Tag: Good Shepherd

Jesus, the Good and Faithful Shepherd: Psalm 23 (Easter 4 Year C)

Psalm 23

Today, on a day when one of my churches celebrates its Church Anniversary, is a good day to consider the theme of God’s faithfulness. ‘Great is thy faithfulness,’ indeed. And when we come to the Lectionary today with Psalm 23 about the Lord being our shepherd and we also read from John 10 where Jesus is the good shepherd, we have an appropriate theme for considering God’s faithfulness. The Lord, our Good Shepherd, is the epitome of divine faithfulness.

And as we reflect on that now, we are going to recognise God’s faithfulness in the past, present, and future. Yes, Psalm 23 is written to express these truths to individuals, but they also work in terms of God’s faithful love to his people corporately, the church.

Firstly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our anxiety:

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.

As I wondered over the last few days what held some seemingly different ways here in which God provides for our needs, I came to the conclusion that the common thread was that these were all situations that can promote anxiety in us, but that God in his faithfulness gives us what we need, our anxiety subsides, and we learn to trust more in him.

Anxiety is there when we lack something, be it necessary income or food. I know that when my grandfather was out of work for five years in the depression of the 1930s, my grandmother would go without a meal herself for the sake of the children and would be on her knees praying that God would provide what they needed as a family. We know there were times when even at the very time she was praying someone would anonymously leave a food parcel by the front door.

Today, we live in a world of anxiety. You will all have seen the discussions  in the media about the rise in mental health issues, especially since the Covid pandemic and particularly among younger people. Prescriptions of the relevant drugs are on the increase, and costing the NHS more, leading some politicians to make cruel statements about over-diagnosis of certain conditions.

It is something I recognise in myself. When something troubling happens, my body reacts in negative ways before my mind gets the chance to analyse whether the presenting issue really is so bad after all and whether there is a solution anyway.

We are not immune from a corporate anxiety in the church, as we worry about the future.

It is surely, though, part of the Good News we offer to the world as the church today that the Lord our Good Shepherd is faithful to us in our anxiety.

In recent weeks, the Bible Society released a report that claimed there was what they called a ‘quiet revival’ of faith among young adults. There are probably many reasons for this, including a rebellion against the atheism of their parents. But could it also be true that as they were notably afflicted by the anxiety of the Covid pandemic as I said, that a Gospel which emphasises a Good Shepherd who is faithful to the anxious, who enables them to cast all their cares on him, is appealing to them?

So on a day when we rejoice in God’s faithfulness to us, let us consider how that might be a relevant message to new generations.

Secondly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our darkness:

4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Now I know we’re used to hearing not the words ‘the darkest valley’ but ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, but ‘the darkest valley’ is increasingly thought to be the best translation, and that surely includes ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ In the very darkest times of life, the psalmist says, God is with me and he comforts me. For the psalmist, the experience of darkness does not mean that the light is absent. Jesus the Light of the World is still present with us even at the worst of times. No wonder we often read this psalm at funerals.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest examples of the fact that Jesus is Immanuel, ‘God with us’, as the Christmas stories tell us. He came to share human life, and did so to the very worst, when he suffered that cruel and unjust death on the cross. And because he was later raised from the dead, he can be with us in our darkness.

And that is the simple promise: he is with us. Often in our dark times that’s all we want and all we need. Clever explanations can wait. The people who come up to us and blithely tell us that everything happens for a reason are no help at all. What we need is presence. And we get that from Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

We may say, ‘But God is silent!’ Yet he may be the silent friend who is just sitting with us in our sorrows. Are they not sometimes the best comforters? But simply by being there, Jesus the Good Shepherd is our comfort. He does not have to shout from the rooftops, and if he did we would probably not be able to cope with it. For his presence now shows that he has conquered death, and in our bleakest time that may be all we need to know.

You may have heard preachers talk about the medieval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich. In her lifetime she witnessed the devastation of the Black Death, and at one time, around the age of 30, she was so ill she thought she was on her deathbed. But she recovered – or was healed – and afterwards wrote down her account of some visions she received from God when she was close to death. Out of that experience came perhaps her most famous words: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’

That is the testimony of one who knew the presence of the faithful Good Shepherd in the darkest valley.

And that too is part of what we proclaim to the world. Jesus suffered and died in the very worst way, but he was raised from the dead, and will faithfully accompany all who trust in him in even the worst seasons of their lives.

Thirdly and finally, we consider God’s faithfulness in our mistreatment:

I’m avoiding the word ‘persecution’ here. It is that for millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, but for those of us in the west, the opposition that comes our way is really not strong enough or fundamental enough to warrant the word ‘persecution.’ So I have settled on ‘mistreatment’: that may not be a perfect word, but I hope you get my sense, when the psalmist says,

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

We do face opposition and ridicule, and occasionally some forms of discrimination because of our faith. Many older Christians grew up in a society where there was more common acceptance of values that had some connection to the Christian faith, even if the faith was only honoured more in the breach. But that common acceptance and understanding has not been present in our society now for some decades. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when we are explicitly faithful to Jesus Christ today, that will sometimes attract enemies to us.

What we have here is that in the face of the ridicule and humiliation that comes with being treated unjustly for our faith, Jesus the Good Shepherd in his faithfulness to us honours us. That’s why there is a table for us in the presence of our enemies. That’s why the psalmist speaks of having his head anointed with oil: that was what happened to the honoured guest at a banquet.

So, when elements of the world turn against us – and they will, from time to time – God in his faithfulness still dignifies us with honour. He values our costly witness. He is proud of us when we stand up for him and it hurts. He knows when we have paid a price to stay faithful, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Naturally, we would like the situation remedied. Sometimes we shall get justice in this life, but not always. If what happens is we simply get the strength to stay true to Jesus under duress, we can be sure that there is another and greater banquet coming in God’s New Creation when he will prepare a feast for us and honour those who have continued to say yes to Jesus even in the most demanding circumstances.

In conclusion, what is our response? The final verse of the psalm gives us a pointer:

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    for ever.

Here we have in summary this promise that the Good Shepherd will faithfully continue to be with us, as his goodness and love pursue us. The believer ‘will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’ – that is, we shall do all we can in response to live in the presence of God. Yes, God pursues us, but also yes, we pursue God in gratitude for his faithful love. In worship, prayer, and Scripture, both together on Sundays and in small groups, and on our own during the week we seek to draw close to the presence of our faithful God.

But not only that: the ‘house of the Lord’ language should not deceive us into thinking this is purely in the context of the church building or merely of overtly religious practices. Since Jesus is accessible everywhere since the Resurrection and Ascension, we can live in his presence everywhere, too. And so our pursuit of the God who has already pursued us is an activity and a discipline that we follow not only in the church but also in the world. Yes, we ask, how would Jesus want me to love him in the church, but also, yes, how would Jesus want me to love him in the world?

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The Good Shepherd, John 10:11-18 (Easter 4 2024)

John 10:11-18

The story is told about a group of tourists on a coach in the Holy Land.

“Oh, look,” said one excitedly, “There is a flock of sheep on the hillside. Doesn’t that make you think of all those lovely Bible passages about the sheep and the Good Shepherd?”

“Yes,” replied another, “but why is the shepherd following them shouting at them and beating them?”

The tour guide interjected. “That’s not the shepherd,” he enlightened them, “that’s the local butcher.”

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel reading is always a part of John 10, where Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd. The Lectionary being a three-year cycle and with us currently being in Year B, we get the second of three chunks this year, so we’re not picking up the passage right at the beginning.

Of course, this chapter is much loved, and over the centuries Christians have taken much comfort from knowing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I have, for one, not least when I was struggling with the pain of the neck injury that prevented me from taking my A-Levels.

But although it is comforting, it is not entirely cosy. As well as the comfort, there is also challenge in these famous words of Jesus.

Firstly, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep:

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

We are used to hearing that Jesus died for us, as he says here. But have you noticed how this is different from other New Testament passages? This does not couch things in terms of Jesus dying for our sins – there are plenty that say that – but as Jesus dying to protect us.

Why? The sheep need protection from the wolves, and a hired hand will not stand in the wolf’s way.

And why would Jesus say this? Because he knew there were plenty of wolves in his day, and plenty of religious leaders who would only act as hired hands who did not care for the sheep.

Indeed, you only have to go back to John chapter 9 to find wolves or hired hands in the form of those Pharisees who objected to Jesus healing a blind man on the Sabbath. They would rather sling the healed man out of the synagogue than accept that they had created rules which went beyond God’s commandment to honour the Sabbath.

In fact, you could probably say that the expression ‘Good Shepherd’ was a polemical one. It had good Old Testament precedent in Ezekiel where God says that he himself will shepherd his people, because those who were supposed to do so were not. Jesus aligns the leaders of his day with those whom God condemned six centuries earlier.

Today, some wolves are easy to spot, like millionaire TV evangelists telling poor people that their way out of poverty is to give to them in order to be blessed financially by God.

But others are less easy to spot. Like those who alter our doctrines or undermine the Scriptures, while sounding plausible and intelligent, but falsely claiming that only their view is intellectually credible. At this point, true shepherds have to protect the flock, even if it is costly.

Jesus the Good Shepherd laying down his life for the flock specifically protects his people from the wolf-like claim that lusting after power and force are the ways to change things for good in the world.

What is this like? I turn to someone who, if you know little about him, might seem an unlikely source. Many of you will remember the 1960s folk singer Barry McGuire, most famous for his membership of the New Christy Minstrels, his song ‘Eve of Destruction’, and his association with the Mamas and the Papas – the line in their song ‘Creeque Alley’ that said ‘McGuinn and McGuire were just getting higher’ was about him and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.

Well, a few years after that, Barry McGuire found his freedom not in drugs but in Jesus Christ. And in one concert, he talked about the death of Jesus as being like a shock absorber, absorbing human lawlessness. He then said that when Christians experience the shock of evil in this world, we have two choices: we can either get mad, or we too can absorb the shock to protect others.

Secondly, the Good Shepherd knows his sheep:

14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.

What makes for a true sheep-shepherd relationship? Mutual, personal, intimate, knowledge.

It is thus not enough for us to say we are religious. All sorts of people believe in God – even the devil, as the New Testament tells us. And we know that religion can be co-opted by politicians and others who use it to cultivate influence and power for themselves, rather than knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Similarly, it’s not enough to be a churchgoer. It’s possible to participate in religious practices and rituals without having a personal connection with Jesus the Good Shepherd. The outward form only has meaning if there is an inward reality.

To know the Good Shepherd means to recognise that he knows us just as deeply as he knows the Father (verse 15) – as one song puts it, ‘You know me better than I know myself.’

And in response, we engage with him, and we listen to him. As far as we know how, we put aside the existing filters we place on the world to hear him for who he is, rather than squeezing him into our preferred mould.

This becomes particularly important when we are considering the ethical implications of knowing the Good Shepherd. If we lean politically to the right, we may hear more Jesus’ call to personal morality. If we lean to the left, we may more easily hear his call to social justice. But Jesus gives us no such either/or options. It’s both/and.

Therefore if we want to draw closer to the Good Shepherd – and why wouldn’t we want to be nearer to the One who repeatedly said ‘Peace be with you’ after his Resurrection? – we need to invest in the spiritual disciplines. Prayer and Bible reflection in church, in small groups, and alone. Making sure we put into practice what we have heard. Reflecting on how we are progressing as disciples. The sacraments. And so on. All these help us to know more closely the Good Shepherd who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Thirdly and finally, the Good Shepherd has other sheep:

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

Now before anything else let me knock on the head the idea I have often heard about this verse, namely that Jesus is opening up the possibility that there are many ways to God, in its most crude form the notion that all religions lead to God.

This is not what he is saying when he says he has other sheep not of this sheepfold. We can see that from the fact that he goes on to say that he wants to bring the other sheep into the one sheepfold under him, the one shepherd.

It would also be crazy to suggest that Jesus advocates a multi-faith route to God from a verse in John’s Gospel, where elsewhere he says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.

Sure, the Gospel may present as many different facets of one diamond, but ultimately there is only the one Gospel: that there is a new king or Lord of the universe, his name is Jesus, and he reigns in love and mercy, not by brute force and power.

So no: by bringing the other sheep into the one sheepfold under the one shepherd here, Jesus is anticipating the Gentile mission. Gentiles will be ‘grafted in’ to the people of God, as the Apostle Paul put it in his Epistle to the Romans. The population of the sheepfold is going to increase, because Jesus has made that possible by laying down his life as the Good Shepherd.

But how was the Good Shepherd going to bring other sheep into the sheepfold? That was going to happen after Pentecost, when the Gospel would be preached in Jerusalem, in Samaria, and later to the ends of the earth. The responsibility is delegated, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to those who draw close to him.

A legend tells of Jesus returning to heaven at the Ascension and being quizzed by the angels.

“Master,” asked one of the angels, “what happens to your mission now that you have returned here to heaven?”

“I have left that in the hands of my followers,” replied Jesus.

“But won’t they mess it up, Lord? Won’t they fail you, won’t they lose courage, won’t they forget what they’re meant to do? What is your Plan B?”

Jesus replied, “I have no other plan.”

In conclusion, perhaps what sums this all up quite well is the thirteenth century prayer of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester. I’m sure you know it or will recognise it:

Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.

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Fourth Sunday of Easter: The Good Shepherd

This week we consider the famous ‘Good Shepherd’ passage. Why think about this in the Easter season? Because Jesus references his death and resurrection, and what flows from them.

John 10:11-18

As many of you know, my plans for university at the normal age of eighteen were interrupted by the sudden onset of serious neck pain. One evening, sitting in a prayer meeting, I gravitated towards the armchair most likely to give me some support and relief – one that elderly people usually sat in.

A lovely member of that group called Peggy saw my pain and quoted the words with which today’s reading began: ‘I am the Good Shepherd,’ and led a prayer for me. So I know first-hand the comfort this passage brings to people.

Yet what I’ve discovered over the years is that these comforting words are also challenging words. So today we’re going to meditate on both the comforting and challenging messages of these verses.

The first thing to observe is how Jesus teaches here about his divinity. Right from the opening words, ‘I am’, we have a claim to divinity. Those two words may be unremarkable in English, but you may recall that God revealed himself to Moses as ‘I am’. There are then seven ‘I am’ sayings in John’s Gospel, and what we don’t see in English is one particular feature of the Greek. If you wanted to say ‘I am’ in the ordinary sense in Greek, you just needed to say ‘Am.’ But adding in ‘I’, the personal pronoun, gives it added emphasis that echo the Old Testament notion of God as ‘I am.’ In the ‘I am’ sayings, the Greek uses that emphatic ‘I am’ rather than simply ‘Am.’

This claim to divinity is bolstered by the title ‘Shepherd’. Of itself it isn’t necessarily a divine title, because the rulers of Israel were commanded by God to shepherd the people[i]. However, the rulers were given the title ‘Shepherd’ as derivative from the Lord, under whom they served. The ultimate ‘Shepherd of Israel’ was God himself[ii]. This was also deeply personal, most famously in Psalm 23, ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd.’

Therefore when Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, he is taking on for himself a title that ultimately belongs to God himself. Combined with emphatically saying ‘I am,’ Jesus is making it abundantly clear that he claims divine status for himself.

All very interesting, you may think, but what does it mean for us and what did it mean for the first hearers? Quite simply, if Jesus is divine, then we owe him our allegiance. It’s hinted at later in the passage when Jesus is talking about ‘other sheep that are not of this sheepfold’ (verse 16). He says, ‘They too shall listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’

So the other sheep are listening, but not them only: Jesus said, ‘They too will listen to my voice.’ His assumption is that not only will the other sheep listen, they will listen, because the original sheep are listening intently in the first place.

And for all who act as under-shepherds in the church among God’s people today, we are therefore not only to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd for ourselves but also obey that voice and furthermore encourage or urge those in our care to obey his will.

The second observation in Jesus’ teaching here is his love:

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (Verse 11b)

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.’

Note all those references to Jesus laying down his life. Risking one’s life is honourable and to be applauded, but to lay down one’s life demands more. When we risk our lives, we put ourselves in harm’s way and we may be killed or maimed, or we may survive unscathed. But in laying down one’s life, death is certain. He will die, and he will do so voluntarily. He is not a political protestor who happens to get caught and executed, but one who willingly presents himself. He could have prevented it, but he doesn’t.

The word ‘love’ is not explicitly used for these actions, but when the good shepherd is contrasted with the hired hand who will run off with his wages rather than protect the flock from danger it’s clear that Jesus is in this for love, not money.

For reasons that Jesus doesn’t explain here (we must go elsewhere in the New Testament for answers) the protection of the flock from harm can only be achieved by the sacrificial love of the Shepherd.

So the Lord himself is willing to put himself in harm’s way for the sake of those who will be saved.

What sort of response does that call for from us? For one, surely it leads us to a sense of wonder and worship that God in Christ has done this for us. How can we not ‘sing the wondrous story’?

For another, remembering that the life of Jesus is a model for us, we know from this that he calls us to love in sacrificial ways, too. Many of our Christian sisters and brothers around the world still lay down their lives for their faith. While that seems far less likely for us and I pray such trials never come our way, should not each one of us ask what we have sacrificed out of love for Jesus and love for his people?

None of us can give up our lives for the salvation of the world, but we are called to love because Jesus has shown love. Christian disciples respond to God’s love in Christ by showing that we are in this for what we can give, not what we can get. That’s what distinguishes shepherds from hired hands.

What am I giving up out of love for Jesus and his people? Can I answer that question?

My third observation is that Jesus teaches us here about his mission:

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Here Jesus looks beyond the sheep in the immediate courtyard. These are not secret believers in other religions, as if all religions are valid ways of coming to God, because the second part about ‘one flock and one shepherd’ rules that out. This is about the mission to the Gentiles that will take place after the Ascension and Pentecost.[iii]

The sacrificial love of the divine Shepherd is such that he wants to draw all into his flock. His death is the effective way to bring all who will respond to follow him. Not only does he know those who are already part of his flock, he knows all people, and so he calls them, inviting them to recognise his voice and follow what he says.

And the relevance for us is this. While sometimes Jesus reaches out to people in unusual, direct ways – for instance, I’ve heard accounts of him appearing in dreams to people and calling them to follow him – mostly he works through human intermediaries, who are empowered by his Spirit. And you know who that means. Us.

Therefore, when we accept the call to join the flock of Christ and tune into his voice as the way to know how to live, part of that includes the fact that he speaks to us about sharing the news of his self-giving love with the world.

That doesn’t mean we all go knocking on doors. It doesn’t mean that quiet people have to become loud. Nor does it mean that we all have to know all the answers to all the objections to our faith (although a bit more studying of our faith by many of us would surely do no harm).

But it does mean that we all have a privilege and an obligation to be bearers of Christ’s good news to the world in our words and our deeds. It is a wonderful story we have to tell of a God who was so concerned about the alienation between him and his creation that he took the pain of reconciliation entirely upon himself.

Some of us will find it easier to talk about Jesus than others. But if we are not so fluent with our words and start to get nervous at the thought of talking about our faith, we might want to reflect on Who it is we are talking about and what it is he did for us. Does the cost of our nerves stack up against the price Jesus paid on the Cross?

[i] See, for example, 2 Samuel 7:7, 1 Chronicles 17:6

[ii] See, for example, Genesis 49:24, Psalm 80:1, Jeremiah 31:10, Ezekiel 34:1.

[iii] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-the-good-shepherd-leads-his-sheep-in-john-10/

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