The Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd by Rev. L. John Gable
February 24, 2019
I heard a story on the news recently about a man who fell through the ice on a frozen pond while trying to rescue his dog that had broken through the ice before him; fortunately both man and dog were successfully rescued. It seems though that there are two very distinct responses, so two kinds of people who hear a story like that. Those who say, “Really? What kind of a fool? It’s only a dog!”; and those who say, “Yeah, but it is MY dog!” I am not going to ask you to self-identify this morning.
As we continue our study of Jesus’ “I AM” statements in John’s Gospel we come to chapter 10 and notice that here He makes two such statements. You will recall last week we looked at His saying “I AM the gate”, the point of ingress in to a right relationship with God and the fellowship of the Kingdom of God; and of egress, the way of our going out again in to the world to find “good pasture”, the “abundant life” which Jesus alone can offer.
In our lesson this morning He continues and expands that sheep-tending metaphor as He identifies Himself as “the good Shepherd” and again gives a good historical description of the role and character of a shepherd. The responsibility of a shepherd is to provide for and protect the flock given in to his or her care, not a small task given the wandering nature of sheep and the remoteness of the wilderness areas in which they had to travel to find food and water. The image of the shepherd is woven throughout Scripture and nowhere more beautifully than in the 23rd Psalm where the Psalmist David writes, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” and goes on to describe the work of the shepherd leading the sheep to green pastures, still waters, right paths even through the valley of the shadow of deep darkness. Even those of us who know nothing of this kind of pastoral lifestyle can understand and appreciate the important work of the shepherd.
So Jesus claims that image for Himself when He says, “I am the Good Shepherd” who is willing to “lay down His life” for the sake of His sheep and He does so in contrast to “the hired hand” who runs away when “the wolf” comes, at the first sign of danger. The Good Shepherd, who knows and loves His sheep, is the kind who is willing to rush out on to the ice to rescue their pet who is in danger, in contrast to the hired-hand dog walker making minimum wage who quite honestly doesn’t really care about poor Rover at all. “Sorry about your dog!”
You might recall last week how when Jesus explained His role as “the gate” and then asked His disciples if they had any idea what He was talking about they admitted, “No”, they really didn’t, we could insert that same kind of question and confusion here. In the first part of this teaching Jesus gives a very earthy, practical explanation of how He is the Good Shepherd, but apparently the disciples still didn’t get what He was talking about, so He repeats His teaching again, referring this time not to shepherd and sheep, but to Himself as the Good Shepherd who knows and cares for us!
These few verses give us some of Jesus’ clearest teachings about who He is and what He came to do. Let me point you to three specific claims that Jesus is making here as He identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd.
First, He uses intimate, personal terms when He speaks of His relationship both with us and with God the Father. We read, “I am the good shepherd. I know My own and my own know Me.” Friends, Jesus knows us and loves us, each of us and every one of us. Think about that for a moment; that means that Jesus knows us by name and invites us, individually, personally, to know Him and love Him in response. It means He cares for us and watches over us; that He knows our needs and provides for us and protects us; that He recognizes our voices and hears us when we cry or call or pray. David was on to this when he wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd.” No one spoke like that in David’s day. Of course, they understood that God had called and claimed that people as His own, but they thought of themselves as a collective, as a nation, not as individual persons who God cared for; but David did. So he was able to write, beautifully, about the loving, caring relationship he enjoyed with God, and we can, too! We, too, can say, “The Lord is my shepherd”, because He knows me and loves me, and not me only, but each of us.
But then Jesus goes on to say, not only do, “I know My own and My own know Me” but “just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father.” Not only does Jesus claim and acknowledge a personal relationship with each of us, He also claims that same kind of “knowing” relationship with God. He uses language of familiarity and friendship and intimacy. There is no six degrees of separation here. If we want to get to know God we need only get to know Jesus. If we want to know what God is like we need only look at Jesus. If we want to know the character of God, the purposes of God, the will of God, we need only look to Jesus. Just as one friend is happy to introduce us to another, so Jesus willingly, gladly, purposefully introduces us to our Heavenly Father and He alone is in the position to do so. That is a remarkable claim and promise so is the first insight I want to share with you.
The second has to do with this rather ambiguous comment Jesus makes, “I have other sheep who 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.” Who is He talking about? I don’t pretend to know, but that’s just it; Jesus does, and He makes it clear that that they too are part of His flock, that they belong to Him. So I read this as a word of caution against any measure of judgmentalism on our part. We don’t determine who listens to Jesus and follows, only Jesus does; so we would do well to leave that to Him. Who are we to say what God has done, or is yet to do, in the hearts of another?
Perhaps you’ve heard this little poem:
“I dreamed death came the other night,
And heaven’s gate swung wide,
With kindly grace an Angel came,
And ushered me inside.
And there to my astonishment,
Stood folks I’d known on earth;
Some I’d judged and called “unfit”
And some of little worth.
Indignant words rose to my lips,
But never were set free,
For every face showed stunned surprise,
Not one expected me.”
Lest we find ourselves making judgments which are above our pay grade as to who is in and who is out, let us consider everyone we meet as either “one in whom Christ lives or for whom Christ died.” Who are we to say who has, or who one day will, come to believe? If the Lord has been patient with us, we must be with others as well.
So while that aspect as to who those members of other flocks might be remains somewhat ambiguous and open ended, what Jesus does make very clear here is that there is only “one flock” because there is only “one Shepherd”. Later in John’s Gospel we will listen in as Jesus prays in what rightly should be called “the Lord’s Prayer” because it is actually the Lord praying. And what does He pray for? He prays first for Himself, not selfishly, but that He might be able to fulfill the mission the Father has given Him; secondly, for His disciples, that they might have the faith and courage to continue the ministry He has given them; and finally, for all those who would come to believe in Him because of their witness, which we can rightly say includes us; Jesus was praying for us. And what does He pray, “that they all may be one.” Jesus prays that we may be united, “one flock” following “one Shepherd”, so that the world may come to believe. For this reason, we must be careful not to divide what Jesus desires to unite; that we not cause division or disruption in the flock, the Body of Christ, over petty issues of disagreement over polity or practice, given that anything that seeks to divide us pales in comparison to the One who unites us. So our focus must remain on Christ and Christ alone. Let’s hold on to that thought when we come to the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in one, holy, catholic Church.”
And, the third aspect of this teaching is perhaps the most important for it points us to the center of the center of the Gospel message. Five times in these eight verses Jesus references His “laying down His life for His sheep.” He is speaking of His own death – on behalf of His sheep – meaning us! Now admittedly the disciples did not understand what He was talking about, and how could they? They couldn’t and wouldn’t until after the Easter day and Pentecost, but we do.
Jesus is announcing the purpose of His coming, namely His death and resurrection for us and our salvation. Listen as He says, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father.” What Jesus is saying is that He is in agreement with God the Father as to the means by which we might be saved, forgiven and restored in to a right relationship with God, and there is only one satisfactory way; through His own death and resurrection. Why would He agree to this cruel and inhumane punishment and death? Only because He knows us and loves us; only because He is the Good Shepherd.
Listen to the claim and promise of John 3:16 in light of this teaching and it makes perfect sense. “For God so loved the world He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.” Because of God’s great love for us, the world, not just as a whole, but in part; not just as a collective, but for each and every one of us as individuals, that He gave His one and only Son to suffer and die so that we might be saved and enter in to the fellowship of the Kingdom of God both now and eternally, and Jesus went along with that plan; not because He had to, but because He chose to. He was willing to do that for us because He loves us, or as John Calvin put it, “Our salvation is dearer to the Son than His own life.”
We would be safe to say that this is perhaps the most essential of Jesus’ “I AM” statements because it so clearly identifies who He is – the Good Shepherd – and what He came to do for us – to lay down His life as the means to secure the way of our salvation. It reveals both His character and His purpose.
Now, lest we forget, we are taking a break in the midst of our study of the Apostles’ Creed, and trying to fill in the gap left by the comma between “born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate.” In part, we are trying to answer the question as to why nothing of Jesus’ life and ministry was even mentioned in the Creed; it literally jumps from His birth to His suffering and death, and perhaps our teaching today gives us good insight as to why that is so. The omission of His teachings and miracles and healings were not an oversight, but an acknowledge-ment that something else was more important still. The omission was for the purpose of emphasis. What is most essential for us, and the Church through the ages, to know and confess about Jesus? It is not what He said, as important as His teachings were, but what He did. The essential character of Jesus’ ministry is His death and resurrection; His willingness to lay down His life and take it up again. This is why Paul writes in I Corinthians, “I have decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”(2:2). It is not that Jesus’ words and deeds were unimportant, but that something else was more important still, so the writers of the Creed fast-forwarded to the center of the center of the Gospel message, that Jesus Christ came not merely to teach and preach and heal, but to “lay down His life and take it up again”. Why? Because He loves us. Why? Because He is the Good Shepherd, the kind who is willing to go out on the ice to rescue us.