The Lord’s my Shepherd – Psalm 23 & John 10:11-18

One of the challenges when it comes to understanding the word of God is dealing with the cultural differences between the people who first heard these words of Jesus and the people of our time.  If we have heard the accounts contained in the Bible from our earliest days and have heard numerous sermons and teachings about them, it is relatively easy for us to understand why the images of Jesus as the gate to the sheepfold and being the good shepherd are so important for giving us a sense of comfort and peace.  But to people whose culture does not include the presence of sheep except what they find in the supermarket after processing, this account will no doubt not have the same impact.  They might be quite puzzled as to why Jesus would latch on to this image when speaking about his role as the one who will guard the life of those who would believe in him.  Perhaps today more people would be comforted by an image of Jesus as a bodyguard who uses his brute force and superior weaponry to ward off those who would seek to harm the faithful. Not surprisingly, there were people among Jesus’ own disciples who were expecting that kind of deliverer – someone who would free them from the tyranny of Rome with strength of arm and a mighty army.

So what is it about the image of the shepherd that is so important as to hold such a central motif in the Bible and especially in the Gospel of John? For most of human history, people depended for their very existence on what they could raise and harvest for themselves.  The evolution of a marketplace that is disconnected from the source of its goods is a relatively new development. The keeping of animals was a major source of sustenance for people and there was an intimate relationship between the animals and their keepers.  Of course, as communities grew and population increased, not everyone could afford a large flock of their own so they would hire people to take care of them.  But a hired person would not necessarily have the same sense of responsibility when it came to caring for the flock.  That person would not necessarily risk their life to either search for a lost lamb or to protect the flock against rustlers or wild animals.  But the owner and the owner’s family would have that heart to go to whatever lengths it took to protect the flock.

So why specifically sheep?  It seems that sheep were prized animals as they could not only provide food for the family but also the wool could be used to provide clothing and no doubt the skins could be used to provide shelter as well as the oils to make lotions.

But it was the account of the encounter between Moses and the Pharoah of Egypt and the plagues that culminated in the final plague – death in the house of every home not protected by the blood of a lamb – that raised sheep – and specifically the lamb – to a new level in the minds of the people.  Lambs became a sacred symbol and their sacrifice became the salvation of the people.

Remember how John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God. The full import of what John was saying would not be realized until the death of Jesus on the cross and his subsequent resurrection.  But the very fact that Jesus was seen as the Lamb of God would bring to the minds of those whose eyes and ears were open the remembrance of the night that the angel of death passed over because of the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes.

But back to the shepherd.  A true shepherd would do anything within his power to take care of the sheep.  And this is the promise Jesus makes in the account we heard from John’s Gospel.  Comparing the people to sheep was an old tradition and is found in many places in Scripture – most notably in the Psalms.  For Jesus to say that he was the Good Shepherd who would care for the people no matter what is an affirmation to the people that he would never abandon them or allow anyone or anything to harm them even to the point of laying down his life for them.  That is what any good shepherd would do and that is what the people understood.  When the disciples reflected on the meal they shared with Jesus in the upper room, when they reflected on his death, they came to understand the words he spoke about being the Good Shepherd. He did everything he could through his life to take care of, defend and protect people; and in the end he gave his life, his blood.  When they reflected on his resurrection, they came to understand that this was more than a lamb whose sacrifice meant salvation from death for a moment; this was salvation from death unto eternity.  This is what the Good Shepherd had done for them and what he had promised to do for all who would come to believe.

In the 23^rd Psalm – one that is considered to be a Psalm of David – we hear David reflecting on his relationship with God drawing upon his own relationship with his father’s flocks.  He knows that God will provide for his every need because he trusts God to be good.  He lets him rest in safe places; he gives him safe places to be refreshed in his body but he also refreshes his soul, his very life.  God leads him in right paths that his journey through life might be in good directions and God does this out of love for David.

And there is no time or place in life that will ever make David afraid of what will happen for he knows that even in the darkest places he may find himself, the Shepherd will be there and he will feel the touch of his rod and the strength of his staff.

And whatever enemies David may encounter, they will see that David is blessed by his Shepherd and that God’s protection is ever with him.  And finally he gives this affirmation: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” (Psalm 23:6)

All those who would shepherd their own flocks would know what commitment it took to be there for them no matter what.  To understand our relationship with God in that way is to know that God has committed to be there for us no matter what. And while those who lived before the time of God’s incarnation in Jesus only had a hope of eternity, those who lived in the time when God walked the earth in the person of Jesus experienced the advent of eternity – the breaking of the grip of death as an end with no new beginning.

Jesus would not only be the Shepherd to lead the people but he would be the Lamb whose blood would bring an eternal Passover and open the door to eternity.

AMEN