Christ the King Year C

Christ the King

Jeremiah 23.1–6
Colossians 1.11–20
Luke 23.33–43

Shepherds, shepherding stories, and shepherding metaphors abound throughout the Bible, as one would expect in that culture. The creative thing in Israel’s traditions, though, was the development of ‘the shepherd’ as a metaphor first for the king (the lowly status of shepherds makes this daring), and then for God himself. These traditions explode like fireworks in the Gospels as Jesus, who probably never herded a sheep in his life, reuses them to explain his strange activity...