Year B

John 10:11-18

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Riding With Jesus

A policeman in the big city stops a guy named Jack in a car with a sheep in the front seat. “What are you doing with that sheep?” He exclaimed, “You should take it to the zoo.” The following week, the same policeman sees Jack again with the sheep in the front seat with both of them wearing sunglasses. The policeman pulls him over. “I thought you were going to take that sheep to the zoo!” Jack replied, “I did. We had such a good time we are going to the beach this weekend!” When I first read this funny story, I believe I laughed for almost 5 minutes. Obviously Jack has a bond with his sheep. And although the policeman believes that the sheep should be in a zoo, Jack sees the sheep as more than just an animal.

All the readings today on Good Shepherd Sunday, attest to this close bond that Jesus has with his flock of sheep. Throughout the scriptures Jesus is revealed as a shepherd who not only will guide us throughout our lives, but because of his death and resurrection, can do something no one else is able to do. He is able to guide us out of death and back into life again. There is no higher expression of love than for the lover to go into death for the beloved’s sake, so that love and not sin or death would have the final word.  The love God has for God’s people reaches its highest point when Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the Divine Shepherd voluntarily lays down his life for his sheep.

This love and devotion provides not only protection for the sheep, but also physical and spiritual sustenance-as God cared for the Hebrews in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt. This Monday evening begins the Jewish holiday, Passover which commemorates the Hebrews liberation from slavery in Egypt.  God cares for our needs; thus the Psalmist can proclaim with confidence, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Such trust and assurance are grounded in God’s love entrusted to Jesus to bring life out of death. It is God’s love that defines Jesus and in describing himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus affirms both his love for and knowledge of his sheep.

It is the shepherd’s job to watch over the sheep and keep them on the right way as they are led from pasture to pasture. Keeping sheep goes back to one of the earliest human endeavors, and so the scriptures are filled with references to shepherds and shepherding. Adam’s son Abel was a “keeper of sheep” we read in Genesis; and Abraham traveled with his flocks. The stories of Jacob describe how he served his uncle Laban by caring for his flocks in order to earn the hand of Rachel. Moses met with God at the burning bush while tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro.

David was called from caring for his father’s sheep to be anointed by Samuel as king. The prophet Amos called himself a shepherd; and it was shepherds who came to meet the baby Jesus at his birth. The prophet Ezekiel tells how the Lord cares for the nation as a shepherd would care for a flock. And he promises that God will raise up a true shepherd for the people. John today in his gospel sees this prediction fulfilled in Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Jesus has come to earth to do God’s will and to reveal the love God has for God’s flock. But the flock is not limited to a few disciples in Galilee and Judea. There are other sheep that “do not belong to this fold,” who must also be included.

Jesus’ intent is that all sheep will hear his voice and follow him. Thus “there will be one flock, one shepherd” to receive his saving grace. There will be no separation due to race, culture, or social status. There will be one flock, and its one shepherd will be the Risen Jesus who has defined what it means to be the Good Shepherd. And as the message goes out from Jerusalem, the voice of the Lord will be heard and seen through the words and deeds of those who follow the Good Shepherd. The text from 1 John today echoes the words of John the apostle by writing that as those who have received Christ’s saving sacrifice through the cross, we, like the Good Shepherd, ought to “lay down our lives for one another.”

We are to show as much love for each other as Christ showed for us though his self-giving and loving care “let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” This love was seen in the bold actions of the Apostles when Peter and John healed a man born lame in the Act’s reading by commanding him to walk, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As they proclaimed to the crowd the power of Jesus, they were arrested and taken into custody. They were questioned by the religious authorities and asked by whose power they were able to perform this healing. “Filled with the Holy Spirit” Peter testified that his miracle was only possible through the power of the name of Jesus of Nazareth. In Him, there is salvation. God has acted on behalf of all humanity in Jesus Christ.

At the heart and the very foundation of our faith, the resurrection empowers us who put our trust in the Risen Christ. The resurrection makes us into the Shepherd’s sheep, into God’s children. It has formed us into the image of God, into Christ’s image. We no longer need to be obsessed about ourselves but can, instead, provide for the neighbor because of Christ’s love and because God provides for us.  We know true love. We have seen it shown to us through Jesus and we have the unique opportunity to mirror the love of the risen Christ for others. To live in that love daily; to look at the people in our lives as those who Christ gave his life for because of love for them. And thank goodness we can rely upon the greatest of all shepherds to be our hope and our guide as we seek to make our world a “better place.”

I may have laughed at the vision of Jack with his sunglass wearing sheep in the front seat of the car heading to the beach but after I reflected on that image I thought it pretty well depicted the love and trust, the bond God has for the sheep and the sheep for God. For Christ to be the Good Shepherd to us, we need to accept being his passenger sheep. There can be no greater vocation: the vocation to be a sheep for the Lamb of God who laid down his life only to pick it back up again as proof of God’s love for us, and our love is a response to God’s love. And this is as it should be, for Jesus’ new commandment was that we should love one another as he has loved us.