This Wednesday was the final week of our ecumenical midweek Lenten worship series on the “I Am” sayings of Jesus in John. This week we focused on “I am the good shepherd” from John 10:11-18 and Psalm 23.
I heard once about a little boy in a Sunday School class who was drawing a picture, and his teacher asked him what he was drawing.
He said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.”
She responded, “How are you drawing God? No one knows what God looks like?”
He looked up at her and said, “Well, maybe they don’t now, but they will when I get finished!”
One of the great questions of the Christian faith is “How do we know about God?” It’s a great question. I suspect if we tried to draw God, we’d all come up with something different.
I talked about this back on Ash Wednesday, but back in the Old Testament story of Moses and the burning bush, when God drafted Moses to go lead the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, Moses figured the people would ask him who sent him, why they should listen to him, so he asks God what God’s name is.
God responds, “Tell the people ‘I AM’ has sent you.” God’s name is simply “I AM” or “I Am Who I am.” God is the one who is eternally present, the one who IS.
So every time Jesus says, “I am,” his followers catch these echoes of God’s name. It’s a subtle way of claiming to be God, confirming his identity without being prematurely arrested for blasphemy. But Jesus goes beyond just naming God as “I AM.”
With each of these statements, Jesus reveals more about who God is. When we look at who Jesus is, we see who God is, and our pictures get a little more defined.
Each of these “I AM” statements that we’ve been talking about during Lent reveals something more to us about God. Our puny little mortal brains are incapable of grasping all of God’s fullness, but Jesus keeps giving us these little glimpses of who God is, what God is like.
Tonight, we hear about Jesus the Good Shepherd. Now, the image of God as a good shepherd is certainly not new, either to us or to the people listening to Jesus. There’s the beautiful passage in Psalm 23 about the good shepherd leading us through green pastures and beside still waters.
There’s also a wonderful passage in Ezekiel 34 where God describes the leaders of Israel as bad shepherds, corrupt and looking out only for themselves. God says, “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.” God’s coming to do it in person, and God’s gonna do it right. God’s not holding back.
So this picture of God as a good shepherd is not new. But Jesus isn’t just saying to his disciples, “Hey, remember that God is like a good shepherd.” Think back for a minute to math class, to the transitive property. The transitive property says that if “A is equal to B and B is equal to C” then “A is equal to C.” The people know that God is the good shepherd. Jesus says he is the good shepherd. By extension, then, Jesus is claiming to be God.
I’m not sure if it’s a mathematical relationship or not, but there’s another idea implied by this image of Jesus as the good shepherd. If we follow Jesus, and Jesus is the shepherd, what does that make us?
The sheep!
The thing is, it’s not very flattering to be called a sheep. In fact, usually it’s an insult. When Christin and I were on vacation the other week, I felt like a sheep. Not in a religious sense, but because there were times in the airport and at the theme parks when it felt like we were just following the crowd, being herded along.
There’s a great Sunday School song that goes, “I just wanna be a sheep, baa baa baa. I just wanna be a sheep, baa baa baa.” But most of the time, I don’t really want to be a sheep. I don’t have much experience with sheep, but generally, sheep are considered pretty dumb animals.
As I was preparing for this message, though, I came across another idea. The stereotype that sheep are dumb comes at least partially from cattle ranchers being frustrated that they don’t act like cattle.
The issue isn’t that sheep are dumb, it’s that they don’t like being herded from the rear. They prefer to follow a leader. That’s why it’s important for the sheep to have a shepherd, to know the shepherd’s voice. They need to know who to follow.
Of course, many of the people hearing Jesus would have more experience with sheep. Most of them weren’t shepherds, but they’d still be used to seeing flocks of sheep go by, led by their shepherd.
We have this picture of Jesus the gentle shepherd lounging on a rock tenderly holding a little lamb. But that’s not really the normal reality of a shepherd. The life of a shepherd is more dangerous, more dirty. If you’re a livestock farmer, you know that watching over a flock or a herd isn’t usually neat or clean. Being a shepherd isn’t a part-time job.
If Jesus is the good shepherd, and “good” here means the ideal, the model shepherd, rather than a moral right or wrong category, if Jesus is the good shepherd, it means Jesus is all in.
And if you remember from the Christmas story, in that time and place, being a shepherd wasn’t exactly a widely respected, desirable occupation. Shepherds are salt of the earth sort of people, not the most highly educated, or the nicest smelling. Jesus is willing to get into the muck, to stay out all night, to do whatever it takes to watch over the flock.
God the good shepherd is willing to personally come enter into our world to come watch over the sheep.
As the season of Lent draws to a climax next week, we’ll see what that looks like. I’m sure his original hearers didn’t understand what he meant, but when Jesus says the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, it’s not hypothetical. He’s really going to do it. Our call is simply to follow where our shepherd leads us.
What a wonderful picture of God’s love!
This week, may you live as a faithful sheep, following the good shepherd. May God watch over you and keep you safe. May you know your shepherd’s voice.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen