May 2, 2004

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

JOHN 10:11-30

*The story is told about a pastor who was enjoyed telling stories to the children. He’d bring all the children to the front of the sanctuary, they would sit on the floor, and he would tell them a story. One day he said: “Boys and girls, I want to tell you a story about someone who likes to live in the woods, but sometimes we can see him in our yards. He has a big bushy tail, and likes to eat nuts. Anybody have any idea what I’m talking about?”

No takers.

He said: “I’m talking about a creature that lives in the woods, sometimes in our yards, big bushy tail, eats nuts, likes to climb trees, jumps from tree to tree – now, does anybody know what I’m talking about?”

One kid raised his hand to take him out of his misery. The pastor said: “Do you know what I’m thinking about?”

The kid said: “Yeah. I know the answer should be Jesus, but it sounds like a squirrel to me.”

That’s a little of how it is with the Gospel of John. Just when you think you know what the answer should be, a different meaning presents itself. As you read through John you find that it is full of double meanings and multi-layered levels. It’s very different than the other three gospels. I heard one pastor say: “If Matthew, Mark, and Luke are Rembrandts … John is a Picasso!” That is because they have a different purpose.

John’s purpose was to prove Jesus’ was the Messiah sent from God. But he used symbolism and metaphors to communicate that message. The symbol John employs here is that of a shepherd with his flock.

Understanding God as the Shepherd of his people was not new for John. We have a history of that in the Bible. Psalm 23 tells us: “The Lord is our shepherd, we shall not be in want.”

In 586 B.C. the Babylonians (modern day Iraq) invaded Jerusalem and conquered Israel. They deported many of the Jews to Babylonia and they spent many years in exile. During that time one of their prophets was Ezekiel.
God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel to call the leaders of Israel into account. The accusations were scathing: “You only think of yourself! You have neglected my sheep! They have been attacked by wild beasts! You’ve left them alone to take care of yourselves!” God was comparing and contrasting good and bad shepherds. Bad shepherds only look out for themselves and care about their needs. Good shepherds take care of the needs of the sheep.

Because the leaders of the people have not been good shepherds, God tells them that he will now be the shepherd over his people: “For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD . I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak …

I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd.” Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-16, 23 (NIV)

You may say: “Wait a minute. King David has been dead for 500 years at this point. What does God mean by ‘my servant David will be their shepherd’?” He is giving the messianic promise that Jesus will come to be the Good Shepherd of his people.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke came along in the New Testament and picked up on this theme of Jesus being the Good Shepherd. Matthew 9 connects Jesus’ healing ministry with his shepherding heart: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36 (NIV)

Luke 15 tells of a shepherd who leaves the 99 safe sheep in the fold to go look for the one lost sheep.

And now, in John, Jesus’ says: “I am the Good Shepherd.”

*I was raised in the city. I don’t understand what it means to be a shepherd or deal with sheep. I’ve lived without manure on my shoes my entire life. I wanted to find out first hand what it was like. And so I spent some time visiting with a sheep farmer just outside our town.

One of the questions I asked him was: What are the characteristics of sheep? He said that it is not uncommon for sheep to get lost. It reminded me how much we need a shepherd. We need a shepherd in our lives because we are prone to get LOST. We have a tendency to stray. Isaiah 53 says: “We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.”

We often think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. We literally nibble ourselves lost! We want to go our own way. We need a Good Shepherd to find us and bring us back home.

My sheep farmer friend also reminded me that sheep need to be guided. We need a shepherd in our life because we need GUIDANCE. A good shepherd does not drive the sheep – he leads the sheep. Sheep dogs are sometimes used to round up the flock, but that is never the best way. They tend to panic. The best way is to get out in front and let the sheep follow.

We need a shepherd in our lives because we need PROTECTION. We need someone to take care of us. We can protect ourselves from some things and we can guard against others, but in the grand scheme of things we need someone looking out for us. We need someone willing to dive into the river after us when we’re floating downstream to the waterfall. We need a protector!

In ancient Israel sheep pens were built either alongside a house or cliff with high rock walls and fencing, forming a secure place. That was to protect the sheep at night from wild animals or thieves. There was only one way in and one way out, and it was an entry at the front of the pen.

The only legitimate way to get to the sheep was through that entry. Anybody or anything that climbed over the walls was only there to harm the sheep. And so after the shepherd had made sure that his entire flock was safely in the pen, he would then lay down in front of the entryway, risking his own life, to protect his flock. He was literally saying: “To get to them, you’ve got to get through me first!”

Now the only reason I can think of that a shepherd would risk his own life to protect the sheep is if the sheep belonged to him. That’s called OWNERSHIP! That’s different than someone who simply watches somebody else’s sheep. Jesus talks about the difference between a hired hand and the Good Shepherd. Hired hands will go along for awhile to protect the sheep, but not so far that they risk anything significant.

In fact, Jesus says the hired hand runs away at the first sign of danger. The Mishnah stated that a hired shepherd was required to defend the sheep if one wolf attacked the flock, but if “two or more” wolves attacked the sheep, that person had no legal responsibility for any damages and all he was responsible for was to hightail it out of there and save his own skin.

And you can’t blame someone for taking off if the sheep don’t belong to him. He’s interested in wages, not sheep. He is not deeply concerned for their welfare. He’s not involved in their situation. He’s there for a paycheck, and so if it comes down to his life or the life of the sheep, it doesn’t make any sense to stick around.

But it’s also interesting to note that while a Palestinian sheep owner may be willing to risk his life for his sheep, it was probably a fairly rare occurrence for someone to actually GIVE their life defending their sheep. And the reason is very simple. If he loses his life defending one or two sheep, it means disaster for the rest of the flock. And therefore, it wasn’t uncommon for a shepherd to realize, “I can’t save them all, so it’s better to cut my losses than lose the entire flock.”

There’s not anything wrong with that. A good shepherd may risk his life, but he doesn’t give it. But Jesus isn’t just A good shepherd, he is THE Good Shepherd. And that’s a very important difference because THE Good Shepherd is not only willing to get involved in our lives, and take a risk, he is willing to give his own life on our behalf!

He lays his life down because we are HIS flock! We are the ones he has bought and bred and doctored and protected! He is invested in us, in more ways than one! And thank God for that because we don’t just need a shepherd committed to our welfare … we need a Savior committed to our eternal destiny. He is THE Good Shepherd because his death means life for his sheep!

In the Good Shepherd we find someone to give us guidance, give us protection, to lay his life down for us, and who knows us so intimately that he knows us by name. And part of the way we know him so intimately is because we recognize his voice.

I think that’s the part of shepherding that intrigues me the most. As has already said, the sheep were kept at night in a sheep pen, and more often than not, more than one flock shared the same pen. And then in the morning each shepherd would come and take their particular flock out for grazing. I couldn’t figure out how they kept from getting the sheep all mixed up.

And then I read something very interesting from a man named G.A. Smith who spent time with shepherds in modern day Palestine:

“Sometimes we enjoyed our noonday rest beside one of those Judean wells, to which three or four shepherds come down from the mountains to water their flocks. The flocks mixed with each other, and we wondered how each shepherd would get his own again. But after the waterings and the playing were over the shepherds one by one went up different sides of the valley, and each called out his peculiar call; and the sheep of each drew out of the crowd to their own shepherd and the flocks passed as orderly as they came.”

The shepherd’s voices were how they divided the sheep. The voice was the difference. In fact, sheep not only do not respond to the voice of a stranger, they actually run away. Modern travelers in Palestine have even dressed up in the shepherds clothing and attempted to imitate his call, but still the sheep would run away. That’s because sheep know their shepherd’s voice, and do not respond to that of a stranger.

Jesus said: “My sheep know my voice. They hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” That is a picture of discipleship and trust. When Jesus calls our name, and we recognize his voice, we come running to follow after him. There’s a lot of comfort in that.

*I remember well a cold and blustery January morning. My wife rolled over in bed and said: “I think it's time.” My sister came to stay with our other children, and sliding on icy streets we took off for Shawnee Mission hospital. And at 6:46 a.m. my second daughter was born (I have picturesJ).

She came into the world, the same way she'll probably leave the world – kicking and screaming. There were six people in the delivery room besides my wife and I. And after it was clear that our daughter had ten fingers and ten toes, that room went ballistic.

Noise was everywhere. It was a circus! Nurses were laughing, doctors were joking, my wife and I were crying, there were machines clanking around, and then there was our little girl ... she was screaming at the top of her lungs as if she’d just stepped barefooted into a mousetrap.

I watched as they took her to the side to be cleaned and weighed. That only made her scream louder. She was already a prunish color when she was born, and the more she screamed the purpler she got! Her eyes were wide open and wild. She was panicky. The nurses kept trying to calm her down, but she just got worse. I thought: “It's a little early to give her a Valium. J”

I didn’t know what else to do, and so for the first time in the delivery room, I called out her name – and I spoke it softly and gently.

I said: “Madison . . . Daddy loves you.”

And would you believe it? INSTANTLY she stopped her crying. For the first time in her 10-minute life of breathing her own air, she stopped wailing. And she turned her head in my direction and listened intently. It was as if she were saying: “That voice is strangely familiar. I've that heard that voice before. ”

And it dawned on me . . . she HAD heard it before. She had heard my voice whispering to Christi’s tummy for nine months (It’s a stomach until it has a baby in it, then it’s a tummy J). And so when she heard my voice again, even in the commotion of that chaotic moment, she became calm and comforted.

Listen: “My sheep know my voice. They hear my voice, and they follow me.”
And friends, there have been times, in the chaos of my life that the only thing that sustained me was the tender voice of Jesus above the confusion, which said: “David ... I love you. It’s all right. I’m right here.”

*This past Thursday I was watching CNN, trying to get caught up on war news. One reporter, embedded with the troops in Kuwait, was talking about a few early SCUD missile attacks. He reported that sitting in the bunker with those young men, that’s when war became a reality for them. He said that many of the soldiers were clearly afraid for their lives.

It reminded of a missionary email I had recently read describing the last few months of fighting in the Middle East.

“The result of the fighting and killing has left a profound sense of discouragement that hovers over the country. Several times we have come into closer contact with this conflict than our comfort zone allowed. Yesterday a friend shared with us something she observed that was a delightful reminder of God’s care for us. She watched a shepherd caring for his flock near the area where guns are fired. Every time the shots rang out the sheep scattered in fright. The shepherd then touched each of them with his staff and spoke calmly to them, and the sheep settled down immediately because they trusted the shepherd. And then another shot sounded, and the same routine happened again. Each time, the sheep needed the shepherd to orient them again and to reassure them they were safe.”

It made me want to tell those young soldiers, about a Good Shepherd who reaches out and touches us with his staff, speaking words of calm and comfort.

Let me ask you: Do you need guidance today? Protection? Comfort? Are you afraid? You have a Good Shepherd in Jesus who has laid down his life for you!