In a time of uncertainty and constraint, Jesus still offers life in abundance. Our Gospel reading this morning is a powerful, many layered parable, that sheds light on the real constraint and futility that characterises normal life. Jesus alone can lead us out into life, even when the world is shut in.
- John 10:1–10 Jesus’ Purpose – Abundant Life
- 1 Peter 2:19–25 Walking with Jesus, in Suffering and Faith
- Acts 2:42–47 United in Gladness & Generosity
The Good Shepherd
I have often found this teaching parable confusing; Jesus enters by the door, but is the door. He leads his sheep out, but emphasises himself as the door by which they must enter. There are layers to what Jesus is teaching us here.
Sheep Penned In
First, there is a picture of sheep who are penned in. They need someone who will lead them out. There is a gate, but none seem willing (or able) to enter by it. Everyone who offers hope of escape, metaphorically goes over the wall. It makes you wonder, what is this gate, guarded by a gatekeeper who only opens to the good shepherd.
The sheep, nevertheless, cannot truly go out unless a true shepherd enters through the door and leads them out.
Helpfully perhaps, for our understanding, many of us are feeling what it is really like to be penned in right now. It may be for our safety, but it is not the abundance of life for which our hearts long. We know something of the reality of being penned in, but there is a deeper reality here. Beneath all the practical experience of the current lockdown, we are all penned in – away from the fullness of life – by something in us that keeps us from the fullness of life for which God made man in the beginning.
Like our present isolation, this deeper penned-in-ness is not really a good place to be. By God’s grace we are hemmed in by law and conscience. God has kept man from the worst of the consequences of its godlessness, in a place of relative safety. But it is short of the life for which our souls yearn.
In this pen we know life, but it is a life of shortage and constraint. It is a life without abundance, in which everyone competes (some violently), and in which even those who have most still are not satisfied. It is a place of anxiety and sickness in mind and heart as much as in our bodies.
It is a place that Ephesians 2:12 describes as “alienated” and “strangers”, “having no hope and without God”.
Mostly, people are blind to this deeper alienation from life and penned-in-ness. Bot perhaps this current crisis can open our eyes to its reality – if we take time to let our current feelings of restriction and half-life, illuminate the normality of life we knew before, and will know again when it ends.
Many Shepherds
The sheep, as Jesus tells us, are not without potential shepherds to lead them out. It seems that there are always those coming to the sheep with the offer of something better. Jesus describes them by their methods and their motives.
By their methods, he says, they go over the wall. They are not willing, or able, to enter in by the gate. Nor will the gatekeeper open it to them. Their way is wrong.
By their motives, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Thieves, they only come to “steal and kill and destroy”. At their best, they are in it for themselves, but at the root of what they do is one who only wants to steal and kill and destroy. Their hearts are wrong also.
The reason why they avoid the gate is because it is a way of suffering and, ultimately, of death. The sheep are held from life by this gate – as those “who through fear of death are subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:15). This is mankind’s predicament, and in this pen (without Christ) we live our lives in futility.
However, it is amazing what you can do in this pen. We can be very good at making the best of a bad job. And just as in our present situation, there are always those offering ways out; voices proclaiming life in this way or that. They are thieves, all of them, but they can sound very persuasive. It is going to take some effort of faith and hearing the true shepherd to protect us from these deceptive sirens.
The Good Shepherd
But there is one who is truly Good. He has come to us to set us free and lead us to life in abundance. And he became the gate for us by his own entering through the gate of suffering and death. Only he could. Only he was willing …. and the gatekeeper opened the gate to him, accepting his suffering and death on our behalf.
So, now, Jesus is the gate. He is able to lead the sheep out, and into life. He calls, and those whom God calls in Jesus, he gives ears to hear and to recognise their true shepherd. He is both the gate through which the sheep go out and enter in, and he is the life that they enter into. The sheep who go out and in with him are no longer strangers and aliens, no longer without hope and without God.
And in him there is real freedom “to go out and in”. Not out and into the old pen again; “out and in” expresses the freedom of those who live in Christ to live unconstrained by the pen and gate that had held them. And Jesus leads them to pasture, the food that they were made for … in God himself.
This parable is about Jesus, the good shepherd, but it is meant to open our eyes first to our own predicament – we are penned in away from the fullness of life for which we know we were made, and for which we yearn. We ought to take time to see this and feel this, or we will not recognise the goodness of the shepherd when he calls.
Learning to Hear, learning to Follow
But, we should be careful to hear all that Jesus teaches us about the way of life. If we heard only this parable, we might think that all the sheep need to do is hear Jesus call and follow him out to life.
More than One Event
In one sense, that is true. Jesus himself describes this experience for the sheep as being born again. He says that those who hear his voice and believe in him have already passed from death to life. There is a real and glorious truth in the gospel that, hearing and believing, something fundamental changes in us; we become his sheep, and no one can snatch us from his hand.
But that is not all the truth. The new flock (church) that comes out to Jesus as Acts starts, has much to learn, challenges to face and – as Paul will later tell them – it is through many troubles that they must enter the kingdom (Acts 14:22). Paul, himself, when he was called was shown how much he must suffer for this new life. And Peter, as he was reinstated as a key under shepherd was shown his own suffering also.
Whilst coming out with Jesus, through the gate that is suffering and death, to life and freedom is, at one level an event (like being born), it is also a process of growing up into a new life and leaving the old life behind. While we do now taste the life of the world to come, we do not now its fullness; we still live in a world that rejects God, awaiting the new world of righteousness that Jesus will bring. And we ourselves are not yet fit for that new world, we have lots of growing and changing to do.
Suffering with the Good Shepherd
So, one of the realities of hearing and following Jesus is that we must go out by the gate that he has opened for us. And that gate is one of suffering and death. Its reality is shown in the initiation of Baptism, which is into his death (Rom 6:4), and in the ongoing sharing in his suffering by which we press on into the hope of eternal life (Phil 3:10).
Paul and Peter (especially in his first letter which we read from today), speak eloquently of this. And yet, too many Christians regard suffering as surprising, as something to be avoided, and as questioning their trust in God. In reality, when we suffer for Jesus sake, it is “a gracious thing” as Peter says. Such suffering is like the pruning of fruitful vines that Jesus speaks of in John 15. It both helps remove dead wood from our lives and deepens our spiritual life and hope in Jesus.
When we chose to follow Jesus, even through sufferings, it deepens our trust and strengthens our hope, because it says that we regard knowing him as more precious than avoiding suffering, which we regards as “light and momentary” compared to the “weight of Glory” promised in Jesus (2 Cor 4:17). It also glorifies God in Jesus as we value him mor highly than any worldly comfort.
So, let us not be surprised by suffering when we are following Jesus. It is a gracious thing and a promise of blessing (Matt 5:11). It is the narrow way that leads to abundant life
Discerning His Voice amongst the Voices
Notice also that the one who leads us out to life does so by his voice. If we hear Jesus and recognise that God is speaking to us, that is already a gift from God to us. Like the Emmaus disciples, are hearts are strangely warmed when he speaks to us.
But we should not take such hearing for granted. There are many voices, loudly clamouring for our attention. Jesus sheep can discern the Good Shepherd’s voice and should indeed flee from any other voice that calls out, but we must not underestimate the deceiver –
“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt 24:24)
We have a part to play in hearing. To be “all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Pet 1:10). It is as we continue to hear, and respond faithfully as we do hear, that we renew our minds (and hearts) and learn how to discern the will of God (Rom 12:2). By testing, that is by hearing and doing, we become better hearers, better at discerning his voice.
Part of this comes from spending time in his word and letting it abide in us; meditating and chewing it over. The more we hear, understand and shape our hearts and minds with his word, the more we are able to reject the false voices. No matter how reasonable, plausible and persuasive they may sound, if they don’t sound like Jesus, we should flee from them
Growing up Into Christ
The Good shepherd enters by the door and becomes the door – the Way – by which his sheep, responding to his call go out from the pen that had held them in half-life. Going out they are also called to go in – to go, more and more into the new life that they have come to in Jesus. As new sheep they are to feed on the pure spiritual milk that Jesus offers and to grow up into him. That is our calling
Look at 2 Peter (as I have already referenced above), it is a picture of this growing up into Christ –
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Pet 1:5-11)
Faith is the foundation, the root, but true saving faith grows – in virtuous living, increasing knowledge of the truth, self-control with steadfastness (even in suffering). It grows to look more and more like the God who calls us and shows itself in godly love. And thus, we are richly provided with an entrance into the abundant life of the “eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Not Going Back
So, finally, we need to remember where we started; the pen in which the sheep lived before the Good Shepherd came. The way to life is hard and there is always the opportunity to turn back. We need to remember what the pen was really like.
When the Israelites faced hunger in the wilderness on the journey to the promised land, they remembered the cucumbers that they had in Egypt – Cucumbers!! It seems ridiculous that life with Jesus, as we journey out to enter into life, could be so hard that we look back wistfully on past cucumbers. But times will come when we may think the way too hard and long for the life we knew in the pen. We need to remember how futile, hopeless and Godless it was.
And we need to remember what we are journeying out towards. Life in all its abundance in Christ. Like Joseph, who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” (Heb 11:26).
Perhaps, then, our feeling of being penned in right now, is a gift. Let us not miss its precious lessons – or forget them when these restrictions are released.