Daily Reading for May 18

“I will be their shepherd,” he says, “and I will be close to them,” as clothing to their skin. He desires to save my flesh by clothing it in the robe of immortality, and he as anointed my body. “They shall call on me,” he says, “and I will answer, ‘Here I am.’” Lord, you have heard me more quickly than I ever had hoped. “And if they pass over they shall not fall, says the Lord,” meaning that we who are passing over into immortality shall not fall into corruption, for he will preserve us. He has said he would, and to do so is his own wish. Such is our Teacher, both good and just. He said he had not come to be served but to serve, and so the Gospel shows him tired out, he who labored for our sake and promised “to give his life as ransom for many,” a thing that, as he said, only the good Shepherd will do.

From Christ the Educator by Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVa, John 1-10, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006).