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A Meditation on the

Good Shepherd Discourse

The Fourth Sunday of Easter: Good Shepherd Sunday                                         May 15, 2011

Text: John 10:1-10                                                                             The Rev. Dr. Ross M. Wright

We have just heard the promise that the Lord is our shepherd, and more wonderfully, that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. But what exactly does this mean?  How is God for us and with us in our daily lives?  It is not immediately obvious that God cares for us as a shepherd cares for his flock.  I have served congregations with the name, “Good Shepherd,” for well nigh 20 years.  So as you can imagine, I have preached quite a few sermons on Good Shepherd Sunday, from the 10^th chapter of John.  And yet, every year, I am aware that I must come again to this familiar text and listen afresh for what it has to say about life with the Good Shepherd. 

If God is our shepherd, then we are his people – “the sheep of his pasture.”[1]  It means that we belong to him.  It means that in all our striving to be somebody and to make our mark in the world, we can rest in this: there is a place for us to stand in this world – we are the sheep of his own flock.  It means that this little flock gathered here this morning, and the congregation that meets weekly at the corner of Forest Hill and 43^rd are not lost or forgotten to God. 

The flip side is that because we belong to God, “God has a claim on us . . . He has the right of ownership.” [2]   We are not our own.  We have been bought with a price, the price of his own blood.   “The security and comfort that the Lord is there for us can only be known as we give ourselves to him as his own.”[3]  Do we want him to be this kind of shepherd?  Maybe we would prefer to have him as a hired hand.  But God will not have it this way.  He will not allow us to use him as an idol.  We can have him as our Shepherd only as we have him as our God. 

If Jesus, the Christ, is our good Shepherd, it means that there is a hedge of protection around us.  Nothing can happen to us that he does not allow.  We know that many times he has protected us from going down wrong and destructive paths (going places “I should not let me go,” James Taylor).   And there must have been many times we were not aware of when he stood at the gate with flaming swords to keep out some unknown menace. 

To be honest, sometimes it is hard to believe that the Good Shepherd is a hedge against evil and misfortune.  Satan has asked for permission to sift us like wheat, and at times we are sorely tempted: [4] when someone we love is ill; when we are facing a financial crises or a crisis in our vocation.  At these moments, we may find it hard to believe that the Good Shepherd is there for us.   The promise is not that we will be protected from all harm.  The promise is that, no matter what happens, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.[5]  No matter what happens, nothing or no one will be able to snatch us out of the Lord’s hand, as Jesus promises later in this chapter.[6]  This is the confidence that rings out from Martin Luther’s great hymn, A mighty fortress is our God:

let goods and kindred go,

this mortal life also;

the body they may kill:

God’s truth abideth still,

His kingdom is forever.[7]

“My sheep hear my voice; I call them by name, and they follow me.”  The Lord Jesus knows us.  He knows us through and through.  He knows us better than we know ourselves.  And the way he lets us know that he knows us is by calling us by name.  Throughout scripture, one of the ways God conveys his personal knowledge is that when he calls someone, he says the name not once but twice.  And so, for example, when the Lord speaks to Moses from the burning bush, he says: “Moses, Moses.”[8]  Later, when he calls the young boy Samuel, who is asleep at the altar of God, he says: “Samuel, Samuel.”[9]   When the Risen Christ appears to Saul (whom he renames, “Paul”), as he is breathing threats against the church, the Lord’s first words are “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”[10]

This knowledge that God has of us is reciprocal – because he knows us, we also know him.  When he speaks, we recognize his voice.  You would not seek him if you did not already know him.  You have always known him, even when he has seemed strange or distant.   We are driven by the quest for knowledge.  Everybody wants to be an expert or an authority on something.  In this quest, sooner or later, we are confronted by the Lord, who says: I am.  I am the good shepherd.  I am the one for whom you seek.  At the bottom of your relentless striving for knowledge is the search for me.[11]

Now, there are times in the life of every believer and every congregation when we have a hard time hearing God’s voice.  We are assaulted daily by a cacophony of voices, all clamoring for our attention and vying for our allegiance: Follow me!  This is the way!  Which of those voices is the Lord’s voice?   When many churches and Christian leaders seem so confident that they know the way, but we know that we cannot go with them, we may wonder: How does God reveal himself to the contemporary church, and how do we discern his will?  We need the grace of God to hear and recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd and then follow where he leads.  The knowledge of God comes from obedience; and obedience leads to deeper knowledge. 

            “I am the door; anyone who enters through me will be saved; and will go in and go out and will find pasture.”  The Good Shepherd promises not only the security of the sheepfold; he leads us out, and gives us a field for active service.   This field is a pasture, where we are free to roam, free to exercise our gifts.  One of the greatest compliments that God pays us is giving us meaningful work to do.  When we know that we are using our God-given gifts and aptitudes to serve others, we know that our work matters and that we matter.   This applies not only to our occupation (what we do from nine to five, as it were) but also to our larger vocation, which includes our relationships with friends, and family, the influence that we have been given, and the use of our spiritual gifts for the upbuilding of the church. 

Again, honesty compels us to admit that at times, we feel hemmed in.  The ground in our particular field of action seems hard, unfruitful, and unpromising.  We may live with regrets and resentments that we lacked the necessary opportunities to make full use of our gifts; or that we squandered those opportunities that we were given.  At times, we chafe at our limitations.  We may feel resentful towards people who are more successful than we.  But sooner or later, the Good Shepherd will make the rough places smooth, the crooked ways straight; and reassure us that our work is not in vain.  He will open our eyes to see how he is at work in the commonplace, often trivial tasks, and how he uses us in those tasks.  The life of faith means living not for the things that are seen and passing away but for the things that are unseen and eternal.[12]  There are moments when, by the grace of God, the things that are “seen and temporal. . . shimmer into a transparency” which shines with the things that are unseen and eternal.[13] 

Finally, if Jesus is our Shepherd, and we are his sheep, then his care for us extends to the very limits of our existence.  He is for us “now and in the hour of our death.”[14]  We can be confident that when we have breathed our last, the prayer offered at the end of the burial office will be answered: “Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming.[15]

How can we be confident of this?  Because the One who is our Good Shepherd was first a sheep in the Father’s fold.   The Good Shepherd was first the lamb, sacrificed for us.  Now, he sits at the right hand of God the Father, no longer the victim but the conqueror. 

May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant: make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight; though Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen. [16]