John 10:10, 11 * April 13, 2008 * Easter 4 * Pastor Leyrer

Good Shepherd/Festival of Friendship Sunday

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Dear Friends in Christ,

If you are familiar with the book or movie, A River Runs Through It, you might remember a scene when one of the two home-schooled sons of a Presbyterian minister is given a writing assignment by his father. When he is finished, his father reads it and makes some red line corrections. Then he hands it back to him and says, “half as long.”

So the son rewrites the article and shortens it. He presents it to his father, who looks at it and makes more corrections. Then he hands it back to him and again says, “half as long.”

The son returns for a third time… at which time the exercise was complete.

What the father was doing through this process was teaching his son to crystallize and condense his words so he could clearly communicate his message. He was teaching him to pare his thoughts down to that which was truly essential.

If we were to apply the same kind of exercise to the entire Bible – to pare it down to its core, its essence, its heart – I’m not sure we could do any better than the two verses from John we heard just a moment ago. They are words about Jesus by Jesus.

In fact, the truths communicated in these verses are so important and so basic to our understanding of Him that if these words were the basis for a high school or college course, we might call it

JESUS 101

Because they tell us…

1. Who He is,

2. What He did,

3. And why He did it

A few introductory words about this Sunday before we go any farther…

The fourth Sunday of the Easter Season (or the third Sunday after Easter) is set aside to reflect upon Jesus as the Good Shepherd, which is one of the best known and most beloved depictions of Him found in the Bible. Consequently the Gospel reading for today and the basis for this sermon is from John 10 – often referred to as the “Good Shepherd” chapter of Scripture.

The historical context behind these words is this: Jesus is distinguishing Himself in essence and purpose from many of the faithless religious leaders of the day. Whereas they were “bad” shepherds who were looking out only for their own self-interest and not that of the people they were supposedly to serve, Jesus says:

¹¹ “I am the good shepherd.” This statement of Jesus is extremely revealing.

This is actually one of seven great “I AM” statements made by Jesus in the Gospel of John. It is important for us to realize that every time Jesus talks like this He is making a powerful claim. The specific claim He is making is that He is nothing less than divine; that He is God. “I AM” is a declaration of divinity.

Our ears might not pick it up right away but the crowd originally hearing these words certainly would. They would instinctively know that with these words Jesus was referring to the Old Testament Book of Exodus. There, in chapter three, God declared to Moses at the burning bush that His name was “I AM THAT I AM.” So when Jesus leads off by saying “I AM,” everybody knew exactly what He was saying…

So what does this mean? At the risk of stating the obvious, Jesus is God.

On occasion you may hear someone suggest that Jesus was a great teacher or an enlightened philosopher or a man ahead of his time who paid for his revolutionary ideas with his life, like Socrates or any other “visionary” who was not fully understood by the people of his day. All that may be true of Jesus to some extent, but Jesus is more.

Some of you may know the name of the English author, C.S. Lewis. Having confronted the question of “who is Jesus?” in his own spiritual journey, he addresses this issue in a passage from perhaps his most enduring work, the book “Mere Christianity.” What he writes is a bit lengthy, but well worth sharing:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse… You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

The basic foundational teaching of JESUS 101, the bedrock fact He is making about Himself here and throughout Scripture and that He intends us to know is: Jesus is God. And if we need proof, go back three weeks ago. He did something only God can do. He rose from the dead.

“I am the Good Shepherd.” That’s who He is. Now He shows us the depth of His goodness by proclaiming what He came to do. “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

According to the Bible, the arrangement for living with God on earth is not particularly complex. It really comes down to this. Obey God or accept the consequences.

This is not overstepping His boundaries or intruding into our lives. After all, He is the Creator, and, as such, has a right to set the rules. Those rules have been clearly articulated in the Ten Commandments and other decrees He has given in Scripture. His expectation is that we will obey them. Because He is just and holy, failure to do so brings a severe penalty.

But we don’t obey them. In fact we can’t obey them. Because we are sinful. The definition of sin, according to the Bible, is lawlessness. We break God’s laws each and every day, in one way or another, if not by our actions, by our thoughts or our words – for which God holds us equally responsible as our actions.

“Nobody is perfect” is a line we use to justify our shortcomings, but God isn’t nearly as dismissive of our sins as we are. Sin is seriousness business in His eyes. Sin is a revolt against His will. It is the ultimate act of disrespect. Most parents will tell you what is the most personally hurtful and troublesome to them is when their children do not give them proper respect. Should God feel any differently?

Because God is just and fair and righteous, sin cannot go unpunished. “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible tells us. And the death spoken of here is more than just physical death. It is eternal death in a very real hell.

Yet the Bible tells us God is love. How do we harmonize the justice of God with the love of God? Enter the Good Shepherd. Jesus became one of us. First He lived the perfect life in our place; then He died the death we deserve. That last act is captured for us so beautifully in the little phrase: “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

The little word translated “for” is very significant. In Greek this little word indicates substitution and could easily be rendered as “in behalf of” or “instead of.” What Jesus is clearly conveying is that which took place on Good Friday when He did lay down His life “in behalf of” or “instead of” His sheep, us. As the Lenten hymn puts it:

What punishment so strange is suffered yonder!

The shepherd dies for sheep that loved to wander.

Or as we read in the prophet Isaiah: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Indeed, within that little word “for” is another basic truth of JESUS 101. What Jesus came to do was to suffer our punishment and die in our place to atone for and pay the penalty for our sins, so that, in words we find earlier in John, “those who believe in Him will have everlasting life.”

That’s the best news yet. Everything Jesus did gets transferred to the account of those who embrace Him in faith. In the eyes of God His perfection becomes our perfection, His righteousness becomes our righteousness, with the result being that on the day of our death the gate to heaven will swing open wide to receive us. That’s amazing grace.

And how that applies to each of us is the last point made in our text. In His own words here’s why Jesus did what He did: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus is Who He is and He did what He did so we might have a meaningful, purposeful, and confident life that begins now – and will carry on into all eternity.

People look for fulfillment in all kinds of external things. But what Jesus tells us is that true “fullness of life” cannot be found in holding a winning powerball ticket. It can’t be found in being the most powerful man or woman in the world. And it can’t be found in striving to make all our earthly dreams come true.

True “fullness of life” comes to those who know they are sheep of the Good Shepherd and everything that means. That’s the comfort and peace which belongs alone to those who can joyfully claim to be “Jesus little lambs.”

So often people – including us Christians in our weaker moments – find ourselves living in what we might call a “state of fear.” Some of those fears are relatively insignificant, but nonetheless personally bothersome: Fear of what people might think of us. Fear of making a wrong decision. Fear of being forgotten or overlooked.

Others can essentially paralyze us and suck the very joy out of life: Fear of the future. Fear of impending tragedy. Fear of being harmed. Fear that what is yet to come may be worse than what already is.

The message of our text is that we don’t have to live in a state of fear. The message of our text is that despite what our eyes see and our ears hear, regardless of the headlines and the ramifications we may feel they have for us as individuals and a nation, there is Someone minding the store. Jesus the Good Shepherd continues to be in the lead. And we are His beloved, provided for, and protected people. We are the sheep of His pasture. A flock secure in the promise that nothing can snatch us from His hand.

And that knowledge gives us renewed confidence and strength for the journey. We don’t have to be afraid. As the hymnist put it: “Have no fear, little flock.” Why?

Because there need be no fear for those who understand the basics… those who know the Good Shepherd… those who major in JESUS 101. Amen.