A sermon on John 10:11-16 for the Third Sunday of Easter. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.
The Good Shepherd is one of the most familiar and beloved devotional images of Jesus. And it has been since the very beginning. Some of the earliest Christian imagery is the Good Shepherd, there’s images of this in the catacombs when Christianity was still illegal and had to be more discreet and symbolic. And it’s easy to see why this imagery is so beloved, it highlights Jesus’ watchful, protective care.
This picture of God as our shepherd is used all over the Bible. We think especially of Psalm 23 with its imagery of God providing and protecting. There’s the picture of green pastures and still waters, it’s very peaceful and serene and idyllic, this is where our mind goes when we hear of the Good Shepherd.
But the picture that Jesus gives us in John 10 is a little more complex. He’s doing something different. He’s drawing on that familiar, pastoral imagery and twisting it, ever so slightly. The picture He paints actually poses a disconnect between a real shepherd and the Good Shepherd. The things He describes are what shepherds do, but they go beyond what any shepherd would do. Jesus tells us what makes the Good Shepherd so good: He lays down His life, He knows His sheep, and He gathers the flock.
I. Lays Down His Life
Because of this intentional disconnect and because of our familiarity with other ways that this picture is used in Scripture, we can possibly miss the points that Jesus is trying to bring out.
Part of it’s our fault. We have a tendency to romanticize the picture of a shepherd. Because you probably don’t know any shepherds. And our primary relationship to animals today is as pets, not as livestock. Jesus isn’t saying that you’re cute and snuggly and fluffy. That’s not what the Good Shepherd should bring to mind. When we are called sheep, that’s not really a compliment. Sheep are dumb. Sheep need protecting, even from themselves. Sheep are defenseless, directionless, and tend to stray when left to their own devices. It’s not a very complimentary picture, but it is an applicable one for us.
We are vulnerable and need protecting. Sheep without a shepherd are defenseless, easy pickings. And indeed, we are. We are prone to the attacks of that great wolf, Satan, and all of the other wolves that he would use to destroy us. We are vulnerable to sin and temptation, easy prey for the forces of evil. We are susceptible to false teaching and would prefer to hear what our itching ears want to hear than what the Bible says. And we are just as much a threat to ourselves on our own. We are prone to wander, we are easily absorbed in ourselves and become directionless so that we stray away from our Shepherd. It’s not a good thing to be a sheep.
So we should avoid sentimentality when it comes to this picture of the Good Shepherd because of what that says about us. But the other part of why this is more complex is because Jesus is doing something a little different here. There’s shepherd language all over the Bible that is more pastoral and peaceful. That’s where we usually go and that’s not a bad thing, that’s Scriptural, but it’s not quite the point that Jesus is making here. The first and biggest points He makes draws on us needing to be defended: that “The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”
Jesus does something that no other shepherd would. Now, shepherds are supposed to defend their sheep, certainly they are to risk their lives for their sheep. But to lay it down? Freely, willingly, sacrificially? That’s preposterous. A shepherd who willingly dies is a foolish one, then the sheep are left defenseless. But Jesus defends His sheep, protects you, by laying down His life.
He saved you from everything that threatens you by His death. The sin that we are susceptible to, Jesus took on Himself. The attacks that we are vulnerable to, He endured to keep us safe. Our Good Shepherd defends His sheep like any good shepherd, but He lays down His life as only the Good Shepherd does.
If a shepherd dies, the sheep are defenseless. Not so with our Shepherd. He continues just after our text, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Our Shepherd, who laid down His life, took it up again. The flock is not left defenseless. He died to protect us, to intercept those deadly blows, and rose again to continue to keep watch over us. Our enemies are vanquished, the wolves that would devour you are defeated, and Jesus continues His work as our Good Shepherd.
II. Knows His Sheep
That’s the main reason Jesus gives, the refrain that He repeats, that He lays down His life for the sheep. This is the focus of this picture of the Good Shepherd: the sacrifice that He made to defend us. But flowing from this and continuing into the present and the future, Jesus gives two other reasons as to why the Good Shepherd is so good. The next is this, “I know My sheep, and am known by My own.”
Again, there’s a certain parallel between our Good Shepherd and any regular shepherd. A shepherd knows his sheep and can tell them apart and sheep know their shepherd and follow him. But the picture Jesus gives us here is so much deeper, far more profound.
This “knowing” is not a mere intellectual acquaintance. It surpasses a surface familiarity. This word used for “knowing” refers to a deep, loving affection. And Jesus shows us just how deep this is: the mutual knowing between Shepherd and sheep, between Him and us is “As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father.” The closeness and the intimacy between the persons of the Godhead is what Jesus uses to describe His relationship with you.
Jesus knows you. He knows the number of hairs on your head, He knows every little detail about you, He’s fascinated with you. He loves you. He knows your weaknesses. He knows your failings. He knows your struggles, He knows what you’re going through. So He knows what you need. He knows how best to provide. He knows how to keep you safe.
That much is expected between a shepherd and a sheep, but what really makes this so profound, besides the quality of this relationship, is that we know our Shepherd with that same level of intimacy. Of course a shepherd will know what his sheep need, but a sheep doesn’t really know all that much about its shepherd. We do. We listen to His voice. We hear Him speak to us and reveal Himself to us in His precious Word. We know everything about Him, everything He has done to save us. And it’s fascinating, you can never get enough, never know it well enough.
III. Gathers The Flock
From Jesus’ death flows this mutual knowing. He lay down His life and now gathers us together around Him and His voice. He feeds us in the green pastures with His body and blood. And this life in the Church, this life in the flock, isn’t contained or closed off. Rather it leads Jesus and it leads us outward. He gives us the third reason as to why our Good Shepherd is so good: “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring.”
This also is something very different than what a regular shepherd would do. Certainly a shepherd would go looking for lost sheep, and Jesus does use that picture elsewhere, but shepherds don’t go out looking for new sheep. They don’t come back to town with any more sheep than they left with. But Jesus does. He makes new sheep.
This language of the different sheep folds is, in the immediate context, talking about Jews and Gentiles. Although the Messiah came first for the Jews, the Gentiles also would be gathered and made to be “one flock.” There is continuity in the Church across the testaments. And we can take this picture and expand it to our context as well.
Jesus is still going out and gathering new sheep today. The mission of the Church, the future of the flock, is not only looking inward, although, to be sure, what makes the flock the flock is that we are gathered around our Shepherd and listen to His voice. But the flock also looks outward. It looks to welcome and include those new sheep whom Christ is bringing into His fold. It looks to mirror the work of our Shepherd in sharing His voice with others so that they may join us in the safety of His protection. The Church looks outwards and invites in. Because we know how good we have it. We know how good our Shepherd is. So with our Savior, we extend the invitation to join this blessed flock.
If you say something’s “good,” what do you mean? That seems like an obvious question, but we often use language in a way that distorts or calls into question the simple meaning of words. If I ask my wife how her day was and she says, “Good,” that’s not high praise. “Good” isn’t really that good at all. We can be so afraid to say anything negative to the point that if we say something is “good” that’s a sure sign it really isn’t.
When Jesus uses the word “good,” when He says He is the Good Shepherd, He means it. This word for “good” doesn’t mean “alright” or “just okay,” but has the ideas of being beautiful, useful, well-qualified. When Jesus says that He is the “good shepherd,” He’s not just halfway decent at it, but entirely on His own level, the ideal, perfect shepherd, surpassing any other example. And He tells us just what makes the good shepherd so good: He lay down His life, He knows His sheep, and He gathers the flock. Amen.
