John 10:22-30
22 At that time the festival of the
Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in
the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and
said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the
Messiah, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered, "I have told you, and
you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; 26
but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear
my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and
they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my
Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of
the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one."
Though this
little anecdote would perhaps be more appropriate to Mother’s Day, I will go
ahead and begin with it anyway. One of
my mother’s favorite stories about my childhood involves the two of us, me
still a very young child, walking out of the local King Sooper’s. As we were preparing to walk through the
parking lot, in that way of small children who put their entire trust in their
parents, I reached up and grabbed her hand just as she was reaching down to
grab mine. Upon our hands finding one
another, I am purported to have said to my mother that her hand always felt so
familiar, and though I cannot really get back into the head of the younger
version of me, I will venture a guess that was I was articulating was not
familiarity in the sense that I had gone around holding a bunch of unfamiliar
hands and had finally found something, or someone, a little kinesthetically
closer to home. I was not so promiscuous
with my hand holding as a young boy.
Rather what I was getting at, I think, was that in that maternal touch,
I knew I was safe, that I would be protected and cared for. That the love of my parents was never
distance, but was indeed a reality much nearer, much more familiar, than
anything else in the world. Such are the
tender moments that make up a life between parent and child, at least in the
best of circumstances.
“My sheep hear
my voice. I know them and they follow
me,” says Jesus in what some have come
to call the good shepherd discourse.
Just to situate ourselves a bit, we are no longer in the post
resurrection portions of the Gospel.
Instead, this Sunday is dedicated to theme of Jesus as the Good
Shepherd, and so we have gone back in John’s Gospel to earlier scene. At this point, we find Jesus in Jerusalem,
battling it out with the religious authorities, those whom John’s Gospel refers
to as “the Jews.” Now, just to be clear,
when John uses this term, “the Jews,” he is by no means speaking of the whole
of the Jewish people, then he would have had to include Jesus and the
disciples, after all. Rather, he is
talking about very specific subset of the Jewish people, those who were the
religious and social elites of Jesus’ time, think about Jesus hanging out at a
seminary. And so we pick up this speech,
sermon, this declaration of divine intention, we pick this up as these religious
authorities are provoked and ask Jesus to just plainly tell them what he is
about. And what is so interesting about
this query from the religious leaders is that it brings up this question of
familiarity and distance. Because these
leaders have heard Jesus speak of his unique oneness with the Father; they have
heard of his mighty deeds of power. They
have seen him heal the lame and cure the blind, and in so doing, they have
heard him explain that he does this because he is indeed one with the Father. They have even responded in anger to these
claims, trying to stone him for blasphemy as they will again do at the end of
this exchange. So the question becomes
this: how is it that they claim to have not heard him speak? How is it that what they have seen does
somehow open up onto that glorious space we call faith? How, we ask, is that they hear the voice of
this Jesus, but are unable to recognize that they know it?
What these
religious elite embody, then, is that reality of distance from God that we call
sin, but what is so interesting is that this distance is entirely one-sided,
because here Jesus is. He is right in
front of them, as near and as loving as a mother sticking out her hand to walk
her child safely across a supermarket parking lot. Or as he has previously
said, as near to them as a shepherd who genuinely cares for his sheep. This God who wants to be known to them as
their shepherd, as the one who will remain when trouble arises, when life
disappoints or when danger looms, this God stands right in their very midst,
and yet, they are unable to see him.
Unable to hear the deep resonance of the familiar in his voice; unable
to touch his outreached hands, unable to see themselves as the very sheep for
whom Jesus has come to care. This
distance, this is the tragedy that we call sin.
“My sheep hear
my voice. I know them and they follow
me,” but we must not despair for that very distance of sin is that which Jesus
has come to bridge. And now, in the
power of God’s Holy Spirit, this voice is impressed upon us with its
nearness. In an incredible intimacy that
we can scarcely articulate, you are known by this Jesus. Your pride and your fear, your hope and
regret, the voices that vie for your allegiance, these are all known to this
Christ, and he has come to lead you into a brighter life and a more firm
hope. He holds you in the warm
familiarity of his hand, and in the strength of his love, nothing will ever
separate from this grasp. Not sorrow,
not doubt, not despair, not senseless and nihilistic violence. Not those
competing voices that tell us we are not yet people of worth, or those voices
that would have us believe we must rid ourselves of every threat in order to be
secure, or those voices that would wish to keep us distanced from God, asking
if we have yet done enough to earn God’s love. None of it will take from your Savior’s
grasp. Oh yes, these things are bound to
come, none of us escapes the random and the painful, but even in our perishing,
we will not be without the voice of this familiar one. For that voice that calls to us, that is the
same voice that cried out “it is finished.”
Those hands that hold us, those are the same hands that will be pierced
through, that will experience, yes literally, first-hand, all that we have to
offer in terms of human violence, unbelief and fear. So you may trust when this one tells you that
he has come to be your Shepherd. Believe
me, he means it.
“My sheep hear
my voice. I know them and they follow
me,” says Jesus. In this and every day,
hear the gentle and familiar voice of your Savior. Hear his kindness and passion for you. Hear the certainty that nothing can snatch
you out of his steady and strong embrace.
His care for you as near and familiar as a parent walking her child
across the parking lot. And in that
strong and steady embrace, know that you are called to live out of this
love. You are secured in Christ and may
therefore enter the insecure world with new confidence. You may enter it to love your neighbors in a
previously unthought fullness. You may indeed follow your shepherd into those
places where fear, hunger and darkness reside.
These things will not separate you from him, and thus we may begin to
again love our neighbors, for they are no threat to our own well-being. We may pray with those who sit in the valley
of the shadow of death, for Christ is there already. We may beg mercy and forgiveness for those
who think themselves beyond this loving Shepherd’s embrace. We may provide food for the hunger, hope for
the desperate. For in all these things
and in all these ways, we hear the Shepherd’s voice saying: “I love you; you
are mine.” In Jesus’ name, amen.
