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Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, St. Peter says, “You were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.” This picture of the shepherd with his sheep would have been very common in the ancient world, especially in Israel, especially around Jerusalem. The hills around Jerusalem were covered, or maybe dotted, with flocks of sheep here and there, and the shepherds looking after them. Everywhere you go in Israel, this is the situation, especially in the more arid and dry places. The shepherds would take out their flocks to help them find something to eat.
When we were there, we were driving from Jericho up to Jerusalem in the hills, and we stopped, and you could see this overview, and you could see this picture, I mean this kind of panorama. Over here was a flock with a shepherd, and over here was a flock with a shepherd. We got back in the bus, and we were driving down the street, and we drove right by, and there it was! We pulled over, and there on the side of the hill right before us was a flock with their shepherd looking after them. The sheepdogs were there resting in the corner, and the sheep were grazing. They would graze and look up at the shepherd, and grazed a little bit more. The shepherd kind of took a few steps this way, and the sheep looked up, and they took a few steps this way, and they ate a little bit more. Then the shepherd walked up the hill a little bit this way, and the sheep kind of followed after him like this. One went a little too far, and the shepherd threw a rock at him, and he kind of scurried back down into the flock. It was an amazing thing to see.
In fact, we were watching this unfold before us, and I said, “This is just like being there in the Bible,” looking at the shepherd looking after his flock. Just as I had that thought, this shepherd pulled out his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and checked Facebook and probably updated it. Here’s another boss of foolish American tourists watching; it was one of those moments.
But this is all over in Israel, there is the shepherd and there is the flock. Now, the people who knew this would know that sheep are not the most profoundly intelligent of animals. In fact, the people who know sheep tell me that sheep are pretty dumb.
In fact, that might be the first point of the sermon here, that if someone were to call you a sheep, or if someone called you a lamb, it wouldn’t necessarily be a compliment. Sheep aren’t strong, they can’t overpower anyone, they’re not fast, they don’t have sharp teeth or pointy claws, and they’re not that smart to be able to outsmart someone coming to get them. In fact, their eyesight’s not that good, their hearing’s not that good, and even their smelling is not that good—not like a dog that can hear really high pitches or something like this.
In fact, this is why sheep without a shepherd are in utter danger. That’s the saying. It comes up multiple times in the Bible, where it says that if you strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered. This is why it’s so precarious that one sheep is lost in the wilderness; if the shepherd doesn’t find that sheep, that sheep is finished. It’s over, it’s done for. The one thing, though, that sheep apparently are good at is distinguishing voices. They have a particular kind of hearing that they are very accomplished at, that they can recognize the voice of their shepherd amongst the voices of all other people, all other shepherds.
In fact, the picture that Jesus is working on in this particular text is in the ancient world. The shepherd would take his flock and he’d call them, and they’d lead them out to the wilderness to find something to eat and something to drink. He’d stay out with them all day and then at night, he would bring them back to town, to the village, and there was a big sort of community pen where all the flocks would gather, where all the sheep would be put in there.
So you think maybe a flock has 20 or 30 or 40 sheep, but now there are 10 or 20 flocks all together—thousands of sheep in this pen. They hire the high school kid to stay up all night and watch to make sure nothing bad happens to the sheep overnight. In the morning, the shepherd would come back into the middle of all of these sheep all around, and he would call them each by name: “Fred, and George, and Susie,” and whatever the sheep’s names were. He would call them, and the sheep—so you’ve got to imagine all the shepherds all there at the same time, all calling their sheep—and the sheep could hear and know, “There’s my shepherd,” and they would go and gather to them.
So the shepherds would lead their little flock out and take them out to get something to eat, and something to drink, and to graze all day. Now that’s the picture.
And Jesus in this text says, “I am the good shepherd, I know my own, and my own know me, and I call them by name, and they follow me.” That is just about the only thing a sheep is good at. But look, that’s all it needs. The life of the sheep depends on the shepherd. So if you can hear the voice of your Shepherd, if you can hear the voice of the One who is committed to protecting you and keeping you, and you follow Him, then you have everything. This is the beauty of Psalm 23, which is today’s Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. The King of love, my shepherd is. His goodness faileth never.”
However, if we have the Good Shepherd, then we have life. We have peace. We have protection. We have provision. We have, in fact, as Jesus says it here, abundant life because the Lord is our shepherd. This is what it means.
Now think about this. This is what it means then to be a Christian: to listen, or maybe better, it’s to hear the voice of Jesus. Our chief Christian activity, if you were just to say, “What is it that a Christian does?” you would answer simply this way: a Christian hears Jesus. A Christian listens to God. A Christian knows the voice of their Savior. We might not be strong, we might not be fast, we might not have sharp claws. We might not be the Lord’s flock of warhorses, rather His flock of sheep. But if He’s our shepherd, then all is well. And we take the insult as our greatest compliment.
But look, it’s not only that sheep are humble animals, but it’s also for us to note this warning that shepherds are also humble people. Shepherding is a humble vocation.
Remember, just as a couple of biblical examples, when Samuel was sent by the Lord to the house of Jesse, and he said, “One of the children of Jesse will be the king.” So he says to Jesse, “Bring me your boys,” and he brings him the boys. Here’s the oldest; obviously, he’ll be the king. And Samuel says, “No, it’s not him,” and the next, and the next, and the next. He goes through all seven of his sons, and he says, “No, none of these; don’t you have another?” And he says, “Well, there’s one other, the youngest, the eighth boy, but he’s the smallest, he’s the weakest; he’s the one watching the sheep.”
Or remember the story of Joseph, when his ten brothers—Benjamin hadn’t been born yet—were sent to watch the sheep while he was able to stay home. In other words, watching the sheep was the humble job. Or even Cain and Abel. Remember, Cain inherited his father Adam’s business; he was a farmer. And Abel, the younger son, had to be out watching the sheep as the rancher.
So, shepherding is a humble work; it’s a humble calling. And yet the Lord Jesus says that He is our Good Shepherd. There’s a humility that He takes on to do the work, and it just really keeps coming. It’s not only the humility of being our shepherd, but Jesus astonishes us by saying that he’s the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.
Can you imagine that? The sheep are supposed to provide the life of the shepherd, but not this shepherd. He gives his life for us. He humbles himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. In fact, the humility of Jesus is this: that even though He is the Good Shepherd, He for us is the Lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Shepherd is the sheep who bears our sins, carries our sorrows, and suffers and bleeds and dies for us.
There’s a particular text in Micah. It’s the Christmas text; at least that’s what we normally think of it, but I think this text is why we hear about Jesus shepherding us in the season of Easter. Micah chapter 5, verse 2: “But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Therefore he shall give them up until the time that she who is in labor has given birth. Then the remnant of His brethren shall return to the children of Israel, and He, are you ready? And He shall stand and feed His flock.”
That standing is the standing of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. He will stand and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall abide. For now He shall be great to the ends of the earth, and this one shall be peace.
Dear Saints, you have a good shepherd, Jesus, who has died for you to rescue you from the mouth of the wolf and the lion. He leads you to the green pastures of his word. He has you by the still waters of his mercy and his love, and you will dwell with him in his house forever. For even now, Jesus has risen for this, that he will stand and feed his flock. God be praised.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia.
