Still Our Good Shepherd - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (April 21, 2024)

Scripture Readings: Acts 4:5–12 | Psalm 23 | 1 John 3:16–24 | John 10:11–18

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11).
 
Why did the farmer fire the shepherd?
He kept on falling asleep whenever he tried counting them.
 
Today, the fourth Sunday of the Season of Easter, is sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday, as the Scripture readings assigned for the day invite us to reflect on how Jesus Christ the Risen Lord continues to care for and watch over His people today.
 
As we may recall, the ancient image of the Living God acting as a shepherd of His people Israel in the Old Testament remains a powerful picture of His dedicated care and concern for them… working for their good, even when they stubbornly wander away from Him, and head towards danger.
 
Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 23, which beautifully expands on this metaphor, is probably one of the most well known and well loved pieces of poetry ever penned. It’s author, King David, who had himself been a shepherd for a time, depicts Yahweh, the Living God, providing personal, gracious, and intimate care in his own life… and the lives of God’s people.
 
And as we heard in our reading today from St. John’s Gospel, Jesus taps into this tradition… but with a twist. He picks up this well known imagery about God… but then He applies it to Himself. “I am the good shepherd.” He says… and in a profound way, these words identify Jesus with Yahweh, the Living God.
 
It's easy for us English speakers to miss this connection a first glance. But to understand the force of what Jesus is saying here, it helps if we know a bit of Hebrew… and can recall a bit more of the wider story of the Bible.
 
Way back in Exodus, when yet another lowly shepherd, Moses, was tending his father-in-law’s sheep on Mt. Sinai, he suddenly found himself face to face with the Living God, the Creator of all, speaking to him from a burning bush. And what God said changed Moses’ life for good.
 
God told Moses that He had seen the suffering of His people in slavery, and He was determined to do something about it… and God’s way of doing something was to send Moses back to Egypt, and have him tell Pharoah to let His people go.
 
Moses was, of course, an Israelite himself… and so it might not seem out of place for God to commission him to take part in rescuing his own people. But even so, Moses hesitated. He was afraid. And so he started coming up with all sorts of excuses. Saying anything he could to get God to change His mind, and choose to use someone else.
 
One of the excuses he tried is important for understanding our message this morning. It’s found in Exodus 3:13-15,
“But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, (or Yahweh) the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.”
 
“Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”
 
The Living God’s Name, given here to Moses, for the first time, is I AM. Or I WILL BE.
 
Moses is to say that The One Who Is… Who Is the very essence of existence itself… The One Who Is eternally faithful and constant… The One Who Is has sent Moses to rescue Israel, and lead them into the Promised Land… WHO WILL BE providing for them, protecting them, and prodding them towards the way of life.
 
And as it turns out, God remains true to His name. He is completely faithful to Israel, leading them like a shepherd, caring for and providing for them… but they keep scattering this way and that, and chasing after the gods of the other nations, and completely abandoning the ways of their Saviour. Yet even when Yahweh allows His people to get themselves into trouble, He never gives up on them… but looking on them with compassion and concern, time and again He consistently reaches out His hand to save them.

Now this sacred Divine Name, that God tells to Moses is hard to make sense of grammatically… especially as it came to be considered far too holy to say out loud. When it’s spoken by God Himself, it’s I AM WHO I AM. When others say it it’s THE ONE WHO IS, and this is where we get the name Yahweh from… the holy, personal name of Almighty God.
 
Over time, in the Hebrew imagination, the phrase I AM comes to be associated with the Divine Name, and to have this sacred significance… something fitting for the Living God alone to say.
 
And in St. John’s Gospel, written many centuries later, many scholars have noted that Jesus repeatedly refers to Himself using these loaded words “I AM” in ways that connect Him directly to the Living God’s saving work in the world. Though there are other examples, there are seven times that John quotes Jesus use this phrase to refer to Himself as the unique source of God’s provision and deliverance:
 
John 6:35, I AM the Bread of Life…
John 8:12, I AM the Light of the World…  
John 10:9, I AM the Gate or Door…
John 11:25 I AM the Resurrection and the Life…
John 15:1, I AM the True Vine… and today’s reading from John 10:14…
I AM the Good Shepherd.
 
In his masterful way, this is St. John helping us to see that in Jesus Himself we are actually seeing the Living God Himself at work. That Jesus is none other than Yahweh, the ONE WHO IS, the Eternal Son of God, having taken on human existence, and dwelling among us… to be our Saviour… our Redeemer… and our Good Shepherd. Not just back then, but today! For Jesus remains our Good Shepherd even now.
 
While Moses had been a shepherd for a season, before he was caught up in God’s mission to lead Israel out of slavery and through the wilderness into the Promised Land. But Moses’ ministry ended. Before they entered into that good land, Moses died in the wilderness.
 
And King David had also been a shepherd, before being chosen by the Living God to be Israel’s anointed King… but his service also came to an end. David died, and he was buried, and his descendants led Israel far from the ways of the Living God.
 
But the Good News of Easter is that, even though Jesus our Good Shepherd, laid down His life for His sheep at the cross… dying for us all as the fulfillment of Yahweh’s universal rescue mission… Jesus was also raised again… resurrected to bring God’s New Life to the world.
 
And according to Jesus, this was always part of the plan. John 10:17-18, “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. I have received this command from my Father.”
 
Having taken up His resurrected life, Jesus remains our Good Shepherd even now. He is still THE ONE WHO IS and THE ONE WHO ALWAYS WILL BE there for us… to comfort, and correct, and guide, and provide, and lead us away from danger and disaster, and into the Promised Life of God’s good Kingdom.

And so, when we find ourselves feeling lost… or frightened… or stuck in a mess of our own making… we know we can turn to our Good Shepherd, and trust that He will be right there with us through it all… and He will not leave us to fend for ourselves, because we know in His great compassion and love, He’s already laid down His life for our sake, and risen again to save us… and not just us!
 
Remember His words in John 10:16, “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.” Words to remember whenever we’re tempted to become self-focused, and forget God’s saving love is for all.
 
But at times we might wonder: how does Christ keep caring for His flock today? Where are we supposed to turn to experience His love in our lives?
 
One thing we can safely say about Yahweh, the Living God, is that He’s consistent. And although there are lots of ways that God can and does directly connect with us, and care for us, one of the primary ways  that He keeps choosing to do so is through the lives of other people.
 
People like Moses… as hesitant as he was to take part in rescuing his own enslaved community. And people like David, who was dismissed as unimportant, and overlooked until the Living God raised him up to the throne. People like St. Peter and St. John, who in our reading today from Acts Chapter 4, carried on Christ’s own mission to share the Good News of God’s Kingdom through their words and their deeds. And God works through people like you and I here today, who have our own parts to play in God’s story.
 
Turning to Acts for a moment, let’s take a quick look at what these disciples were up to. Or rather, what Jesus Himself was up to in and through them.
 
Last week we heard how these two Apostles were approaching the Temple in Jerusalem to worship, in the days after Pentecost. By this time, the Spirit of God had been poured out upon Jesus’ followers, filling them with God’s divine life in a whole new way.

At the gate to the Temple, they saw a man who could not walk, begging for alms. Like Yahweh, way back in the Exodus story, they saw this man in his sufferings, and they did something about it: they reached out, took him by the hand, and in the name of Jesus he was completely healed.
 
This caused quite a stir, and then they began to proclaim to the crowds that it was not them, but the Living God Himself, the One who had raised Jesus from the dead, that had healed this man… boldly proclaiming in Acts 3:16 that “by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.”
 
Faith in Jesus’ name had restored the man to health. Not faith in the disciples’ abilities. Or wisdom. Or way with words. It was Jesus the Risen Lord, the Good Shepherd, at work in their faithful actions and words, through the power of the Holy Spirit of God within them.
 
Here we pick up the story again in Acts 4:1-12.
“While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.
 
Just like Jesus, their Good Shepherd, these two disciples were laying their lives down, suffering for the sake of the sheep… putting themselves in troubles’ way to help others come to know the Good News of the Risen Lord. Back to Acts:
 
“The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders,  if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is
     ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;
      it has become the cornerstone.’
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”
 
Like Moses before Pharoah, St. Peter and St. John were drawn into God’s plan to set His people free… to share with them the Good News of God’s victory over sin and death, and the promise of New Life through Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. Even though God’s people had been wandering, and their leaders had led them astray, God didn’t give up on them! And through these two faithful disciples, through their willingness to stand firm and bear witness to the truth, Jesus the Good Shepherd was at work gathering His flock together again to lead them into life.
 
But this is not only true for folks like Peter and John… Jesus the Good Shepherd can and will work through all of us… all who will trust and follow Him, to carry on the good work of God’s Kingdom.
 
How? Certainly not because of our own abilities. Or wisdom. Or special skills. He might end up using these parts of our lives, but then again, He might just as easily work through our weaknesses… our moments of fear, and our struggles… the moments we need our Good Shepherd most of all.
 
The truth is, Jesus Christ continues to work through the lives of His people when they choose to trust Him, and walk in His ways: Simply living out our faith, helping our love to grow, and sharing our hope with those around us.
 
This is the idea at work in our first reading today… how God’s people participate in the work of the Kingdom… and make ourselves available for Jesus to work in our lives:
   
1 John 3:16-18, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
 
And further down, in 1 John 3:23, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” Faith and love. Trust in Jesus, and compassion for those around us. This is how Christ works through us.
 
And Jesus our Good Shepherd is at work in our world, and among us here at St. Luke’s. We can experience His compassion and care in the arms of His children, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We can come to know His good guidance, assurance, and even life-giving corrections through one another… through the love of God at work in our hearts, and words, and actions, as we listen to His voice together, and follow Him in faith.
 
And when we need Jesus our Good Shepherd, let us draw near together, and find His love in our midst, ready to reach out and embrace us all. And let us especially remember that Jesus wants to work through us to share His saving love with our world in truth and action. Amen. 
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