The Good Shepherd: the door that leads us into life

The commentary on the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Easter, known as Good Shepherd Sunday, has been prepared by Friar Luciano Audisio, OAR. Drawing on the Gospel of Saint John, the author invites us to enter the Paschal mystery through a thought-provoking image: Christ as door and shepherd. In this Easter season, the Word calls us to cross our own thresholds, to discern the voice that guides us, and to discover that in Jesus the definitive passage from death to life is opened.

Christ, the door: the threshold of Easter

Crossing the door, listening to the voice: the Paschal mystery of the Good Shepherd

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, known as Good Shepherd Sunday, the Word of God introduces us to one of the richest and most challenging symbols in John’s Gospel. Jesus does not speak only of the shepherd: before revealing himself as such, he presents himself with a startling image: “I am the door of the sheep” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα τῶν προβάτων).

This language is not immediately clear. John weaves a network of symbols—the door and the shepherd—which intertwine until they culminate in the great revelation: “I am the good shepherd” (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός). But before we get there, the Lord invites us to pause at the door. Why?

Because the door is the place of passage. It is the threshold. It is what allows us to leave one space behind and open ourselves to a new one. But there is something even deeper: the door, in its essence, is an emptiness. An open door is an absence, a space that is not occupied, and precisely for that reason it allows us to pass through.

And here the first challenge of the Gospel appears: Jesus identifies himself with that “absence.” Like the door, he does not impose himself, he cannot be possessed, he cannot be held back. We cannot cling to him as we might wish. And yet it is precisely in that “self-emptying,” as Saint Paul would say, that he becomes access for us. By stripping himself, by giving himself, by keeping nothing for himself, he becomes the place through which we can pass.

And what is the passage par excellence? Easter. The passage from death to life.

Therefore, when Jesus says, “I am the door” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα), he is saying: I am the place where death is crossed. I am the threshold through which one enters new life. There is no Easter without a door, and that door is him.

This takes us back to Israel’s foundational experience: the night of liberation, when the doors of the houses were marked with the blood of the lamb. That door, sealed with blood, became a place of salvation. Today we understand that this figure reaches its fullness in Christ: the true door is the cross, marked with the blood of the definitive Lamb.

Discerning the voice: the heart as a place of encounter

But the Gospel goes a step further. Jesus warns: “the one who does not enter by the door… is a thief and a bandit” (ὁ μὴ εἰσερχόμενος διὰ τῆς θύρας… ἐκεῖνος κλέπτης ἐστὶν καὶ λῃστής). He is not speaking only of a past story, of invasions or profanations of the temple. He is speaking about our life.

Our heart, too, is a sheepfold. Voices, thoughts, desires that do not come from God can also enter us—things that steal our peace, divide us, and disfigure us. That is why spiritual life is, to a great extent, vigilance: learning to discern how we allow what enters our life to enter.

And here the figure of the shepherd appears: “the sheep hear his voice… and he calls his own sheep by name” (τὰ πρόβατα τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούει… καὶ τὰ ἴδια πρόβατα φωνεῖ κατ’ ὄνομα).

This is the heart of today’s Gospel: there is a voice that calls us by our name. Not in a generic way, not as a crowd, but personally. In the Bible, to know the name is to love. God does not treat us as numbers, but as children.

But there are also other voices—voices that do not call us by name, that do not know us, that use us, manipulate us, promise life but leave emptiness behind. Spiritual discernment consists in learning to distinguish these voices.

The good shepherd does not shout, does not intrude, does not force. His voice is recognizable because it touches what is truest in us. Because when we hear it, something in the heart says: “this is me.”

The Good Shepherd: crossing over to live

And finally, we return to the culminating point: “I am the door of the sheep” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα τῶν προβάτων) and “I am the good shepherd” (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός). Two images that do not oppose each other, but illuminate each other. Jesus is the door because he is the passage. Jesus is the shepherd because he is the one who guides us through that passage.

And the Gospel concludes with a silent but immense promise: to go in and out. To go in and out… two simple verbs that contain all of Easter. To enter death with Christ. To come out to life with him.

To celebrate this Good Shepherd Sunday is to allow ourselves to be led by the One who not only guides us, but has become the way for us. It is to find the courage to cross our own “doors”: our fears, our losses, our crosses, knowing that they are not the end.

Because in Christ, every threshold becomes Easter. Every step, even the darkest, can become a step toward life. And then, yes, we will be able to recognize his voice and follow him.