John
10:11-18
11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the
sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf
snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired
hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and
my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay
down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this
fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will
be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I
lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but
I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power
to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."
On May 21, 1980, one of the greatest movies of all time
premiered in theatres across the U.S. It was (and still is) a movie that goes
against the conventional wisdom that sequels are never better than the
original. The official, full-length name of that movie is Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back. Now, most followers
of the Star Wars saga (which consists
of six live action movies, an animated series, a feature-length animated movie,
along with countless novels and fan-made films) believe The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie in the series, and I
think I know why. Not only is Empire
filled with wonderful special effects and thrilling action, it is known for
having one of the most surprising plot twists in all of cinema. For those of
you unfamiliar with the Star Wars saga,
I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps.
There is a scene in Empire
where the protagonist, Luke Skywalker, is in a climactic lightsaber (think
laser-sword) battle with the greatest villain of all time, the
half-human/half-machine, Darth Vader. At a devastating point in the fight,
Darth Vader severs Skywalker’s right hand from his arm. Luke recoils from Vader,
clinging to the smoldering, singed wound made by his enemy’s saber; he retreats
all the way out onto a dangerous antennae-looking structure overhanging a deep
chasm of blinking lights. After offering Luke the chance to join him on the
“Dark Side,” Darth Vader asks if Skywalker knows about his father, and Luke
says, “I know enough…you killed him.” Then Darth Vader says five of the most
famous words in modern movie history, “No. I am your father!” (I suppose one
could say that is a secular “I am” statement of its own.)
The first time a public audience heard those words was in
May of 1980, nearly four years before I was born. They are words that have
become a meme in our culture; they have been parodied or redone time and time
again in many different ways by many different people. So, by the time I
actually saw The Empire Strikes Back,
I already knew what Vader was going to say to Luke—I already knew that he was
his father. The original impact, the weight, the shock of those words was lost
on me. All I can do is imagine what it must have been like to sit in the movie
theatre and watch that scene—hear those words—for the first time, to hear the
collective gasps of shock and surprise from those watching. I suppose you could
say that my familiarity with this scene has robbed it of some of its original
power and meaning.
I think those of us who live here in the “Bible Belt” can
say the same thing when it comes to many sayings and scenes from Scripture:
we’ve become so familiar with them, seeing and hearing them everywhere around
us, that we’ve grown somewhat callous towards their original power and meaning.
It’s as if we’ve been oversaturated and desensitized by their presence all
around us. In fact, in many cases, they’ve become little more than inspiration
for poorly written music and cheap artwork.
I have a friend back home who is, well let’s just say,
not a shining example of Christian morality. He does, however, own a nice
house, complete with nice furniture and sensible decorations. There are, though,
a couple of items in his living room that are a bit odd to those of us who know
him. There sits, on his coffee table, a cheaply bound, black, fake-leather,
Bible. If it is ever moved it is only when curious guests come to visit or if
the coffee table needs dusting. Then, over on the far wall, there hangs on the
painted paneling a rather interesting piece of art. In a wide, gold-trimmed
frame there’s the printed image of a sunny, wind-swept meadow, and in the
foreground, a soft-haired, smiling man clad in red and blue, cradling a little
ewe lamb. The caption beneath it in barely visible calligraphy reads, “I am the
good shepherd.” These are the first words we hear from Jesus in our text this
morning in verse eleven, words that
perhaps we’ve heard so often (like those from Empire), words with which we are so familiar, that their original
power and meaning are just a little lost on us: “I am the good shepherd.”
Now, the image of Jesus as the good shepherd is as old as
any image ever used to represent Christ. It is the image that is found on the ancient
walls of the catacombs, beneath the roads of the Roman Empire. It’s the image
that is wonderfully crafted in some of the oldest icons of the Eastern Church, showing
Christ as a shepherd with a sheep across his shoulders. Countless stained glass
windows across the Western hemisphere glow with the image of Jesus the Good
Shepherd, pasturing his flock as they graze on a field of green glass. Then
there are all of those paintings, paintings like that one in my friend’s house.
I’ve seen them everywhere: in church vestibules, in funeral home parlors, even
on the walls of doctors’ offices. It’s an image that is so familiar to us that
it has been made into clock faces, throw rugs, and even lampshades. It’s an
image that saturates our collective Christian conscience. But does it truly
capture the power and meaning of Jesus’ words in the text before us today?
In these verses, we encounter the fourth ἐγώ εἰμι (“I am”) statement from
Jesus. It comes immediately after the third such statement (which we heard last
week) in verses seven and nine of this same chapter. Jesus has recently healed
a man on the Sabbath, who had been born blind. Some of the Pharisees have
confronted Jesus about his apparent lack of concern for the Law, and Jesus
responds with this extended shepherding metaphor here in chapter ten, a
metaphor that includes his claim to be “the gate [by which] Whoever enters…will be
saved.”
One of the driving themes in this “figure of speech” (as
the evangelist of the fourth gospel calls it) is the inclusiveness of Christ’s
flock. You’ll remember in verse nine
that Jesus promised, “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will
come in and go out and find pasture.” That same concept of inclusion is
repeated in Jesus’ words in verse
sixteen before us today: “I have other sheep that do not belong to
this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there
will be one flock, one shepherd.” He said this in the hearing of those
Pharisees in order to make sure they understood that Gentiles and other
non-Jews would also be included in the Messiah’s kingdom—in the Christ’s flock.
So perhaps our image of Jesus as the good shepherd ought to include more than
just the one, cute, little ewe lamb in his arms, but a multitude of sheep—sheep
of all colors, races, and nations. Maybe that goes a little way in filling out
our image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, but does it fully capture what Jesus
is driving at in these verses?
Perhaps one of the more problematic and controversial
things that Jesus says in this passage comes at the beginning of verse fifteen: “…the Father knows me and I know the Father...” Throughout the fourth gospel it is
Jesus’ claim that he is the Son of God, sharing a special relationship with the
Father, which often leads to trouble and accusations of blasphemy. He says
those words in the context of verse
fourteen: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”
While it may be difficult to put those words into an image, they do help us, I
think, to fill out this image of Jesus as the good shepherd, one who is known
by God the Father and one who knows each of his sheep. He is a shepherd with
divine connections who is personally invested in his sheep. Still, is this the
best image we have for Jesus the Good Shepherd? Can we still only see him as
the gentle, caring man in the meadow looking tenderly after his sheep? Or are
we missing altogether what Jesus is truly saying when he claims, “I am
the good shepherd?”
Jesus first says those words in verse eleven: “I am the good
shepherd,” but he continues in that same verse: “The good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep.” He says similar words in verses 17 and 18: “For this
reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up
again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” The good
shepherd is more than gentle. The good shepherd is more than kind. The good
shepherd does more than simply look after the sheep. “The good shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep…in order to take it up again,” and “No
one takes it from [him], but [he] lay[s] it down of [his] own accord.”
How does one even begin to picture a shepherd who willing lays down his life
for the sheep? Can you still picture him in the warm grass of a meadow? Does he
still smile with a calming look of affection? What does this shepherd who
willingly lays down his life look like?
In Cullman, Alabama, in the most unlikely of places, is
one of the most beautiful sites my eyes have ever seen. When I was in college
and running around on Sundays with other Samford students around the state
preaching, one particular Sunday we happened to pass one of those brown signs
on I-65 that marks an exit for a park or tourist attraction. The sign said “The
Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament” this exit. My friends and I were feeling
a bit adventurous that day, and since we apparently were in no hurry to get
back to Samford, we took the exit in search of this so-called shrine.
We drove for what felt like miles until what little
civilization there is in that part of Cullman County disappeared, and we found
ourselves on a little two-lane road driving past seemingly endless fields of
grass. All of the sudden, as if out of nowhere, there were a few houses on both
sides of the road, and just a little farther we found ourselves at the gates to
this “Shrine.” As it turns out, The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament is a
Catholic Church and monastery; it’s the home of Mother Angelica, famous for her
appearances on the Catholic television network EWTN. So, we drove on through
the gate, parked in the lot, and made our way up the concrete stairs and across
the brick-paved courtyard to the heavy wooden doors of the church.
Now, as a Baptist college student, who had just preached
in a small, rural Baptist church, what I saw inside those doors was
breath-taking: stained glass windows, wonderful carvings depicting the Stations
of the Cross lining the sanctuary, gold—gold everywhere. The place had an air
of holiness about it. I remember feeling like I was breathing too loud, as if I
would shatter the holy atmosphere with the volume of my exhaling. What caught
my attention in that room, however, was the altar. There were two images
flanking the center of the altar. On the left, an almost life-sized sculpture
of Mary, the mother of Jesus. I didn’t look too hard at it, for the image on
the right side is what arrested my attention. There, in what I can only assume
was painted porcelain, was the crucified Lord. There was Christ, hanging on the
nails of the cross.
I suppose as
Protestants, particularly as Baptists in the Southern U.S., we don’t see such
things in our sanctuaries. We prefer the clean, triumphant power depicted in
the empty cross, but there, in that sacred place, I was confronted with the
corpse of the Son of God. I don’t know if it was the intent of the artist, but it
was difficult to discern if the figure of Christ was meant to be dead or near
the brink, but when I saw it, I saw the lifeless body of Jesus. I saw there, on
the cross, the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus says, “I am
the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” It is in the image of Christ on the cross that
I find the full power and meaning of those words. It is in knowing that, before
we can celebrate the victory of resurrection on Easter Sunday, we must acknowledge
the pain of death on Good Friday. It is in knowing that, before we can glory in
the joy of eternity, we must deal with pains of sin and evil in this world. It is that image of the Good Shepherd, the One
who lays down his life for us, that I find hope in the darkest of times in this
world. For Christ, our Good Shepherd, has willingly laid down his life—felt the
pain of death—for us, so that we may live.
Let us look to
the Good Shepherd, the one who knows us, who calls us by name, the one who
saves us. Let us look to him not only as a gentle shepherd of the field, but as
the Good Shepherd with arms willingly outstretched on Calvary’s cross for our
sins. May we hear his voice and take comfort in his willing sacrifice on our
behalf. Let us look to the Good Shepherd.
Let us pray…
No comments:
Post a Comment