"Good Shepherd Sunday” provides an opportunity to reflect on leadership and on how leaders model God for their people.

It’s hard to be a Christian because the world we live in has such a wrong idea about who Jesus is. To many, the message of Jesus is “nice” but irrelevant. He has nothing to do with the real world where our true happiness allegedly awaits us.

Last November we citizens faced an important question together: Who should lead? It has a related, shadow question that gets asked more rarely: Who will follow?

It has been said that a mechanic is only as good as his tools. It’s a good bet that the same can be said about a shepherd. However, not too many in our congregation, unless you are reading this in New Zealand, can list “shepherd” under occupation on a census form.

At our daily work each of us are shepherds. We are  in charge of the quality and quantity of work that we do. No one can make us be less than we are.

I remember how badly it stung. The kids in the neighborhood were choosing up sides for a pickup game of touch football, and I was odd man out. Rejected.

Let us call in prayer upon almighty God, who raised Jesus from the dead and brought us salvation through him.

Beloved, we are God’s children now. God’s love has made us children of God, the author of 1 John says, and as we grow in love we shall see God more and more and become more like God.

I could never finish speaking about [Christ] . . . . He is the bread and the spring of living water to satisfy our hunger and our thirst. He is our shepherd, our guide, our model, our comfort, our brother.