This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter.  “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Verse 11 pushes beyond the imagery of Ezekiel 34 in its reference to the shepherd’s willingness to lay down his life for the sheep. A possible OT antecedent may lie in the messianic oracle of Zech 13:7-9, in which the death of the shepherd is required so that the flock can be purified. Verse 11 may also have points of contact with Palestinian shepherding practices; a good shepherd may indeed have to give up his life to prevent the decimation of his flock by wild animals. Yet the reference to the shepherd laying down his life is cast in a distinctive Johannine idiom, so that the reader of the Gospel cannot help hearing in Jesus’ words an allusion to his own death. Verses 15 and 17-18 will make those associations with the death of Jesus explicit, but at this point Jesus stays within the metaphor of shepherding. He works to build the interpretive frame of reference before he turns more directly to his own life and death. Continue reading →