It’s time to eat—come and get it! Jesus opens up for us the gate to the really good stuff, the food that really helps us to overcome cravings that we might suffer from our entire lives. We hunger for food, of course, but human beings are capable of putting aside food for a time for even more important things that we need to nourish us—things of the spirit, things of the heart, things of the mind that open our eyes to what our lives can become. We hunger and we thirst for justice, for truth, for forgiveness and peace, especially in those places in the world where they seem to be in short supply.
The gate is opened for us, by our living Gatekeeper. As he warns us, there are also other gates, other kinds of shepherds, who promise us nourishing and beautiful things to eat as well, but they will only lead us to a poor mix of empty and poisonous fodder, and leave us exposed to the wolves of violence and hatred, and destruction. When we see gates open to fields of consumerism, we find that selfishness can fill our lives and lead us to loneliness and despair. When we see other gates open to militarism and violence, we see no escape from fear and danger, only short-term acts of vengeance and heightened insecurity.
The quality of the grass will tell the sheep who the Good Shepherd is, and who the inconstant 
shepherd is. We will come to know and to love Jesus, and recognize his voice, as we walk through his gate into a life of mutual forgiveness and respect, of concern for and aid to the weak and the poor, of closeness to the source of hope and life itself, a God who hears us and sustains us in the midst of lives of challenge and pain, helping us to defeat fear and hatred in our own hearts, and nourishing us with the words and the living presence of the Good Shepherd himself. Far from us, once we have entered through this gate, to seek out poorer pastures of individualism and selfishness, or to fall into pits of addiction and violence. Many promise that owning a gun will bring peace, that spending money buys happiness, that ignoring the sick and the abandoned will bring health, but these only leave us exposed to the wolves of evil, the 
storms of calamity, without protection, shelter nor any shepherd to guide us to safety and the fullness of life.
We bring our deepest appetites and longings to the new Gate before us, together as a People of many peoples, the flock of those who trust the voice of a Good Shepherd and who seek out other sheep to join them, so that we may all feed on the choice, nourishing grass of abundance and joy, and live in close proximity to the God who loves us all.
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