“The Good Shepherd”
John 10:11-16
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.” In Latin, the word for shepherd comes into English as “pastor.” So Jesus is saying here, “I am the Good Pastor.” He is your real pastor. Those of us who bear the title of “pastor” are simply undershepherds, for we serve under Him who is the Chief Shepherd. And as such we are given to carry out His bidding – to teach and preach only Jesus, and to give Him away in all the ways He wants His people to have Him. In today’s Epistle reading, Peter wrote (I Pet 2:25), “You were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” So, your true pastor and true bishop is none other than Jesus Christ.
So, what is it that makes Jesus the Good Shepherd, the Good Pastor? Well, first of all, Jesus is not like a hireling. The hireling doesn’t own the sheep; he is just there to earn a paycheck. He doesn’t really care at all about the sheep; he cares only about providing for himself. And when the wolf comes to attack the sheep, the hireling flees and runs away. He is not about to sacrifice himself for these miserable sheep. He will let them fend for themselves, and he is going to do whatever it takes to save his own sorry hide.
This is the picture of all so-called “pastors” who are only in it for personal gain and self-advancement and the honor that the position brings. As long as all is going well, everything is fine for the hireling-pastor. But when the wolf comes, when the false teacher and the false teaching enters into the fold, the hireling-pastor avoids the conflict and deliberately decides not to defend the flock. Instead of exposing the wolf and his lies and half-truths, instead of condemning sin and calling for repentance, instead of telling the truth no matter how many toes get stepped on, the hireling-pastor seeks dialogue and compromise. He becomes a “Rodney King theologian,” and says, “Can’t we all just get along?” In the end, these clowns allow the saving truth of Christ to be watered down and diluted which brings great harm to the sheep. The hireling runs away from the battle; the hireling seeks peace and growth at all costs so that his own desires and agendas will continue to be fulfilled.
Yahweh God condemns this type of “ministry” in no uncertain terms through the prophet Ezekiel. In the words just prior to today’s Old Testament reading, Yahweh says “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Behold, I am against (such) shepherds, and . . . I will deliver My flock from their mouths.” (Ez 34:2, 10)
The image pictured here is one where the shepherds are not feeding the sheep; rather, they are feeding on the sheep. These shepherds do not bring their sheep into the rich green pastures of God’s pure Word rightly taught and God’s Sacraments rightly administered. Instead, they allow them to be fattened up on pop spirituality for the benefit of their own appetites. Every pastor, including myself, should be brought to repentance through these words of Yahweh God.
Our Lord Jesus is not like a hireling. He is the Good Shepherd. He cares deeply about the sheep. He created and formed the sheep, and He loves them as His own. On one occasion, when Jesus saw “the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Mt 9:36).
That is what we are by nature: weary and scattered. It is as Isaiah writes (53:6), “All we like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way.” By nature, we do not like following a shepherd. By nature we want to choose our own path. We want to run our own show. We want to go our own way. We don’t want to be led.
But in the process of doing that we become mindless sheep, following the crowd to destruction. Untended sheep will always follow each other, circling over the same paths until that pastureland is completely trampled and useless. They will starve to death before they know what is happening. In the same way, when we follow the broad path of the world, we will eventually find ourselves spiritually empty, starving, and lost.
But even though we have gone astray from our Shepherd, Jesus does not leave us alone; He does not leave us to fend for ourselves. He comes for us. He seeks us out. He knows that we sheep have no real way to defend ourselves or to save ourselves. Sheep can’t run very fast to escape from predators. They have no powerful paws or jaws to fight with. In the end, they’re an easy meal for a bear or a wolf or a mountain lion.
So also we pitiful sheep are defenseless against the predators of sin, death, and the devil. We cannot run; we cannot fight for long. And in the end, Satan and the grave would devour us.
But our Good Shepherd stepped in. He had compassion on us. When the predators were set to attack us, He stepped between them and us to protect us and save us. That is ultimately what Jesus was doing for us on the cross. The Good Shepherd gave His life for us sheep. The predators lunge at us. Sin and death and the devil attack us and seek to destroy us. But Jesus stepped in and took that ravaging and hellish attack in our place. He bore the full brunt of the attack so that the flock would be left unharmed and spared. Like David the shepherd boy who killed both the bear and the lion with his sling and his knife, so the Son of David, our Lord Jesus, brought our predators down to the place of death and overcame them by the power of His blood, rising victoriously over them on the third day for the life of His sheep.
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And as it is written in Revelation 7:17, “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their Shepherd and lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” With Christ as our Good Shepherd, we can be certain that when we die, we will be with Him in heaven where no sin, death, crying, sorrow, or sickness will ever trouble us again.
I read once where a traveler in Europe had noticed a carving of a lamb on a stone on the tower of a church. He had seen such carvings of a lamb before, but never in this kind of a place. Asking for an explanation, he was told that in the days when the church was being built, one of the workmen lost his footing and fell from the scaffolding just when that particular stone was being laid. His fellow workmen thought he would be dead or severely injured, but when they hurried to the ground, they were shocked to see the man standing there brushing off the dust from his clothes. He had fallen into a flock of sheep that was passing by. Pointing to a lamb at his feet, the workman said, “That lamb was crushed, but I live.” The workmen carved a lamb on that stone so that all who see it would remember the miraculous escape of the workman.
In the same way, the curse of our sin and death fell completely on Christ. It is by His death that we live. And so we still sing to the risen Jesus in the Divine Liturgy every week” “O Christ, thou Lamb of God, who takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.”
In today’s Gospel Jesus said, “I know my sheep.” That doesn’t just mean that He knows who you are generically; it means that He knows you intimately, even better than you know yourself. He knows your struggles. He knows your heartaches. He knows your joys.
And, of course, that means that He knows your sin, too. In fact, He knows that better than you do too. Initially, that fact may cause you to worry and fear, but it is actually very good news. The fact that Jesus knows your sin doesn’t just mean that He is aware of it from a distance. It means that He has embraced it; He has made your sin His own. He has taken your sin upon and into Himself. That is what this magnificent crucifix teaches you every time you look at it. In knowing you intimately, Jesus grasped your sin from you; He buried it deeply within His body; He put it to death forever on His cross. Jesus, your Good Shepherd, knows you, His sheep. He has loved you to death and back to life again.
It is said that shepherds in Jesus’ day shepherds would often mark who their sheep were by cutting an identifying mark on one of their ears. So also Jesus knows His sheep by the mark that they bear – the mark that He has put on them. Through water and the Word in Holy Baptism, you have received the sign of the holy cross both on your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. The Good Shepherd knows you individually. The Good Shepherd has marked you as His very own by putting His name on you at the font.
Jesus also said, “My sheep listen to my voice.” The sound of the voice is crucial. Two shepherds can utter similar words, but the sheep will follow the one and not the other because they know and recognize His voice.
In the same way, you also have been brought by the Holy Spirit to know and recognize the Gospel voice of your Good Shepherd. By God’s grace and His gift of faith you hear and recognize the sound of His Gospel, and you are to ignore other voices which would lead you away from Him. You want to listen to Jesus’ voice, and you absolutely must demand that you hear the sound of Jesus’ voice in the preaching each and every week. Without that voice, without Christ being continually put into your ears, you would be lost.
Finally, Jesus said, “[My sheep] follow Me, and I give them eternal life; and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.” Those who have followed Jesus to death will inevitably also follow him to life. His companions in shame will be his companions in honor, just as those who have partaken of His suffering will partake of His glory. Jesus’ flock will follow Him through the grave to new life in heaven and a bodily resurrection on the Last Day. And there is no power in the world which can overcome Jesus’ promise. Again, of His sheep Jesus said, “They will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.” No predator – not even death – can cause us any lasting harm.
St. Paul wrote in Romans 8:38, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life is most certainly ours in Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life.
Therefore, dear fellow redeemed, knowing the kind of Good Shepherd you have, you rest safely and securely in His hands, even in the midst of this fallen and troubled world. He leads you beside the still waters to drink of His refreshing Spirit, returning you to your Baptism as you hear and drink in His absolution. He guides you with the rod and staff of His Law and His Gospel. He prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies – the altar from which you receive His holy body and blood for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Confident in the Good Shepherd’s care, we boldly and joyfully confess with the Psalmist, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of Yahweh forever.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
