Fourth Sunday of Easter 2024
Texts: 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. The relationship between a shepherd and his sheep is probably the most common metaphor used in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and his people. While there may be many shepherds within the church there is only one Good Shepherd, and that is Jesus Christ.
When I was growing up we had neighbors who had sheep, and I once took an agriculture class to learn about taking care of them. I’ve sheared sheep, dehorned them, and even castrated a few. So, over the years I have learned a lot about sheep. Besides being really cute when they are lambs, and being docile, perhaps the most relevant thing I have learned about sheep and how much humans can be like them, is that they are not very smart. They really do need someone to protect them and take care of them.
One windy afternoon I was walking down a dirt road after school. I was going to take care of my horse who was on a farm about a mile away from our house. The wind was blowing and I began to hear what sounded like a baby crying. This was in the middle of open fields, there was no house around, but I kept walking. The baby sounded frantic, and I thought ‘what in the world?”, so I started following the cry. It was getting more desperate. I crossed a barbed wire fence, jumped over a small creek, and followed the sound of the cry up a hill to a stone wall. I looked over the wall and there was a small lamb crying with all its might.
There were sheep on my side of the wall and one of the ewes was looking a little distressed, but she was still grazing. I thought she might be the mother. Then I noticed a gap in the wall, so I went through it and picked up the lamb and brought it to her. All was well. And I thought what a dumb ewe that she couldn’t figure out how to go through the gap in the wall to get to her lamb. But that’s just the way sheep are.
I could go on and on about how dumb sheep are, but they do have other qualities. As I said they are docile, timid, and vulnerable. They need protection from predators and from the weather. Our neighbor used to bring newborn lambs into his kitchen on cold nights to keep them warm. Foxes were known to snatch the smallest lambs. Collies were trained to be in the fields with the sheep to bark and even chase the foxes away.
There are still shepherds and sheep in the Holy Land. There the shepherds stay with the sheep and take them to places to graze. At night to protect them the flocks of different shepherds are all brought into one sheepfold, which is most commonly surrounded by stone walls with a gap. One of the shepherds sleeps in the gap to keep the sheep from leaving. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
There are not so good shepherds too. The hired hand does not care for the sheep, and the sheep do not respond to his voice, and they often scatter. The good shepherd stays with the sheep himself, and he speaks to them through the day, and they come to recognize his voice. So, in the morning when it is time to leave the sheepfold to go to pasture, the sheep will follow their own shepherd. He calls them.
Jesus refers to those who believe in him as his sheep. We are very much like sheep, sometimes not very smart, and without our Good Shepherd, we can get into a lot of trouble. Our relationship with Jesus is based on how much time we spend with him, praying to him, seeking to be with him, in his presence, thinking about him. When we read the Gospels, we hear him speaking to us. We learn to listen to his voice, so we will recognize it when He speaks to us.
As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is the ultimate shepherd. He is perfect in his care for us, but we human beings are difficult sheep. We tend to ignore Jesus and go our own way. He offers to take us to the place where we will be safe and sound spiritually, the place where we can live wholesome, meaningful lives full of love and light and joy. Jesus intends for us to be happy sheep, and he willingly laid down his life for this. The pasture to which He is guiding us is the Kingdom of Heaven. In this life we may have glimpses of it, small experiences to encourage us on the way, to provide hope that we will finally reach our heavenly destination.
Jesus mentions that he has other sheep who do not belong to this fold. He says he must go and bring them also, and they will listen to his voice so there will be one flock. Many have speculated about what this means. The most likely explanation is that Jesus is referring to those who do not yet believe. We know that he has come for the salvation of the souls of all human beings, not just his own people, the Jews. Jesus intends to be the shepherd of all human beings. There are not multiple paths to God as many like to say in our time. Jesus has laid down his life for all of us, and we are all intended to be brothers and sisters in Christ, even those who currently hate us. I look forward to the day when the Body of Christ is complete.
One last thing about sheep. They will follow one another. Sometimes this is not a good thing, since sheep have been known to follow one another off a cliff like lemmings, but hopefully we are a little smarter than that. Most of us have been brought to a relationship with Christ through someone else, a friend, a co-worker, a mentor. We had some kind of relationship with that person who knew the voice of Jesus, and we could hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us through them.
This is a role we too can play for others. We first need to listen to our Good Shepherd, so we will know how to speak for him, to call others to follow him too. So, we pray and we study, and we worship, and we love one another, and some of us will teach the younger generations by word and example. None of us does this alone, we are all members of a flock that is trying to follow Christ. Amen.
