“THE FULFILLED PROMISE”
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 17, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
John 10:27, 28 (ESV)
This Fourth Sunday of Easter, traditionally known as “Good Shepherd”
Sunday, marks a turning point of sorts. We are now in the middle of
the season of Easter. For the last three Sundays our Gospel readings
have been “Easter stories” in the strictest sense of the word in that
they have focused our attention on the various post-resurrection
appearances of the risen Christ. But starting with today’s Gospel we
begin looking back and remembering some of the things that Jesus had
taught His disciples earlier: before His betrayal and arrest, before
His trial and condemnation, before His suffering, death, and
resurrection.
There is a good reason for this. The things that Jesus said leading
up to His crucifixion were said for the benefit of His disciples, so
that they might be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that they
were about to experience. What Jesus had to say to those twelve men
way back then has ongoing significance for us who belong to Him today,
because His words to them at that time have a lot to say to us about
the relationship that exists between Jesus and His people. Especially
in this tenth chapter of John’s Gospel the Lord teaches us so much
about our dependency on Him. He does this by using the analogy of a
shepherd and his sheep. Let’s focus on that relationship this morning
as we consider what these words of Jesus have to teach us about both
the sheep of the Shepherd and the Shepherd of the sheep.
Who are the sheep of the Good Shepherd? In the passage before us
Jesus describes His sheep as those who “hear [His] voice.” We might
be tempted take that for granted, but can we really? There are a lot
of people claiming to be sheep of the Good Shepherd who are so
unfamiliar with His Word that they can’t even recognize His voice, let
alone listen to it. That’s a frightening thought--or at least it
should be. The sad truth is that there are many voices in our world
that claim to speak with authority on spiritual matters. There are
the philosophers, the astrologers, the psychics, the moralists, and
the countless cult leaders that surround us. Which of these voices is
the child of God supposed to listen to? Or even more basic than that,
how is the child of God supposed to know which of these voices (if
any) is the voice of the Good Shepherd? The only way to recognize the
Shepherd’s voice is to hear it so often and become so familiar with it
that there is no mistaking it. We can do this in a number of ways: by
hearing the Word of Christ in our house of worship, by reading and
studying the Word of Christ in the Sacred Scriptures, and by giving
the Word of Christ a prominent place in our daily thoughts and
conversation. Don’t look for any substitutes or shortcuts--there
aren’t any. And if you think you’ve found one, chances are that it’s
phony. But by being in contact with that Word of Christ on an ongoing
basis, you can become so grounded in the Word of God that as soon as
you hear false doctrine being preached or taught (whether it be by me
or by anyone else), you will know immediately that what you are
hearing is not the voice of the Good Shepherd.
But listening to the Shepherd’s voice is really only a part of what
it means to be sheep of the Shepherd. Jesus further describes His
sheep as people who follow Him. If we’re not willing to follow Jesus
Christ, then we dare not call ourselves His sheep or call Him our
Shepherd. What kind of shepherd would He be if His “sheep” refused to
follow Him? We can call ourselves the sheep of the Good Shepherd all
that we want, but that’s just cheap talk unless we are really serious
about following Him. And what does that involve? According to His
Word, following Jesus means being willing to go where He has gone. It
means being willing to serve rather than to be served. It means to
give rather than to receive. It means to be committed to Him no
matter how inconvenient it might be to us and no matter how ridiculous
it might be in the eyes of the world. His Word is clear: “If anyone
would come after Me,” He says, “let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24,
25).
And who is the Shepherd of the sheep? What is so unique about Jesus
Christ that we should hear His voice and follow Him? He is, first of
all, One who knows us. He knows us inside and out. He knows us
better than we know ourselves. In this impersonal world that we live
in that is a rarity. How valuable and how comforting that is for us.
Even more remarkable is the fact that He loves us even though He knows
us. That is even more valuable and even more comforting. He knows
all of our sins and shortcomings, all of our faults and failures, all
of our woes and weaknesses, and in spite of it all, He still loves us
and values us so much that He was willing to go all the way to the
cross for us, bearing our sin and putting it to death in His own body
once and for all.
--Which brings us to the next thing that makes our Good Shepherd so
special: He gives us eternal life, so that we will never perish. In
this way He fulfills His role as the Good Shepherd perfectly because,
after all, a shepherd is to be the provider and protector of his
sheep. In fact, protecting and providing for his sheep is the essence
of being a shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has provided for and
protected His sheep in ways that no other shepherd, no matter how
faithful, could ever do: He has given us the solution to life’s most
frightening dilemma, which is death and the ultimate judgment that
death represents. While we all must still experience physical death
as the ultimate consequence of our sin, the Good Shepherd who overcame
sin and death for us has forever taken away the guilt and power of sin
and the sting of death for those who hear His voice and follow Him.
Finally, by the power of His Holy Spirit this Good Shepherd of ours
is able to preserve our status as His sheep. “No one will snatch them
out of My hand,” He says. This is the greatest comfort that we can
have in this world of fear and disappointment and uncertainty, but it
is a comfort that has often been misunderstood. Jesus is not saying
“once saved, always saved.” He is not saying that once we come to
faith we can neglect the means of grace and our responsibility as
Christians. What He is saying is that His power to preserve us in the
faith is stronger than Satan’s power to destroy our faith. No one
ever loses his faith in Christ against his will, but a lot of people
willingly throw away their faith in Christ because they don’t consider
it to be worth anything. They stop hearing His voice and following
Him. But even from this indifferent attitude our Good Shepherd can
and does protect us. He does it by the presence and power of His Holy
Spirit, daily calling and inviting us to take refuge in His Word and
Sacraments. Through these means of grace He keeps us always in
fellowship with Him and with one another so that we may continually
hear His voice and follow Him, receiving in faith the everlasting life
that He graciously gives to those who are His.
Amen.
May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great
Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting
covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work
in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you
is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.