“The Good Shepherd”
Original sermon given on Sunday, May 11, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“The Good Shepherd”
John 10.22-30
John 10.22-30
In the name of the Living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
Good Shepherd Sunday: for those of you who aren’t from a liturgical background, you may not fully appreciate the cultural and theological significance of today. This festival Sunday always occurs in the spring (Fourth Sunday of Easter), when the sun shines longer, the flowers bloom fuller, and the grass grows greener (in the Northern Hemisphere). If you lived in a late medieval farming community, it would also be the height of the lambing season. (I checked the online “British Lambing Guide” to be sure.) So now’s when those little lambs, born a month or two earlier, would have reached the peak of their cuteness factor. (Cuteness factor turned up to 11.) Bouncing around with their wool not yet overgrown, momma sheep still nearby, and shepherds working overtime.
Theologically, the Old Testament imagery of Yahweh, the Lord, being the One true Good Shepherd for Israel forms the backdrop for our Lord Jesus’ claims. As it was with Yahweh, so now with Christ. He calls the sheep by the gospel, gathers them around his word, knows them intimately, leads them lovingly, gives to them eternally, and holds them securely.
These beautiful, idyllic Good Shepherd themes get roughed up a bit in this section of John 10, which might surprise us a bit. First, the occasion for Jesus calling himself the Good Shepherd is in fact a controversy. The Judean religions authorities encircle Jesus (“gather around him” is too mild a translation). It’s a plot, and their questioning of him is disingenuous. They’re trying to entrap him, force him to use “Messiah” language with all is revolutionary, political, and military baggage in order to get him into trouble. Jesus avoids the trap by turning instead to the Good Shepherd image. He’ll not be a revolutionary hero, but a shepherd who calls, gathers, knows, leads, gives, holds.
The other thing that roughs up our idyllic image is that we’re told when Jesus’ claim to be the Good Shepherd occurs: the Jewish Feast of Dedication. Now, this was indeed a celebratory festival, commemorating the re-consecration, rededication of the Jerusalem Temple. But why did they rededicate it? A couple of centuries earlier, in the Maccabean period, the temple had been profaned and desecrated by the invading Greek armies, led by Antiochus IV Epiphanies. I won’t give you a full history lesson this morning, but Antiochus had the not-so-brilliant idea of forcibly “Hellenizing” the Jews. That is, he wanted to make them all “cool, sophisticated, and Greek-like.” He started with religion and erected a statue of Zeus in the Temple court, sacrificed a pig on its altar, and forced the Jewish priests to participate in pagan sacrifices. It didn’t go over very well, and in fact provoked the Maccabean revolt (167 BC). As if this wasn’t enough, Antiochus took on the name “Theos Epiphanies” — in Greek, “god made manifest.”
The Jewish Feast of Dedication celebrated the Maccabean revolt which drove the Greeks out of Jerusalem, and restored/rededicated the temple again. Today it is known as Hanukkah, but it was a much more important festival back then.
That’s the background for Jesus’ words here in John 10. So, at a feast where the Jews celebrate the driving out of a guy who claimed to be “god made manifest,” Jesus claims to be, well, God made manifest. “I and the father are one.” And at a feast where they mark the reestablishment of the Temple and Holy of Holies as the meeting place between God and Man, Jesus re-announces himself to be the meeting placed between God and Man. And at a time when they recall that Yahweh is their shepherd, defending them against their enemies and leading them into greener pastures, Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” It’s no wonder that immediately following today’s gospel reading, the religious authorities accuse him of blasphemy and try to stone him. (Happy Good Shepherd Sunday everyone! Sorry to ruin the pleasant pasture images).
And yet, this is the confession of our Christian faith, which our brother Asaph reaffirms this morning: that Our Good Shepherd (his Good Shepherd), Jesus, who was dead and is alive again, is in fact the working of God’s salvation, not just for the Jews but now for all people.
This is important, because when we look to Christ, and see him as he calls, gathers, knows, leads, gives, and holds his sheep, we are seeing the very salvific actions of God at work. This, in a very powerful way, is what our Lord means when he says, “I and the Father are one.” We see the work of God in Christ; we cannot fully see or understand God, apart from Christ; we can only get the gospel God through Christ. We can only hear the voice of the loving shepherd in Christ.
Our Lord’s greatest purpose, acting, and moving — his greatest oneness with the Father — is seen in his cross, where he laid down his life for the sheep; and in his Resurrection, where he takes it up again. In his cross we see the heart of God in action — bleeding for us in Christ, suffering for us in Christ, redeeming us in Christ. In the resurrection of Christ from the grave, we see God at work again, winning the victory for us over sin and Satan, death and hell.
This purpose and action of God in Christ is extended and made real and manifested to us again today in the breaking of the bread. This sacrament is, indeed, the presence of God in Christ, his body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine. But it is also the shepherding action of God in our lives. The Good Sheperd is at work here this morning. He calls us sinners, saying, “Come unto me, today, in repentance and faith.” He gathers his church into one body — people from different backgrounds and needs, in different spiritual places, but gathered under one Shepherd. He knows us in this holy meal. Every sin committed, every tear shed, every deep spiritual or emotional need he knows. The Good Shepherd leads us in this meal today — away from the voices of this world which would distract us from him. He leads us to new life, to new choices, to be new people following his ways and walking in his precepts. He gives in the Lord’s Supper: he gives the forgiveness of sins because he gives his very self here, for us and for our salvation. He holds his sheep in this sacrament. He preserves us in faith, guards us from temptation, protects us from the wiles of the Evil one, and promises that nothing can take us from him.
Come soon, Good Shepherd. Amen.