“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away - and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
(John 10:11-18)
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I’d like you to imagine for a moment – just imagine it – that you’re going to have some type of major surgery tomorrow. Perhaps it’s brain surgery or something equally serious. You’d surely feel just a little bit apprehensive going in to the surgery. But how would you feel if you found out that the doctor performing the surgery had lost every patient he had ever performed the procedure on? At the very least a lot of questions would come to your mind, and that bit of news wouldn’t ease your apprehension at all. When we place our lives into someone else’s hands we want to be assured that the person we’ve chosen to trust is approved, knowledgeable, skillful and caring. Those things are important at a time like that. Now I want you to think about Jesus. Jesus was concerned with both body and soul, you might say, and Jesus was often disturbed by the quality of spiritual care people were receiving from what you might call spiritual quacks whom he saw as destructive and uncaring, and he was equally disturbed by the easy willingness of so many people to turn themselves over to these quacks for spiritual care. In Jesus’ eyes, those who fell under the care of these spiritual quacks became like sheep without a shepherd, or at least like sheep who were being cared for by a shabby and incompetent shepherd. There were a lot of reasons why some shepherds might not make the grade. They either weren’t up to the responsibility of being shepherds or they weren’t interested in it but had to do it to make a living. Basically, Jesus’ attitude seems to have been that the best shepherds were those who actually owned the sheep they were caring for. Philip Keller, in a book called “A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23,” writes about these kinds of shepherds, from his personal experience of having seen what he called “tenant shepherds” (people hired by the owners of the sheep to tend them because the owners didn’t want the lifestyle anymore) during visits to Israel:
… He was not concerned about the condition of his sheep. His land was neglected. He gave little or no time to his flock, letting them pretty well forage for themselves as best they could, both summer and winter. They fell prey to [wild animals.] Every year these poor creatures were forced to gnaw away at bare brown fields and impoverished pastures. Every winter there was a shortage of nourishing hay and wholesome grain to feed the hungry ewes. Shelter to safeguard and protect the suffering sheep from storms and blizzards was scanty and inadequate, They had only polluted, muddy water to drink. There [was] a lack of salt and other trace minerals needed to offset their sickly pastures. In their thin, weak and diseased condition these poor sheep [were] a pathetic sight. In my mind’s eye I can still see them standing at the fence, huddled sadly in little knots, staring wistfully through the wires at the rich pastures on the other side. To all their distress the [shepherd] seemed utterly callous and indifferent. He simply did not care. … He ignored their needs – he couldn’t care less. Why should he – they were just sheep – fit only for the slaughterhouse.
Those shepherds being described by Keller, of course, are the bad shepherds. It’s kind of traditional that during the Season of Easter, many churches lift up the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. During Easter we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, and it’s the risen Jesus who guides and directs and protects us as a good shepherd does his sheep. We reflect on this image during the Season of Easter, because Easter is the confirmation that Jesus meant exactly what he said – that he would lay down his life for his sheep, and by so doing he would safeguard their lives and gain new and eternal life for them, which would be the proof that Jesus is “the good shepherd.” This is the promise to which we as Christians cling – that “the good shepherd” is watching over us and will never abandon us.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus over and over expressed concern that the people of God were being poorly cared for by unauthorized, uncaring and incompetent shepherds – what Keller called tenant shepherds who couldn’t care less about they sheep in their care - and in response he became “the good shepherd,” and his goodness was demonstrated by the close and personal relationship that Jesus had with each one of his sheep. For whatever reason (and I think it’s unfortunate) in the United Church we tend to react against that image of the “personal relationship with Jesus” - but it’s very much a part of Jesus’ teachings. We find it in this passage. Jesus knows the sheep by name. Jesus knows their natures; Jesus knows their needs. Jesus placed himself in jeopardy for the sheep he was caring for. In all those ways, Jesus demonstrated that he was “the good shepherd.” But what I’ve wondered at times is whether that description goes far enough. Maybe “good” is too tame for Jesus. Maybe we need to speak of him as being more than just “good.” In fact, even some of the authors of the New Testament understood that simply calling Jesus “the good shepherd” wasn’t always enough. In 1 Peter 5:4, for example, Jesus is referred to as “the chief shepherd,” and in Hebrews 13:20 Jesus is referred to as “the great shepherd.” So what was it that made those authors elevate Jesus from “good” to “chief” and “great”? Well, we’re in the Season of Easter – and surely, in the light of his resurrection, it was simply that the disciples had begun to grow in their understanding of who Jesus was. Maybe while he was alive, they thought of the “shepherd” as a gentle and pastoral image (which is often the overly romanticized image we have of Jesus today) but the resurrection made them understand that Jesus was more than just gentle and pastoral – he had authority and power and strength. There are two things in this passage, I think, that point out why Jesus is better than good.
The first thing Jesus stresses in this passage is his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of the sheep under his care. In the course of just eight verses Jesus tells his disciples five times that he would give himself for their sake. There have been a lot of explanations offered over the centuries for WHY Jesus was killed. Some say it’s because the religious leaders were jealous of him, some that the political leaders were afraid of him, some that it was just a miscarriage of justice, some that it was a necessary blood sacrifice that God required, There are probably a lot of other reasons out there. But for Jesus – at least in this passage – the important thing seems not to be to explain why the crucifixion happened; the important thing was simply that it happened and what it symbolized. The cross was his decision, he went to it willingly and he did it for the sheep of his pasture. He could have resisted; he could have said no; he could have come down from the cross – but he didn’t. He willingly gave himself for the sake of his sheep. I may have explained the way shepherds in Jesus’ day looked after their sheep before. If I have and you’ve heard it, feel free to tune out for a few seconds. There were no pens or fences 2000 years ago. The shepherd literally herded his sheep from place to place. Eventually, as each day drew to an end, the shepherd would herd his sheep into a cave or other secure place for the night, and the shepherd would sleep by laying across the entrance. Anything that would harm the sheep would quite literally have to go over or through the shepherd. The shepherd’s life was at risk – especially during the night. He would give his life in defence of his sheep. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Jesus was arrested at night, when shepherds would have been most vulnerable.
The other remarkable thing to note from this passage is that Jesus didn’t just give himself for one particular group of people. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Those who follow the same Lord can have an almost ridiculously diverse set of different beliefs and different practices and different understandings and different interpretations. We often think about this as either a problem to be overcome or as a reason to think ourselves better than those we disagree with, but from Jesus’ perspective it’s neither. Maybe Jesus sees what we might refer to as “unity in diversity.” He’s one shepherd who owns many flocks and all the flocks are united by their common devotion to him and his devotion to all of them – even though no two of the flocks are exactly alike. Perhaps Jesus realized that some believers would find some truths to be more important or more meaningful than other truths. There an old saying – “if you have one believer you have a Christian, if you have two believers you have a Christian church and if you have three believers you have two Christian churches.” That didn’t seem to have bothered Jesus. The unity he desired among his followers was not that they’d all be identical, living in the same pen. Rather, it was that all of them would understand that, regardless of their differences, they have the same shepherd.
This passage really offers us the basis of Christian unity – the core of our common identity as Christians, regardless of whatever other labels we might place upon ourselves or others. What holds us together is that Jesus – our “good shepherd” - laid down his life for us all, and that by his willingness to do this he overcomes the things that so often divide his followers. Ultimately, he brings all the sheep – sometimes in spite of ourselves – into the same pen. That makes him more than just a “good shepherd.” He’s the “great shepherd” or the “chief shepherd.” Jesus is better than good. He’s the best shepherd of all!
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