A reflection on the Gate and the Good Shepherd - Ash Wednesday 2026
John 10: 1 - 18 There’s a moment in John’s gospel when Jesus tries – again – to help the Pharisees see what they cannot quite see. He has just restored sight to a man born blind, an act that should have sparked wonder, maybe gratitude. Instead, the Pharisees get tangled up in Sabbath rules because Jesus mixed dirt and water to make mud. A technicality, really. But technicalities can make us blind. And so Jesus turns to them with a series of images that loop and circle, almost as though he’s walking a fence line, checking for weak spots. “I am the gate,” he says. “I am the good shepherd.” It’s not linear or tidy…more like steppingstones than a straight road. But maybe that’s exactly the point. Sometimes the truth of who Jesus is needs to be approached slowly, from different angles, until our eyes adjust. Tonight, on this Ash Wednesday, we begin our own slow journey – forty days of noticing where we have wandered,...