The Same Love

The love God has for Jesus is the very same love that lives inside every one of us , we are all held together by that love, like one warm flock under the stars.

Tonight's story is inspired by John 17:20-26, the Gospel reading for May 21, 2026.

About Baa Baa Bible: Bible-inspired bedtime stories for children ages 3-10. In every story, Jesus is the gentle Good Shepherd, teaching us the lessons of today's Bible reading. All the other characters are lambs and sheep, a warm reminder that we are all part of his flock. 

Transcript

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Good evening, little lambs. Tonight's story is called The Same Love, inspired by the Gospel of John seventeen verses twenty through twenty six. Tonight, the Bible shares the most amazing thing of all that the very same love God has for Jesus lives inside each one of us too. It holds us all together, like one warm flock gathered under the same wide sky of stars. So let's return to Shepherd's Hill, where the stars are coming out one by one, and the lambs are about to feel the love that makes them one. The stars were coming out one by one above Shepherd's Hill, the way they always did, quietly, without hurrying, as if each one knew exactly when it was its turn. The little flock had returned to the hill just as the first cool wind of evening came over the meadow. Biscuit flopped down in the soft grass with a happy thump, her golden brown tuft sticking up as cheerfully as it always did. Clover settled beside her, adjusting her blue scarf and tucking the little green clover sprig more snugly behind her left ear. Matt came and sat nearby, quiet and still, his dark wool blending softly into the shadows, and Pip, small, grey Pip, with her enormous dark eyes, sat down a little closer to the group than she used to. Just a little. But it was enough that Clover noticed. Old Woolly was already there, silver fleeced and solid, like a stone the hill had always had. Jesus was there too. He was kneeling in the grass a few paces away, his head bowed, his voice low and unhurried. He was praying. The lambs went very still. They had heard him pray before. They had crept up the hill and listened from the tall grass and heard their own names wrapped inside his words. But tonight something made them stay even quieter, because tonight they realized the prayer was still going. It had not stopped. Clover remembered what old Wooly had said that morning when the dew was still on the grass. What the shepherd prays, the father keeps. She had carried those words with her all day, the way you carry a warm stone in your pocket. Now, hearing the prayer again, she pressed closer to Biscuit's warm side. Jesus lifted his face to the sky. Father, he said, and his voice was gentle and sure, like water that knows which way it is going. I am not only praying for the friends who are here with me now, I am praying for all the ones who will come after, for everyone who will ever believe in me, because of the words my friends carry forward. Biskit's ears went up, her tuft quivered. He means us, she whispered. He means us, Matt said softly, and that was more than Matt usually said. He means everyone, Clover added. She felt something tightened gently in her chest, not with fear, but with the feeling of something large and true pressing close. Jesus kept praying. I ask that they all be one, he said. The way you are in me, Father, and I am in you. I ask that they may be in us too. All of them, together, one. Pip tilted her head, her dark eyes moved slowly around the circle, at Biscuit and her tuft, at Matt and his quiet steadiness, at Old Wooly's silver sides moving slowly in and out with each breath, at Clover's blue scarf lying soft against her cream colored wool. She had never quite thought of it that way before. Not together, not one. Old Wooly made the low sound in his throat that meant he was thinking something deep. Then Jesus said something that made every lamb on the hill go perfectly, wonderingly still. The glory you gave me, Father. I have given it to them. Nobody spoke. The wind moved through the grass. Do you hear that? Biscuit said at last, very quietly. She wasn't bouncing. She wasn't even blinking. He gave us what God gave him. What does that mean? Pip whispered. Her voice was barely sound at all. Old Wooly turned his great silver head toward her. His eyes were warm and slow in the starlight. It means, he said, that you are not on the outside of love, little one. You are inside it. Pip looked at him. The Father loves the son, old Wooly said, as if laying something precious and breakable gently into Pip's hooves. That love is the greatest love there is. It has always been. It was there before the meadow, before the stars, before the beginning of any beginning, he paused. And Jesus is saying that that love, the very same one, is inside you right now. It has been all along. The stars had multiplied overhead. There were dozens now, then hundreds. The sky was thick with them. Pip looked up. For a long moment she said nothing. Then he always knew me even before I was here. Even before, old Wooly agreed. Jesus finished praying and turned, and when he saw the little flock gathered there, woolly and quiet and wide eyed in the starlight, he smiled, not with surprise, as if he had known they would come. You heard, he said. We heard, said Clover. Her sprig was perfectly straight. You were praying for us, not just for the ones who are here, for all the ones who would ever come. Yes, Jesus said. He sat down among them in the grass, close enough that they could feel the warmth of him. I was praying for you before you knew you needed praying for, before you took your first step across this meadow, before you even had a name. Biscuit pressed her nose into her own golden wool and breathed in, as if checking for something she hadn't noticed before. Is it in there? she asked, half laughing and half serious. It is in there, Jesus said, and he was not laughing, but his voice was full of a kind of joy that made the air feel golden even in the dark. The love my Father has for me, he said, is the love I have poured into each of you. You are not carrying a little of it. You are carrying the same love, the whole of it, as much as the Father has ever loved the son. That is how much you are loved right now tonight, on this hill, with the dew beginning to settle on your wool. No one moved for a long moment. Then Pip, small, grey, quiet Pip, leaned her head against Clover's shoulder, just gently, just enough to feel the warmth of her there. And Clover leaned back, and Biscuit leaned against both of them, and Matt moved in, just a small move, so that the whole flock was one soft, woolly, warm thing on the hillside, like a single creature breathing under the stars. Old Wooly looked at them all with his ancient, kind eyes, and did not say anything. He didn't need to. Jesus looked too. His face was full of something that had no other word but love. You are one, he said softly, because I am in you, because the Father is in me, because the love has no end and no edge. It just keeps going all the way through, until it reaches everyone it was always meant for. A night bird called somewhere in the dark valley below. The fire had burned down to warm, sleepy coals. One by one, the lambs curled close, biscuits golden tuft, finally still, Matt's chin tucked against his front hooves, Bramble a tiny woolly ball against old woolly's side. Clover was the last one awake. The same love she thought, looking up at all those stars. The same love God has for Jesus, inside me, inside all of us, one flock, one love, one family, under all those stars. She was asleep before she even knew it. Dear God, thank you that your love for Jesus is the very same love you have for me. Thank you that Jesus prayed for me, even before I was born. Help me always to know that I am inside your love, and that everyone around me is too. Amen. Good night, little lamb. God loves you so much. Sweet dreams.