Who knows us best in our lives? I mean really knows us, what we like, what annoys us, our favorite stuff… just really knows us cold. They even know what we are thinking just by looking at us! When we were young, it was probably our parents. As we grew, maybe it was our best friend and today maybe it is our spouse, a friend, or a grandparent.

When someone knows us like that, we trust them, we freely open up and share our needs, wants, hurts, and aspirations. When we are in pain, they know it. When we are happy, they know it too. We trust and it is a beautiful thing! We are close, and close is good.

So, is Jesus that person we thought of who knows us best? Honestly, it was not the first person I thought of. Sometimes I think we don’t view Jesus that way, instead we view him in the abstract, as “out there” somewhere, Jesus being everywhere all the time, but not here, really up close to us. Jesus in the macro, everywhere for all of humanity when he came to save the world.

While all of that is true of course, I want to focus on the exact opposite. To focus on Jesus in the micro I will call it. Yes, for all of humanity… but for all of humanity… one person at a time. Jesus completely, totally, and personally with each of us. Because, as he said in the Gospel today, he knows each of us that deeply and personally. 

He said, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” Yes, he certainly knows humanity… but more importantly, he knows each of us… personally. Better than that person we thought of as knowing us best. He knows us best and loves us best… forever.

But do we know him personally? Do we know him best? Or, in our view, is he “out there” for all of humanity? Well, not exactly, he’s really right here next to us and right here in our hearts. For all of humanity yes, but for all of humanity one person at a time. An important distinction to make.

So, what are we to make of that? He knows us but we may not know him nearly as well because we view him as “out there.” Well, that’s not what he had in mind when he said, “I know mine and mine know me.” 

He knows what we are struggling with, our hurt, anger, wounds, our shame and our guilt because he is up close. Why are we pretending that he doesn’t know it or doesn’t care? As our shepherd, he does care. Deeply. If you want to know him better, to know him up close, tell him about those hurts, that anger, those wounds, that shame or guilt. He is our shepherd and is here to help us… up close. Get to know his shepherd’s voice. Turn over our worries, our pain; become, as it says in the second reading today, children of God. His children.

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God” said Saint John. Be like children with him for so we are. Trust like we’ve never trusted him before. 

Can we trust him? More importantly, do we trust him? Well, he took those nails for us, for all of us… for your sins, my sins, not in the abstract, not “out there,” but for each of us… personally. 

So, the challenge for all of us, myself included, is to think of Jesus as not “out there” somewhere, but as right here next to us and right here in our hearts. With you, with me one on one, face to face, up close. He’s earned that from me for those nails… the least I can do is thank him every day, and… be personally with my Shepherd. Hopefully up close… forever.

“I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me.”