The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, May 8, 2022

John 10, 27–30

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

When Jesus speaks of God as our “Father”, we ought to think that earthly fathers are to various degrees like him, not that he is like them.  Earthly fathers can only strive to imitate our Heavenly Father.  Likewise, when Jesus speaks of those who believe in him as his “sheep”.  The animal is like the believer in certain ways, not the believer like the animal.  The believer, for instance, possesses an intellect and free will.  At the same time, the believer can look to the animal to see traits he ought to have.  The Lord says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”  Sheep tend to follow the herder whose voice they know, and ignore other voices as so much background noise.  The Greek word translated as “hear” also means “to heed” and “to obey”.  Thus, My sheep heed my voice.  When the Lord says, “I know them”, the implication is that the sheep also know him, that is, recognize him.  The sheep follow him because they have learned that he always leads them to fresh pastures.  The pastures to which the Lord leads his believers are eternal: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”  Through hearing his teachings and seeing his works of mercy, the believer trusts the Lord to carry out the promises he has made to him.

“No one can take them out of my hand.”  The Greek word translated here as “take” actually means “to seize” and “to steal”.  No one can seize the Lord’s sheep from him.  The devil has no power over them to make them do his will.  This brings to mind the verse: “Your rod and your staff give me comfort”, from Psalm 23.  “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.”  Perhaps for us westerners a better ordering of the Lord’s statements here would be: “My Father, who has given them [my sheep] to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand, [and] no one can take them out of my hand, [for] the Father and I are one.”  To seize the sheep from the Son would be to attempt to seize them from the Father.  As the crowd would admit that no one could do this, Jesus says that no one could steal them from him, for he is in union with the Father.  The Lord Jesus does not mean that he and the Father are the same Person, but that they are in union with each other.  To be in union with another, there must be an equality, and the Jews will subsequently try to stone Jesus for making himself equal to God.  

We who rejoice in belonging to Jesus through our faith and our conformity to his commands “follow him wherever he goes” (Revelation 14, 4) knowing that he will bring us safely home.