God is always the God of Now. We’re to live as God’s people Now, or there’s no tomorrow. Live on the inside, with the Good Shepherd as door/keeper, & safely in His arms, now!

Human sheep stray. More than little Bo Peep’s. When that rather infamous shepherd eventually goes looking for her lost sheep, ‘She spied their tails side by side, all hung on a tree to dry’. Then comes, ‘She tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, to tack each tail back on its lambkin!’ But it didn’t work! Dare I add another verse? ‘She tried super-glue, & blue-tack too, some wall-paper paste & then Clag, She tried tying & drilling but results were not thrilling, So her sheep still have nothing to wag!’

If we have a shepherd who’s also our door why not avail ourselves of the protection He offers? If we have a door who’s also our shepherd - a Good one at that! - why not avail ourselves of the nurture He provides? If, instead, we choose to stray, we have a lot more than our tails to lose! Choose, though, to stay, & we have a lot more than our tails to wag! 

   

¹ In ‘Laugh or cry or yawn’, Cheshire, undated.