Today’s Gospel reading brings us into a moment of tension and revelation. Jesus is walking in the temple during the festival of Dedication (Hanukkah),when some Jewish religious leaders surround him and ask, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
They want a clear, black-and-white answer. But Jesus, as he so often does in John’s Gospel, doesn’t give them what they expect. Instead, he points to something deeper, something that goes beyond words or titles. He says, “I have told you, and you do not believe... My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”
In other words, those who are truly listening, those who are open-hearted and ‘attuned’, alert or aware, already know. They’ve seen it in his actions, they’ve felt it in his presence, they’ve recognized it in their hearts. It’s not about figuring it out in your head, it’s about hearing and responding from the heart.
And then Jesus says something truly profound: “I and the Father are one.” John 10 is not merely a debate about messiahship; it is a deeper unveiling of union, between Jesus and the Father, and ultimately, between the Divine and those who “hear his voice.”
And so this statement is not just a theological statement about who Jesus is. It comes as an invitation to see the deeper reality of all things. John’s Gospel is full of this kind of language from the very beginning, when we’re told that the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and that Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
John isn’t just telling us stories about Jesus. In the writing of his gospel, he’s trying to open our eyes to something bigger, that God is not far away, but right here, right now. That divine presence is woven into the fabric of life. Yes, Jesus shows us the face of God, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father” (14:9). but he also shows us the true face of humanity: “Don’t your own scriptures tell you ‘You are gods’” he says to them just a few verses later in vs 34. His unity with the Father is meant to draw us into that same unity – As Jesus says in John 14:20 “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
The mystics across many traditions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, have spoken of this same deep truth: that underneath all our differences, there is a single divine reality, and we are all part of it. Some call it the perennial wisdom, the understanding that the heart of all spiritual paths leads to the same place: to love, to union, to the realization that we are never truly separate from God.
When Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice,” he’s not just talking about a chosen few. He’s speaking of anyone, who is willing to listen with the ears of the heart. And when he says, “No one will snatch them out of my hand,” it’s a promise of deep spiritual safety. That whatever storms we go through, whatever doubts we wrestle with, we are held. We belong. But we will not truly know these things until we listen deeply with the ears of the heart.
In verse 26 when he says to his questioners “you do not believe because you are not my sheep”. It is important to note that this is not exclusionary; rather it is descriptive of interior disposition. To “belong” is to be attuned, to be receptive to the voice of the Shepherd, which calls from beyond our egoic thinking into presence. At this point they are unable to respond to the One who is their true shepherd because they are not listening deeply enough with the ears of their hearts. They are still listening to and being defined by the voice of the ego in their heads. They do not yet know their Oneness with God. They have not yet been able to intuit this deeper truth.
The Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, is not an insignificant detail in the story. It commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem around 164 BCE after it was defiled by foreign rule during the time of the Maccabean Revolt. The temple, once desecrated, was purified and rededicated to the worship of the God of Israel. In our passage today, the listeners are being invited into the deeper meaning of Hannukkah, the cleansing of the heart and the rededication of the heart as the true inner Temple where the Divine dwells within each of us.
So perhaps the question for us today is not, “Do we understand it all?” or “Can we explain who Jesus is?” Maybe the better question is, ‘Are we listening deeply’? Are we attuned to that still, small voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd, that calls us beyond fear and division and into deeper trust?
At the end of our passage Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” And in a very real way, so are we. And not just us but every human being even if this deeper truth has been obscured and hidden. We are not alone. We are part of something greater than ours small egoic selves tell us. We are held in love, grounded in being, and if we are listening deeply, guided by the voice of the Shepherd.
In verse 28 we read these words of reassurance: “No one will snatch them out of my hand...” Here we glimpse the security of our spiritual belonging. For those who have awakened to the Divine within and beyond, there is a deep knowing that cannot be undone by external circumstance. It is the deep realisation of the divinity within us that is never separate from its Source.
And so to reflect on John 10:22–30, then, is to be invited into the heart of the Christian mystical tradition, which proclaims, that the goal of spiritual life is not belief with our heads alone, but rather a deeper union of the heart, a deeper inner knowing of the Divine from within that transforms how we see God, ourselves, and the world.
As we meditate on this Gospel passage, perhaps we can hear the voice of the Shepherd not as a voice from outside, but as the inner voice of love and truth, calling us beyond fear, beyond separation, and into the freedom and security of the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.
Prayer:
O Holy One, over all, in all and through all, Whom we have encountered in the face of Jesus, may we listen deeply to hear the voice of the Shepherd within, as the inner voice of love and truth, inviting us to rededicate our hearts as Temples of the Divine, calling us beyond fear, and beyond separation into a deeper knowledge of our own Oneness with you in whom we live and move and have our being and the deep inner knowing that nothing can ever snatch us away from Your hands. Amen.