“I Am the Good Shepherd”
John 10:11-18
5/3/09
On this fourth Sunday of Easter we focus on Jesus as
Shepherd. And so the Psalm for today is Psalm 23, where David
begins, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” And in the Gospel
reading for today Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd, and then He
tells us what He does for us as the Good Shepherd. Jesus is our
Good Shepherd, not because we’ve given Him this Name or assigned
Him this vocation ourselves, but because the Father has done so.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd and does His good shepherding the way it was
laid upon Him by His Father to be and to do.
This often runs counter to what we want of Jesus as
our Good Shepherd. Take, for example, the word
“good.” Usually, what’s “good” is
contrasted with what’s bad, and we have our own ideas of which is
which. It’s good when we’re healthy; it’s bad
when we’re sick. It’s good when we win at the casino;
it’s bad when we lose. It’s good when we get a job we
like; it’s bad when we lose one. It’s good to have
money and the material necessities of life; it’s bad when we
don’t have such things. It’s good to have friends and
family who love us; it’s bad when we’re lonely. And
we could go on and on about what we believe to be good in this life, so
that when Jesus tells us He’s the Good Shepherd, we think we know
what He means. Jesus is good, we believe, because He
doesn’t allow bad things to happen to us (or at least not the
really bad things). I’m never going to get really sick,
I’m never going to suffer a lack of any physical necessities,
I’m always going to have a job that I like which pays me a decent
salary, I’ll never be lonely, and He may even make sure that I
win more than I lose at the casino. What’s more, in order
to bolster our belief that all this is what it means that Jesus is
good, we use words from the Scriptures like those found in Psalm 23
where David writes, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
want.” We conclude from this that our Good Shepherd will
never allow bad things to happen to us in this life and that we will
never suffer a lack of health, food, clothing, family, friends, or jobs
as long as Jesus keeps doing His good shepherding according to the way
we think He ought to be doing it.
But what happens when it seems that Jesus has failed
us, when our Good Shepherd appears to be a bad Shepherd by letting all
kinds of bad things happen to us? He doesn’t keep us from
getting sick and dying. He allows us to lose our jobs, our homes,
our friends, and our family members. He allows us to suffer lack
of money, lack of peace, lack of clothing, and maybe even lack of food
sometimes. What then of His promise that we shall not want, or
that He will give each day our daily bread, or that He will never leave
us or forsake us? What happens to our faith when our Good
Shepherd seems to behave more like the “hired hand” He
mentions here, or even worse yet, like the “wolf” that
snatches and scatters? When God seems to act more like the devil,
what then of your faith that Jesus is still the Good Shepherd?
If you continue to insist that Jesus act in a way
that you consider to be good, your faith will soon die.
That’s what happens when we read into Jesus’ words our own
ideas and expectations. When He no longer meets our criteria for
being a “good” Shepherd, He becomes an unreliable
disappointment and we have no more use for Him. If Jesus is not
going to be the Good Shepherd we want Him to be, then He’s not
the Savior for us.
But in today’s Gospel text Jesus delivers us
from our ideas about what it means for Him to be the Good
Shepherd. He empties the word “good” of our
definitions and fills it instead with what is truly good,
“God” good. He does this by telling us what He does
for us as the Good Shepherd...
By the way, Christianity has been robbed of its
Christ-centered focus, as Christians over the centuries have ceased
talking about Jesus and what He’s done for them and have talked
instead more about themselves and what they do for Him. But
Christianity (as its very name implies) is not about you, but about
Christ. And in this passage from the Gospel according to St.
John, Jesus talks about Himself. In almost every sentence
He’s the subject of the verbs. And in those sentences where
the sheep are the subject, they do what they do only because and as a
result of what their Good Shepherd has first done for them. Sheep
hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and they follow Him. But
they can only hear the Good Shepherd if He speaks; they can only follow
Him as He leads. Without the Good Shepherd speaking and leading,
the sheep would be lost, victims of the wolf, who would snatch and
scatter them. So sheep don’t talk about themselves or
anything they’ve done. They had all gone their own way,
when the Good Shepherd came looking for them, found them, and brought
them back to His fold. Sheep talk about the Good Shepherd and
what He’s done for them. That’s what Christianity is
all about.
So, what are the good things that our Good Shepherd
does for us according to His own words? The first thing He
mentions here is that He gives us abundant life. Again, if we
read our own ideas into the words “abundant” and
“life” we may be disappointed with what Jesus is really
promising us. The abundant life the Good Shepherd gives is the
eternal life that He pours into you until your cup overflows. It
is a life that is described by Jesus as knowing the Father and the Son
that He has sent. It is a life in which you are reconciled to God
through the blood of Jesus, in order that you may not die but live, and
that even though you die physically you will be raised from the dead as
Jesus Himself was and live and reign with Him forever in heaven.
You have this abundant life even if you’re sick, dying, and
lacking in the daily necessities of this earthly life.
You have this abundant life because the Good
Shepherd laid down His life for you. This is the good of Good
Friday. Jesus would be no Good Shepherd at all, if all He did was
give us everything we wanted and keep all the bad things from happening
to us. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, because of the good work that
He did for us on the cross - shedding His blood for our sins, the blood
with which He has cleansed us now in our Baptism and with which He
gives us to drink along with the eating of His body in His Holy
Supper. With the good work of laying His life down for you, your
Good Shepherd has saved you from the clutches of the wolf - the devil,
who was a murderer from the beginning and continues to prowl around
seeking whom he may devour. Your Good Shepherd has not only saved
you from jaws of the devil, but also from your own sins and from the
wrath of God. And even though it may appear at times that God is
your enemy because of the suffering you experience in this life, you
still have your Good Shepherd’s promise of eternal life.
You will never perish and no one will be able to snatch you out of His
hand. Not death nor life nor anything in all creation can
separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You are known by the Good Shepherd, and to be known
by Him is also a good thing; it means salvation. To those who
reject Him the Good Shepherd will say on the Last Day, “I never
knew you.” But here Jesus says, “I know my own and my
own know me.” Notice again that we can only know Jesus as
He has first known us and made Himself known to us. Here also the
word “to know” means much more than simply knowing about
someone. The Lord knows everything about everybody, but He
doesn’t know everyone as His sheep. Those whom He knows as
His sheep are those whom He has brought to the knowledge of Him as
their Good Shepherd through the proclamation of the Word about Him and
His good works for us.
And this is why Jesus says that His sheep hear His
voice and follow Him. Christians listen to Jesus’ Word,
they trust in Him, and they follow Him. Sometimes where Jesus
leads we don’t want to go. Ultimately, Jesus leads us to
the cross, which is where He went. Already through your Baptism
He is working to cause you to die to yourself and the lusts of your
flesh, in order to live as His sheep. But Jesus also has the
words of eternal life. The cross and death is not the end for
you. It was not the end for Jesus. He not only died, but
rose again from the dead on the third day. A dead Shepherd is no
Good Shepherd. If Jesus had stayed dead, you would still be in
your sins and your faith would be in vain. But as Jesus says, He
had the authority given to Him by the Father not only to lay down His
life but also to take it up again. Jesus did this good work of
overcoming death for you, so that you might not perish but have eternal
life. The Good Shepherd leads you with Him beyond the cross and
the grave to the resurrection of your body and the life of the world to
come, so that where He is there you, His sheep, may be also.
The Good Shepherd is not finished with His work of
bringing other sheep into His fold with the words of His voice.
The Gospel of the Good Shepherd and His good works continues to be
proclaimed today, and He even uses His sheep in this work of His.
He puts His words into your mouth, so that you might speak those words
to others, in order that they too might listen to the Good
Shepherd’s voice and be saved. And when you speak the Good
Shepherd’s words, those who hear those words hear Him.
Jesus makes that promise specifically to those to whom He has given the
office and authority to proclaim His Word publicly. On the day of
His resurrection He appeared to His disciples, breathed on them, and
said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of
anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it
is withheld.” When I as your pastor, then, as a called and
ordained servant of the Word and in the stead and by the command of my
Lord Jesus Christ say to you, “I forgive you your sins in the
Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” you
can know for certain that you are hearing the voice of your Good
Shepherd and that your sins are forgiven, just as if Christ Himself
were standing here in the flesh and speaking those words to you in
person. Having heard those words for yourself, you then can take
those words to those around you and speak your Good Shepherds’
words of forgiveness to them, that they too might trust in those words
and have the abundant life that only Jesus can give.
Today, then, as with every Sunday, you’re
hearing again the words of your Good Shepherd as He proclaims to you
what He has done and continues to do for you. He gives you
abundant life. This life is yours, because He laid down His life
on the cross for you, in order to deliver you from the wolf, your sins,
and God’s wrath. Not only did He lay down His life, but He
also took it up again, rising again from the dead on the third day,
overcoming death and the grave for you. He has called you by the
Gospel and created faith in your hearts, so that you are now able to
hear His voice, when His Word is proclaimed, and follow Him where He
leads. The Lord knows you, and you know Him. Yes, He
sometimes leads you where you don’t want to go. Sometimes
it appears that what He does for you is not good. But the cross
is not the end. You will not perish, but live. Your Good
Shepherd promises you the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting. Until then, He will work all things together for
your good, allowing no one and nothing to snatch you out of His
hand. Come now and feed on the green pastures of the rich food He
gives you at the Table He sets before you here in the presence of your
enemies, and know that His goodness and mercy will follow you all the
days of your life and that you will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever. Amen.