My Sheep Hear My Voice

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” ~John 10:27-30

The horizon is a hazy turquoise blending higher into deeper and deeper blues, colors so vivid they make my eyes hurt. The mountains behind us are smokey gray and an unseasonably warm breeze ruffles the brown curls bobbing up an down in front of me as my daughter jumps excitedly at the fence. A herd of sheep is grazing behind the school. Shaddowy figures in the dusk, moving placidly between tufts of waving grass and piles of wood.

We call to them. We snap our fingers and click our tongues. They are within feet of us, yet not a single one so much as glances in our direction. They are very focused on their grazing, the sweet grass they have been led to.

All of a sudden we hear a strange noise. "Brrr! Brrr!" A tiny woman pops up over the hillside. "Brrr! Brrr! Hajde!" She is the shepherdess. Immediately woolly heads snap to attention, bells jangle as the flock bleat and maa and begin to trot merrily after her. "Hajde!" She calls them to come,

"Hajde Lako! Hajde Kiki!" She calls them by name.

I realize that I have never actually seen a shepherd calling to their sheep before. New images connect themselves to verses which begin to flood my mind, verses I had always known, but never really had a picture of.

The flock head over the hill and we share a wave. I consider it no accident to have witnessed this little scene only two days before the women's Bible study in which we are going through the "I Am" statements of Jesus. This weeks lesson? "I am the the good shepherd."