by Dr. Luke Bouman, Conroe, Texas

Gospel: John 10:22-30

John 10:22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one."

The Image in the Window

I have a memory from my childhood. I do not remember the location or even the name of the church. I do not even remember any of the other windows of the church, though surely there must have been some. I remember only this window. It shows Jesus, as a shepherd, holding his crooked staff in one hand, carrying a lamb in the other hand. This gentle image of the "Good Shepherd" captured the attention of at least one young worshiper who could not follow the sermon on that particular Sunday. Stained glass still serves its ancient purpose, to pass on the faith.

This portrait in glass represented Jesus, the shepherd, as the one from Luke's Gospel who goes out to find and bring back the lone lost sheep, even at the risk of the ninety-nine others. I had a habit of wandering and straying, so I always imagined the comfort of this image and perhaps that it why it captured me so as a child. This image is burned into all of our minds with texts like Luke's or the 23rd Psalm to reinforce it.

John's Gospel, at least at first glance, seems as far from this gentle image of a shepherd as we can imagine. John's shepherd messiah is fiercely protective, to be sure, but the image of holding the sheep safe from the snatching hands or jaws of nameless others is far from gentle. And then there is the business of those who don't belong to Jesus' flock. Is it just me, or did I imagine that God's love was for all humanity? Even the people of Israel at least assumed that their shepherd God would own his own flock.

Finally, as if to add insult to injury, Jesus provokes those Judeans who were asking him the questions by challenging them to think of him as so connected to his Abba, his God, that they two of them are one. I can only imagine that such a statement may well have driven those pious believers over the edge of reason into unrestrained violence. It is no wonder that the case begins to mount against Jesus.

None of these things matches my image and concept of Jesus from the window of my childhood. But that isn't surprising, is it? Jesus is many things, none of which can be captured in a single word or picture. This may have been the thought behind the command not to have graven images for God. Each one limits what we see and how we comprehend God. Once ingrained, it is hard to imagine God in other ways, and thus we end up with a God of our imagination, not the unpredictable, unfathomable complexity of the God that is. There is more to God as "good shepherd" than we find in our windows, or even in our favorite sheepish stories.

Shepherd and Lamb

On of the interesting juxtapositions of our lessons for today is that Jesus is cast in two roles where the flock of sheep is concerned. He is cast in God's role of Shepherd of Israel, or at least of faithful Israel, and he is cast in the role of the "lamb who was slaughtered" in Revelation. At first this seems a terrible contradiction. It is not. In fact it is key to understanding and following, at least for me.

First of all, it is a comfort for me to know that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. Jesus joined us in the sheepfold, so to speak. He knows and has experienced life as one of God's lambs. It is clear that with a God who loves us so deeply as to take all of our joys and sorrows into himself will surely know how to lead and guide us better. It is this intimacy with us that makes Jesus statement that he and his Abba are one even more meaningful. This shepherd has a depth of intimacy with his sheep. He knows our wants and needs from the inside, and thus can supply them.

Jesus, the shepherd, also protects and shelters his flock. The problem is that he doesn't do this in the way that we would expect or anticipate. We like to think that this protection means that we will not face problems, pain, suffering or death. Then when we do face such things we either imagine that Jesus doesn't keep his promise, or that we are not worthy. Either way, we are left out in the cold. While I suppose one could understand Jesus saying that no one can snatch us out of his hand to mean that kind of protection, I take it to mean something else.

This shepherd serves us best, not by changing life's rules for us, but rather by leading us into and through those painful times and places. What he is saying, I think, is that though our lives encounter pain and suffering as well as joy and happiness that none of these things can separate us from his love and care. Not even death places us beyond our shepherd's reach; He, who has been through death and come out the other side, guides us through as well.

God's Flock

All of this leads us back to the troublesome notion that belonging to God's flock is not automatic. There are, apparently, some who are outside of the flock, whose lives do not depend on this shepherd. The classic approach to those folks is one in which we state that God's love and guidance is offered to all, but not all will take it. This seems an easy solution to the problem. It is not God's fault if we don't follow. But with that thought comes something that gnaws away at my spirit at the deepest possible level. Where is the security in this way of thinking?

If I can imagine others who place themselves outside of God's love, if God does not have a way of overcoming their barriers, then how can I be so sure of God's love for me? What if I have not followed well enough, or long enough? What if I am distracted from following at some point? These questions always arise when salvation belongs, not to God and the Lamb, as our middle lesson from Revelation puts it, but to us, depending on our response, if not our action.

Certainly this is the horrible conclusion to the group collectively known as "the dwarves" in C. S. Lewis' Narnia series. In the final book, "The Last Battle" the dwarves, who have mostly been faithful to Aslan, the lion, throughout the book, have become so skeptical that they cannot see the new creation that is all around them expanding out from what appeared to be a small stable. They chant things like "the dwarves are for the dwarves" and "we refuse to be taken in." They have a feast laid before them, and instead of the food, the taste dirt and other foul things that they imagine inhabit the floor of a stable. Some have concluded that Lewis is inferring that some who have followed God will not finally reach the destination to which their shepherd is leading them.

But I think this ignores the open ended way in which Lewis concludes his series. He does not tell us what happens to the dwarves. He does not tell us if their eyes are opened in time. He does manage to show them included in Aslan's country, even if they won't or can't enjoy themselves at the moment. I, for one, always live in the hope that they will one day open their eyes and come to enjoy the feast. I live in that hope because of the shepherd of the sheep. He is the one who holds us in hand and protects us from being snatched out. He does this, not us. And I am certain that he will do whatever it takes to bend to his will even Judeans who ask him hard questions. I hope so, because that allows me to live secure knowing that he is doing it for me as well.

God's flock, after all, is always going to be larger than I imagine it. It will include people that I might wonder about. Other people might wonder that it includes me. But therein lies the mystery of God's grace. It isn't something that we earn or take. It is something that God simply gives, and how strange would it be if God gave it only to some and did not offer it to all? That brings me back to the image in the window of the Good Shepherd. There is something intimate and consoling about a Shepherd who would take me, his little lamb, in hand and shelter me through life's storms. There is something awesome and mysterious about a Shepherd whose shoulders are broad enough to take on the weight of an entire broken world.

When I was a new father, It was a duty that fell to me on my free nights to sing my son to sleep. We sang a variety of songs, sometimes he would listen, and when he was old enough, sometimes he would sing. One of the songs we would always sing was one that I remembered from my childhood. The words echo the 23rd Psalm, but are intimate and comforting as they are strange and disturbing:

I am Jesus' little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am;
For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need, and well provides me,
Loves me every day the same,
Even calls me by my name.

Day by day, at home, away,
Jesus is my Staff and Stay.
When I hunger, Jesus feeds me,
Into pleasant pastures leads me;
When I thirst, He bids me go
Where the quiet waters flow.

Who so happy as I am,
Even now the Shepherd's lamb?
And when my short life is ended,
By His angel host attended,
He shall fold me to His breast,
There within His arms to rest.

(Text by Henrietta L. von Hayn, TLH # 648)

by Dr. Janet H. Hunt, Dancing with the Word

Gospel: John 10:22-30

On a Friday morning, I stopped at the hospital to call on a 2 year old. Her grandpa had called the night before to say she had been admitted with pneumonia. Hospitals can be frightening places for anyone, but perhaps especially for little ones who can't make sense of what is happening to them. As I walked down the hallway I heard her before I saw her. But no, she wasn't crying. Rather, when I walked into her room I found her sitting up in her crib singing. She was in her pajamas, with a sleeve wrapped around the arm which held her IV --- put there to protect it from her curiosity or fear. Attached to her left big toe was a pulse oximeter. Her little fingers are too small to hold it, but of course they still need to measure the oxygen level in her blood, and so they made do. And she was sitting up and singing. It was clearly a tune of her own making and the words were jumbled and difficult to understand, but it was a beautiful melody even so.

I smiled at the unexpected sound which continued throughout my brief visit with her mom and followed me down the hall as I left for other errands. I wondered as I drove away at the wonderful sounds which must have filled her life so far that she would sing in that frightening time and place. And I wondered, too, if maybe she sang in part to comfort herself --- her mind retrieving gladder times and they then just spilled over in her little child's voice --- bringing with them the promise of glad times again.

I'm thinking that two year old has been hearing our Shepherd's voice already... maybe through the sounds of earthly voices of those who love her, living out their promised protection and tender care. And perhaps in ways we can't understand but only children can. Perhaps she hears the Shepherds' voice as well and as she does and continues to do so I expect it will carry her, too, her whole life long.

Jesus speaks to us of the Shepherd's voice today. It is a voice of promise. It is a voice that promises stubborn protection and care. It is the voice the flock hears and knows and follows. It is the voice which is especially precious in times of struggle and pain. And it is one we sometimes have to work harder to hear in better times when other voices especially seem to drown it out. And yet even when those other voices overwhelm; yes even when we don't pause to listen it is always there, inviting and comforting and urging us on.

In times when I can't quite hear it, I find I am especially blessed to hear others witness to its sound --- whether it be those who grieve asking to hear again the promises our Shepherd's voice has whispered in her ear her whole life long or it be the beautiful song of a little one --- singing through her pain and fear and in her soft melody pointing to the safety and protection and joy she has already known --- as only a two year old can. For oh yes, it is so that when I can't hear it for myself I do find myself grateful to be able to walk with others for whom that precious voice is ringing clear. Those times remind me to pause and listen, too. For our Shepherd's voice is calling out to me as well.

What does our Shepherd's voice sound like to you?
What promises does it speak?
What is the Shepherd calling you to?

When did you last hear someone else testify to its sound?
What do you have to do to be able to listen more deeply so as to hear that voice?
What needs to be set aside, turned down, put off until later so that you can pause and listen, too?

By Dr. Walter W. Harms, Austin, TX

Gospel: John 10:22-30

My only experience with sheep was highly limited. My father, a pastor, was visiting a sick woman and I went along with him because there were children my own age in that family. This family raised sheep. It was lambing season. One of the ewes had rejected her lamb and the family was bottle feeding the newborn. Another lamb was sick and in the house to be cared for.

The stench of those animals, the smell of wet wool still on the hoof, the worms at home in the "live" wool was overpowering! I didn't enjoy the visit at all.

From all of that I learned this. When Jesus says he is the good shepherd and we are his sheep, listening to his voice, I know he truly has to have an extraordinary love and care for us!

I have heard/read about other characteristics of sheep that are as unflattering as my experience with them, and if even partially any of it is true, we have indeed an outstanding shepherd and we shall not want.

However, the crux of the matter is: is Jesus our, yours, my shepherd? Do we listen to his voice, follow him? If we do not listen and understand his voice, then we are not of his flock and he is not our shepherd. And we shall always be wanting and found lacking in what we need to live.

The occasion for the words of Jesus written by John, the Gospel writer, was the festival of Dedication. Really the festival of the rededication of the temple there in Jerusalem. Some 150 years before, that temple had as its center a statute of Zeus, the supposed supreme God of the Greeks. The great family of the Maccabees that finally become militarily strong enough to rid the land of the Greek invaders, had literally cleansed the temple of that abomination, that idol. They had relit the fires of the great candlestick, and the festival in late December became our Hanukkah.

The air at the time of our narrative for today was filled with thoughts of victory, freedom, and the return of native Jewish leadership again. While the temple was again fully dedicated to God, the land had been lost again. This time to the Romans, with their awful brutal, heathen practices which came all too close to this holy place, this magnificent colonnaded temple of God. 40 years in the building, glorious by any standards. But now subject to heathen powers.

I suspect those who asked Jesus the question: "How long will you keep us in suspense, Jesus? Are you going to be our rescuing King, the promised Messiah?" felt like many of the Iraqi do about Americans. Will one of the leaders be the one to rid this holy land of the invading Americans? (Remember that the land of Palestine in the Near East, was as Iraq is today.)

That's what those around Jesus wanted: freedom (from) the invader; freedom to live without fear, foreign domination, political musclemen who always wanted every penny in taxes they could extract and who were present everywhere.

I haven't experienced that myself, ever. I did see part of the movie, Gone with the Wind again the other night. The fear of the Yankees coming, the unbridled force of those Northern soldiers, their brutality to all they conquered reminded me of what these Jews wanted--freedom, restoring the old ways and old days.

And what do we want from Jesus? Do we want America, which one of the best selling authors of our time said on a national TV program, that God had raised up at this time as his voice among the nations of the world, to be victorious over all terrorists and enemies of the church?

Are we looking for a Jesus who will fulfill all our wants, our necessities, and our dreams, our expectations of the good life, and our dreams of what a good life would be?

Over 80% of all Americans expect to have eternal life after death. With or without Jesus, as the one who gives it, they expect it. Is that us here today? We just cannot imagine not having a wonderful life ever?

And from what and to what has Jesus, the Good Shepherd called you? He made you his own by rescuing you from the temptation to go where things are greenest, like Lot, Abraham's nephew did when he chose the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as his place to live? Has Jesus rescued you from the way of death when we thought drugs, booze, sexual immorality of every and all kinds, chronic lying and deceiving was really living? Has he pulled you to the place where you hear who has kept you from being a whore to all the vices and pleasures of this world, which include over indulgence in pleasure, purchases, and pride of possessions?

Has he become hope when there was no hope, freedom from burdens you know would crush you, peace from turmoil within and without? That voice of the one who has called you to trust him is the one of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for you, for me, for all on the cross. He gave up his life so you and I could have it. Then he rose from death to tell us all he said was true. His words, his promises, his love for us and all people, his acceptance of people of every kind, his leading us and giving us eternal, never-ending living with him--all true. What a voice to hear and to follow!

Jesus did miracles; he does miracles in your life: have you seen them? Do you believe they come from the gracious hand of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you see how wonderful it is that we, who were once scattered, once lost, once without a change are recovered, given light in the darkness of our despair, and are given the life forever in this assembly, this house of the Lord, the holy, catholic, apostolic church? Do you see God the Father's hand in that

Jesus and the Father are one in their love for the sheep, in their opposition to death and evil, one in their determination to bless the sheep with indestructible life, one in their power to free and enliven. Jesus is the perfect expression of God in our world. Jesus is the word of God, so that whoever has seen or heard Jesus has seen and heard God. Indeed, as Jesus says: "the Father and I are one."

And in that world, in his flock, whether it is the valley of shadows of death, whether it is the enemy who wants to feast on the sheep, whether it is personal straying or wandering from the flock of the Great Shepherd of the sheep, you and I shall not ever be in want. Say it together, please: I shall not want.

Amen.