As I studied this Gospel lesson for the sermon today, I tried to get a mental picture of what Jesus was saying.  I pictured in my mind a shepherd watching over his flock of sheep, as they grazed on a hillside.  Then I pictured a wolf suddenly attacking the sheep.  At that point, I asked myself,  What would a good shepherd do?  Now, I don’t know much either about sheep or shepherds, but I can guess that most shepherds would not go over to the wolf and offer up their lives for the sheep.  Why should they?  A shepherd has the tools not only to direct the sheep, but also to protect them from predators.  A good shepherd would attack the wolf and kill it, not offer himself up as meat instead of the sheep.  Besides, after the wolf had killed the shepherd, what would hinder him from then killing the sheep now that there was no more shepherd to take care of them?  
   So it seemed to me that a shepherd who would lay down his life for his sheep would be a rather foolish shepherd, doing a very unnecessary thing by sacrificing his life, when he could easily kill the wolf and protect both himself and the flock.  Even David in the O.T., who was a shepherd himself before he was anointed king, remarked once to king Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father.  And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth.  And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.”  Why isn’t Jesus that kind of shepherd, killing the wolf rather than giving Himself over to the wolf?  Perhaps Jesus should be called the Foolish Shepherd rather than the Good Shepherd.
   But it is as St. Paul writes, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  God’s wisdom was revealed in the Good Shepherd laying down His life for the sheep and taking it up again.  Through the weakness of giving Himself over to the wolf on the cross our Good Shepherd’s strength was displayed as He overcame the wolf through that very act and as He came forth victorious from the grave on the third day.  But why He couldn’t have revealed His wisdom and strength by just killing the wolf?  Why did He have to give Himself to the wolf and let the wolf kill Him?  Because the wolf had a right to a kill.  The wolf is the devil.  The Lord is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep.  But we sheep are not the innocent things that our animal counterparts are.  Isaiah writes, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way...”  We are not good sheep.  We have rebelled against our Shepherd.  We don’t listen to His voice.  We follow after our own lusts.  We don’t delight in the green pastures to which He leads us or the still waters from which He gives us to drink, but we go after what looks to us to be greener, better pastures, and we drink from polluted streams.  And the Good Shepherd has to keep running after us to bring us back to the flock and the protection and food He provides for us.  To put it bluntly, we are more like wolves ourselves, biting and tearing at both our Good Shepherd and one another.  We have broken God’s commandments, we have not loved God or our neighbor as we should, and for this we deserve to be lunch meat for the devil; he deserves a kill and he knows it.  He’s got the Law on his side:  ”The wages of sin is death.”  And so even God cannot deprive this wolf his right to a kill.  A kill must take place.
   C.S. Lewis illustrates this well in his book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  In it the boy Edmund had become a traitor by betraying his brother and sisters to the White Witch.  When Edmund is rescued from her grasp, she asserts her right before Aslan the Lion to have Edmund the traitor; she deserves a kill.  The witch knows the so-called Deep Magic that is written on the Table of Stone.  She tells Aslan, “You at least know the magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.  You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill.”  The Deep Magic that is written against us is the Law of God which was written on tablets of stone at Mt. Sinai.  By our breaking that Law we have forfeited our lives; by right we belong to the devil.  We deserve to be devoured by him.
   But our Good Shepherd is good, because instead of giving us over to the wolf, He gives Himself over to the wolf as our substitute.  This is illustrated by C.S. Lewis in Aslan giving himself over to the witch to be sacrificed on the Stone Table instead of Edmund.  Edmund would go free while Aslan would die in his place.  But what was to protect Edmund after Aslan was dead?  The witch intended to then kill him, too.  The devil also thought that after he had put our Good Shepherd to death he could then go after us, the sheep.  What could prevent him, once Jesus was out of the way?  But like the witch, the devil did not know the so-called “deeper magic.”  Our Good Shepherd did not stay dead, but rose again on the third day.  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Aslan does not stay dead either, but comes back to life to fight with those who belong to him against the witch, and he defeats her.  He explains to Lucy and Susan that the witch was unaware that “when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”  
   Through His death and resurrection Jesus has defeated sin, death and the devil.  None can have us anymore, because they had the sinless Son of God.  Though we all like sheep had gone astray, God laid upon His Son the iniquity of us all.  Jesus became the sinner of all sinners in our place, and thus laid down His life for us as our substitute, allowing the wolf to have his rightful kill.  But God raised His Son from the dead on the third day, showing that the “deep magic” of the Law had been appeased.  Jesus fulfilled God’s Law.  He, the innocent, willing victim, was sacrificed in your place, raised from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for you with His blood.  You have been saved from your sins and from the clutches of the wolf, and even death itself has started working backwards, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus to be followed by your own resurrection when He returns.  It’s as St. Paul writes to the Colossians, “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him [that is, Jesus], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands [that is, the Law].  This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities [that is, the devil and his angels] and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him.”
   The wolf had his kill and yet was defeated in that very act.  He killed the Good Shepherd, but the Good Shepherd rose again from the dead.  And yet now, like the witch, the devil still thinks he can go after the sheep.  He prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  But he has no rightful claim to us now in Christ.  He will try to accuse you with the Law of God, even using it to show that you rightfully belong to him.  But you can simply point him to Jesus, your Good Shepherd, who laid down His life as your substitute and rose again from the dead to secure your delivery from the jaws of the wolf.  Provided we sheep continue to listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd and follow Him we will never fall prey to the devil.  Sheep remain under the protection of their Good Shepherd provided they don’t go wandering off into the wolf’s territory.  Our Good Shepherd protects us with His voice - His Word, heard through the proclamation of Him crucified and risen from the dead for us and through the administration of His Sacraments.  Here as we’re gathered in our Good Shepherd’s Name hearing His voice speak to us from His Word, He is providing for all our needs, making us lie down in green pastures, leading us beside still waters, restoring our souls, and leading us in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.  It’s interesting to note that of the four Gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000, John is the only one who mentions the fact that there was much grass in the place where they were all seated.  Why mention a bunch of grass?  Sheep eat grass, and here were the Lord’s sheep getting ready to be fed by their Good Shepherd.
   Your Good Shepherd is doing the same for you today.  Here He feeds you on His Word and upon Himself in His Holy Supper.  This is the table that He has prepared before you in the presence of your enemies.  In His Church your Good Shepherd is feeding you and caring for you through His undershepherds, your pastors.  A faithful undershepherd will protect you from the wolf by making sure to proclaim the Good Shepherd crucified for you and risen from the dead for your salvation.  A faithful undershepherd will make sure he is giving you the food the Good Shepherd intends you to have.  He will make sure the pure food of the Good Shepherd’s Word is not mixed with things that would be harmful for the sheep to eat.  And the sheep must make sure they know the Good Shepherd’s voice by knowing His Word, so that they won’t fall for the words of the wolf and be enticed away by him.  By knowing the Lord’s Word you will be able to tell when you hear His voice or the voice of another.  But if you go after other voices, you open yourself up to being a snack for the wolf.
   How do you know, then, whether you’re hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd or not?  Ask yourself if you’re hearing about what He did for you in laying down His life for you and taking it back up again.  In this passage alone Jesus talks about His laying down His life five times and His taking it back up again twice.  Jesus’ flock gathers around this Word.  When the sheep hear this Word they know that they are hearing the voice of their Shepherd.  The wolf is very active today trying to take this Word away from you with various attempts at deceiving you into thinking that Jesus did not die for your sins, that He was not true God in the flesh, that He did not rise again bodily from the dead, that this was all made up by the Church.  Furthermore, even in some of our own congregations it’s getting harder and harder to hear the voice of our Good Shepherd as the Gospel of Him crucified and risen from the dead for our salvation is watered down or lost in much of our teaching and practices in the Church.  Many pastors have become like hired hands.  A hired hand doesn’t care anything about the sheep, only himself.  He doesn’t care what the sheep feed on and will give them anything they want instead of what they need.  And when he sees the wolf coming he abandons the sheep, letting the wolf have his way with them.  
   But the sheep who know their Good Shepherd know Him by His Word, written down for us by the faithful eye-witnesses of His crucifixion and resurrection.  As John writes at the end of his Gospel, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name.”  Hear the words of your Good Shepherd again today, that He has laid down His life for you and raised it up again, and know that you who know Him in this way He knows.  And even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will have to fear no evil, for He is with you.  His goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  Amen.