John 10:11-13

What we do in life is look for hired hands. This means that we look for people to tell us what we want to hear: "You're a good mother, a good son, a good coworker." All the while, though, we know deep down that it's just not true. That's why we keep asking. We think that if we get enough people to tell us that we're great, we might be able to believe it. But we never do.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He's not like the hired hands who run away when they see how bad things really are, when the wolves start to come, when your life starts to really fall apart, and when the "I'm okay, you're okay" charade starts to break down. And what does Jesus say? Not, "I'm the good shepherd. I know what my sheep need to hear." Not "I'm the good shepherd, I know how to get my sheep to relax." Not "I'm the good shepherd, and I know how to get my sheep in line." He says, "I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep."

The wolves are real. We feel guilty about all sorts of things in our lives. We have not loved God with our whole hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. These are the wolves that are coming for us. We look for hired hands to tell us that these wolves aren't really all that bad. "Oh, you're not a bad person," they'll say. "You're sure better than so-and-so." And that'll make us feel better, until we look over our shoulder and see the pack of wolves just a little bit closer. So we look for another hired hand. But then, as things get worse and worse, hired hands start quitting. When we do something that makes it impossible for someone to say, "You're not a bad person," we find that there's no one around anyway.

No one, that is, except Jesus, who lays down His life for us.

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