Our Good Shepherd

I assure you, he who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The watchman opens the door for this man, and the sheep listen to his voice and heed it; and he calls his own sheep by name and brings them out. When he has brought his own sheep outside, he walks on before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will never [on any account] follow a stranger, but will run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers or recognize their call. Jesus used this parable with them, but they did not understand what He was talking about. So Jesus said again, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that I Myself am the Door [a]for the sheep. All others who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to and obey them. I am the Door; anyone who enters in through Me will live. He will come in and he will go out freely, and will find pasture. The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance until it overflows. (John 10:1-10)

I imagine that most of you have seen a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. The fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday in most churches, so almost all of the Bible lessons concentrate on teaching us that Jesus is our Good Shepherd.

Most of us probably don’t know anything about sheep and shepherds, but the people in Jesus time did; those people who couldn’t hold a job or were social outcasts were shepherds. Shepherds and sheep dotted the fields outside villages. Almost every town had a sheepfold or sheep-pen, a small fenced-in area, often made of stone. This sheepfold or sheep-pen had an opening, but usually no gate. If a shepherd near a town, he made his own sheep-pen with bushes and briars – a circular pen with no gate. When evening came, he would gather all his sheep into the pen. But with no gate, how did he keep the sheep in and the wolves and thieves out? Easily! He slept in the opening himself so anything or anybody attempting to go in or out would have to go over him.

To the people in Jesus’ time, the image of Jesus as their Good Shepherd was something that they could relate to and they would understand when Jesus said he was the gate. . . the gate for our live. Nothing can get into our lives that he can’t protect us from or see us through.

If we are going to look at Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we’d also better look at us as the sheep. What do you know about sheep? Three words, all starting with ‘s’ will answer that question:

• stupid,

• stubborn, and

• stinky.

Trying to keep a bunch of sheep together would be sort of like trying to take a bunch of toddlers to the zoo. Preschool teachers try to keep their class together by having a rope with each child holding on? But sheep don’t hold ropes and where they want to go, they go. They will wander off, chasing butterflies and not know where they are. They have no sense of direction so can never find their way back to the pen.

What they want to eat, they eat - poisonous or not. Unless the shepherd clears the grazing field of poisonous weeds, they’ll eat them.

As their wool gets longer, it smells like a grungy sneakers or well-used socks. Being compared to sheep is not really a compliment. But we all have been lost, and Jesus comes and gathers us all back in to the safety of the pen.

The hardest thing the Shepherd has to protect us from is ourselves and our own foolishness. Verses 2-4 tell us that the Shepherd knows the sheep by name, they know his voice, and they follow him. Remember on the first Easter when Mary Magdalene was outside the empty tomb weeping and she mistook the risen Christ for the gardener? How did he get through to her? He called her name. That’s what he does for us. Jesus knows the name of every one of us here today.

But what if our lives are too busy to hear him? Or, worse yet, what if we don’t want to hear him? When our conscience says, ‘don’t do this’ or ‘go with him’ or ‘take that’ or ‘ participate in that’ or ‘say what you’re about to say’ or ‘do what you’re about to do’. You hear your conscience, but you ignore it and do whatever you know you shouldn’t do. This is when our Good Shepherd reels us back in, not with the shepherd’s crook, but by calling our name.