4 Easter – April 21, 2024
John 10:11-18
Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd”. This usually conjures up, at least for me, comforting thoughts. Like the image of Jesus holding a sheep lovingly and tenderly in his arms. But in actuality, this discourse emerges out of a conflict with the religious authorities in the previous chapter.
So, why did Jesus use a shepherd metaphor in his time and place? According to John’s gospel, Jesus had just healed a blind man on the Sabbath, and the religious elite were furious. It was the Feast of the Dedication (the holiday we know today as Hanukkah, when Jewish people celebrate the rededication of the Temple), and Jesus was walking in the Temple itself — the very place the Jewish people venerated as representative of their unique, covenantal relationship with God.
So, why did Jesus call himself a shepherd in that setting? The image of a shepherd tending his or her flock would have been deeply ingrained in the religious imaginations of the Israelites; they had a long history with shepherds. Rachel was a shepherd. Zipporah and her sisters were shepherds. Moses tended sheep before God commissioned him to lead the Israelites out of slavery, and King David started out as a shepherd before ascending to the throne. The Jewish people of Jesus’s day knew Yahweh as the ultimate Shepherd over his flock, Israel.
Debi Thomas has this to say: “So I wonder if Jesus was saying something provocative rather than self-effacing when he called himself the Good Shepherd. I tend to think “meek and mild” when I imagine Jesus cradling lambs, but why would meek and mild incense his listeners, who attempted to arrest him for using this particular metaphor? Was Jesus in fact equating himself with God, the Shepherd King?
On the very occasion when the Jewish people of his day were celebrating the supremacy of the Temple, and its centrality in their religious lives, was Jesus suggesting that God’s presence actually dwells in the wilderness, out among the wolves, the thieves, the hirelings, and the smelly sheep? (In other words, among the outcasts, the irreligious, the ritually unclean, and the politically incorrect?) If so, what might this provocative teaching mean for us today? Where is our Temple? Where is our wilderness? Where are the places we assume God doesn’t dwell?”
As the Good Shepherd, Jesus loves the obstinate and the lost. He lives at the edges of polite society, out in the wild, untamed places of the world. His life remains perpetually in danger. He faces again and again the mockery and abandonment of the hirelings, who consider his self-sacrificial vocation absurd. Because he’s in it for the long haul, he not only frolics with lambs, but wrestles with wolves. He not only tends the wounds of his beloved rams and ewes; he buries them when their time comes.
In contrast “hired hands” are more interested in self above all others and in the false narratives of scarcity, insecurity, and fear they perpetuate. Their messaging is consistent: you do not have enough, you are not enough, you should be afraid, image is everything, you are what you own, etc. Beneath all of these various messages is a single and consistent demand: justify yourself! Your worth, your person, your very existence.
And then there is Jesus. In Jesus there is the consistent message that we are loved, that we are worthy, that we need not be afraid, that we are enough, we are children of God. Jesus offers himself as the good shepherd. And the proof of his fidelity is simply this: he is willing to lay down his life on behalf of the sheep. Five times in our reading we are told that the good shepherd freely lays down his life for his sheep. This shepherd intimately cares about each sheep, especially the lost one, and wants the flock to flourish as a whole. His love even extends to the sheep in other flocks. In the presence of Christ all are welcomed, tended, heard, accepted, watched over, and loved beyond death. It is a beautiful love upon which to model our relationships.
The Resurrection of Jesus upsets the balance of power— and every expectation—of the entire cosmos. Evil no longer reigns supreme. Death does not have the last word. Hope edges out fear. Should that not shape our very lives?
But that can be hard to believe. So many messages, so much money, are devoted to trying to tell us that we are not enough, that we are not worthy of love, that we need to earn acceptance. And it’s our job and privilege to name those messages a lie and to point to the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep — for us! — simply out of love.
But it is hard to believe at times. Let’s make no mistake about that. Which is why we should listen to even more of Jesus’ message: “I lay down my life for the sheep,” he says. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Jesus, in other words, didn’t come just for the original group of disciples. He came also for us, and we are now invited to hear and believe this message of grace and acceptance and to share it with each other and all those we meet.
Precisely because it’s hard to believe, though, I’m going to ask you to try something. It may feel risky for some, and so I think it’s worth explaining why we’re putting ourselves out there. Jesus’ message of love needs to be said again and again, not just by a pastor, but by all of his disciples. If we don’t remind ourselves of this message, who will? And so I’d like to suggest that each person turn to another, whoever is next to you or near you, and say these simple words, “You are a beloved child of God, and you are enough.” That’s it. “You are a beloved child of God, and you are enough.”
This is part of what it means to be the Body of Christ — to remind each other of God’s promises and speak Jesus’ message of love, acceptance, and grace to each other. And, who knows, maybe having had the chance to practice saying these words to each other we’ll find the courage to say them to others in our lives as well.
Jesus meets us where we are. Accepts us, zits and all. Jesus’ resurrection declares that death will not have the last word. That’s true, but it’s only part of Easter faith. Jesus’ resurrection means that he reigns, he loves, and he holds each of us in the palm of his hand. As a good shepherd, he has a remarkable stamina for staying on duty. And so we give great thanks for Jesus, our Good Shepherd, our source of power, and the One who holds us in his divine, loving embrace – now and always.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in in want.” Amen.
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