Advent 15

December 2022

This is an old sheepfold in Great Langdale up in the Lake District. It is still in use and you can see the gate or door propped open. Most of the year the fold is left open but at certain times it is closed to keep the sheep safely inside. Jesus described himself as the shepherd who leads his sheep out through the open gate by day and keeps them safe by night. As the Good Shepherd, he is the one who will lay down his life for his sheep – physically and metaphorically he becomes the gate that safeguards the fold.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

   he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

   and gently lead the mother sheep. Isaiah 40: 11

Author: Judith Russenberger

Environmentalist and theologian, with husband and three grown up children plus one cat, living in London SW14. I enjoy running and drinking coffee - ideally with a friend or a book.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: