The good shepherd knows me

The good shepherd knows me as his own
- and he knows me inside out.
And he good shepherd knows you as his own
- and he knows you inside out.

And the good shepherd knows our stories
and with his Spirit’s help he is ever by our side
as we write a new chapter in those stories every day.

That the Lord knows me as well as he does
is no reason to be afraid of him but rather a reason to rejoice
since he himself is no stranger to the human story,
he himself lived our narrative of human pain and suffering,
even through death, laying down his life
to take it up again – and rise.

We gather to tell the story of God’s love for us,
in Word and in Sacrament,
precisely to refresh in our minds and hearts the pattern
by which we’re called to shape and live our own stories.

As we tell again, today, the story of Jesus’ love for us,
of how, on the night before he died, he gave himself to us at his Table
and then on the next day gave himself for us
on the altar of the Cross,
as we tell that story again,
may the narrative of love we hear and celebrate
shape and change the stories of our lives,
our relationship with God,
until his story becomes ours and our story becomes his.