I AM THE GATE FOR THE SHEEP

John 10:1-10

We are still celebrating Easter, and in this time Easter, Jesus has made important statements about himself using the “I AM” formula. So far we have heard him saying: I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, and today, in our gospel we have another “I am" statement. He says: Amen, amen I say to you I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers.

To understand the reasons of these statements, we need to recognize the context of John's community, the context of John’s audience. This is a community in the midst of severe persecution, a community expelled from the synagogue, a community at the verge of losing hope and faith; a young Christian community set in the midst of many ways of salvation, and many ideologies. And John uses these statements to contrast all these way. We have contrast between blindness and sight; darkness and light; thief and the shepherd; death and life; mere physical bread and the bread of life eternal.

It's very black and white, and we can easily recognize that in this context of persecution and multiple choices, John is saying with clarity and in a particularly uncompromising way that, yes, there are persecution and many cults and philosophies, and ideologies, but none of them enters through the gate; they are all thieves and robbers. And John is pointing to Christ as the true gate, the door, the way.  For John, there is one gate, one shepherd, one way to abundant life, one flock. The purpose is to show that Jesus is the one to believe and trust for life and salvation.

In some way, when we look at our own context, when we think about our own society today, there are similarities. We too live in a society of competing faiths and ideologies; we live in a society of multiple choices of lifestyle. In an online article: “In the mind of our society”, the author wrote: We live in a society where we have taller buildings but shorter mind; wider highways but narrower viewpoints; we have more convenience, yet less time; we have more degrees but less common sense; more knowledge but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our moral values, we have been all the way to the moon and back, but we have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We’ve conquered outer space and cleaned up the air, but have polluted our souls; we have more weapons, but less peace; we have more acquaintances, but fewer friends. So, this evening as we look at our society, and our lifestyle, how do we understand the words of Jesus when he says: I am the gate? And how do we strive to enter through that gate in the midst of all these choices that the society offers?