The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. AMEN.
John 10:1-16 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. {2} But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. {3} To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. {4} When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. {5} And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” {6} This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them. {7} Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. {8} “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. {9} “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. {10} “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. (NASB)
It is Good Shepherd Sunday and this year the assigned reading is limited to the opening verses of Jesus’s Good Shepherd sermon. It stops short of one of the most comforting verses in all the New Testament, namely. 11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep,” and 14 “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” Then later in the chapter, 27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.” (Jn. 10:27-28).
These statements from Jesus are among the most comforting in all the New Testament. They teach us what kind of God we have and just how far Jesus was willing to go to save and protect us from evil and from God the Father’s judgment. But as is often the case, we restrict the “context” passages to the words themselves and fail to to understand the full context to help us understand what Jesus is teaching.
Today is the Fourth Sunday in Easter. Thus it is John chapter 10 Sunday. But if we are going understand what Jesus is teaching here, we need to revisit the Gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, John chapter 9 Sunday because the Good Shepherd sermon came right on the heals of one of the longest, most detailed, and controversial episodes in Jesus’s earthly ministry. The healing of the man who had been blind from birth.
By the time we get to John 10:1 we are in the middle of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus had healed a blind man on the Sabbath. At first the local Pharisees tried to prove that it had all be a hoax, but failing that they then accused Jesus of being a law breaker, an unrighteous man, who acted contrary to the will of God by breaking the Sabbath law by working as a physician on the Sabbath. Just before Jesus begins His Good Shepherd sermon Jesus tells the Pharisees who oppose Him that they are spiritually blind and remain in their sins.
From there Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.”
Now the sheepfold is a pretty large walled in area. Local shepherds would join together and build a pen large enough to hold several flocks. The walls were made of stone, usually four to five feet high. The top of the wall was usually covered with thorny vines to discourage people from trying to climb over.
Sometimes one end of the pen had a shelter to protect the sheep against the elements. At the other end, a single door. The sheep pen protected the sheep from predators, wolves, and sheep stealers. The opening was guarded by a man in the stead and by the command of a shepherd. His job was to make sure that only that only the rightful owners of the sheep had access to them.
As beautiful and comforting as the image of Jesus carrying that little lamb in His arms is, the first lessons to be learned by the Good Shepherd sermon is that there is the Good Shepherd. That the Good Shepherd is also the door to the sheep pen. There is the sheep pen itself–the church– the Jesus is the door to the church. (The Word and Holy Baptism) There are sheep who occupy the pen. There are shepherds–pastors. There are wolves and there are sheep thieves and robbers. We the hearers of the sermon are suppose to take all of these elements seriously.
I know that this takes a lot of the religious naivete and nostalgia out of the Good sermon, but faithfulness to the text, to what Jesus was actually preaching and teaching require it. This sermon is about doctrine and false teachers. It is about religious leaders who take and twist and distort and deny the Gospel of Jesus Christ and turn the Christian Faith into rules and regulations that place the burden of salvation on the individual. In this first section Jesus is fighting off the thieves and robbers who have climbed over the wall.
This section of the sermon ought to conjure up the image of Jesus using the business end of the shepherd’s staff beating off robbers and thieves. The Jesus carrying a sheep on His shoulders belongs to another parable.
The Pharisees are the thieves and robbers in sermon. They were religious teachers and task masters who had usurped, unseated the doctrine of the Law and the Gospel, who had used their God-given authority to enslave the people to a corrupted view of the Old Testament. Jesus the true and Good Shepherd had come into the world and they were terrified that the sheep would listen to His voice and follow Him. The wolves and thieves could not tolerate this.
And how is the sheep pen today? It is a lot emptier today than it was just a few decades ago. Not just here but all across the West. It is empty because the shepherds and the sheep too allowed and even invited the thieves and robbers into the pen. 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
I know that congregants grow weary of pastors like myself issuing warning after warning against bad theology, bad so called church services, bad philosophies, bad fads, and all the “isms”of the day. Yet, we do it and you the faithful listen because Jesus Himself did it and mandated that we keep issuing the warning and you keep listening to the warning. “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
Sheep have the ability to distinguish between their shepherd’s voice and the other noise traveling through the air. They hear and follow.
This whole situation got started because of blind beggar who, though lacked understanding as to Who it was exactly that had given him sight, he still understood that Jesus the Nazarene was a man from God. When pushed to denounce Jesus and with threats hanging over his head and the heads of his family, he remained defiant to the thieves and robbers. Each time they pushed him to accept their doctrine, their religious and moral view of Jesus he refused. They made good on their threat. They excommunicated him.
9:35 “Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ 36 He answered, ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?’ 37 Jesus said to him, ‘You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.’ 38 And he said, ‘Lord, I believe.’”
And Jesus makes it clear to both the sheep and the false shepherds who now stand before Him, that He is the Good Shepherd, He is the Door, He is salvation, and that all others dangerous frauds.
{7} “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. {8} “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. {9} “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
The law does not bring life. The law brought death. So many church bodies, congregations, and sheep have been lost to false teachers and the a corrupt use of the law. Where in liberal churches that deny the fundamentals of the faith or in the mega church growth assemblies where the burden for salvation is placed on the individual and the Bible turned into a book of principles for success and sanctification, the law always kills.
This is what Jesus mean when He said, “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.”
Acts 2:42 “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. . . 46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple.”
The Good Shepherd came to give life. 1 Peter 2:25 “For you were continually straying like sheep but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the care taker of your soul. Through the sacrifice of the Good Shepherd, you were not only turned you from a goat into a sheep through the water and the Word, you have been placed into the sheep’s pen, the Church. He placed at the door of the church true under shepherds, who stand in His stead feeding and fighting for the sheep. 1 Peter 5:2 “Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness.”
All this Jesus did so that He could enter through the door, the pastoral office and the means of grace to forgive you sins and to give you life abundant. The robbers seek to steal and destroy your life in Christ. The Good Shepherd does just the opposite. You are the sheep of His flock. The Good Shepherd comes through the door of the pastoral office and the means of grace. Through that office He feeds and protects you with His word and Sacrament. All this as 1 Peter 5:4 says so that “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” And He will and so you will.
Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.