Year C 2025

John 10:22-30

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The True Shepherd

There is a cute story of a census taker making his rounds in the lower East side of New York, who interviewed an Irish woman bending over her washtub, “Madam, I am taking the census. May I please have your name? And how many children do you have?” She replied, “Well, let me see. My name is Mary. And then there’s Marcia, and Duggie, and Amy, and Patrick, and …” “Never mind the names,” the man broke in, “just give me the numbers.” She straightened up, hands on hips, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, “I’ll have you know, sir, we haven’t got into numbering them yet. We haven’t run out of our names!”

Today, we are given an image of God that tells us this is the way it is with God, the Good Shepherd. God knows us by name and will continue to lead us to the water of life and one day wipe every tear from our eyes as we participate in Jesus’ unfinished story. This promised new life in the risen Lord is not yet complete to be sure but all our texts today speak of the heaven-sent care of a loving God, whose concern reaches out to all who are in need of God’s care and love, and who gives us new roles in God’s great drama to help wipe all tears away. The gospel today especially illumines these truths and promises. Jesus is walking through the temple during the feast of dedication, or Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is when devout Jews in December, come to Jerusalem, and many still do today, to the joyful celebration commemorating the purification of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 BCE after it had been de-consecrated and defiled by pagan rule. John, in his gospel, likes to build his stories about Jesus around the festivals that he attends in Jerusalem of which he does in today’s text. The theme of today is the question of the Messiahship of Jesus which is also the dominate theme in the gospel itself and this causes conflict with the religious authorities. If the Messiah has come, then the center of God’s presence and activity, God’s holiness may have shifted from the temple and it’s work, to the Messiah and his work and as Christians came to know, Jesus, is the new temple.

He says to his demanding inquirers that he has already told them plainly what they need to know. They do not understand because they do not believe. While he does not actually name himself the Messiah in this text, he does confirm who he is by his acts and ministry. His role and identity cannot be reduced simply to a title; instead, his role and identity is experienced, and this becomes clear in the analogy of the sheep and the shepherd. Jesus describes himself as a shepherd who loves, cares for and protects his flock. His sheep hear his voice, he knows them and they know him. In the same way, a child knows and trust his or her mother because of experience not necessarily reason. We cannot relate to God without knowing but knowing God without a relationship of the heart that leads us to love and  follow him and live his example of servant-hood is hardly to know at all.     A life of faith is called a spiritual journey because we learn to believe along the way with Christ.

The sheep who come to know Christ discover that he will never let them go and they can trust him. It is enough to trust, to have faith, that God loves us and wants us to belong and we do, by the risen Christ’s promise of resurrection to eternal life. Both the Acts and Revelation texts today further attest to this promise assured us by Christ’s resurrection. Last Sunday, we heard the familiar story of Paul’s Damascus Road experience and today, we read of the miraculous raising of Tabitha, a devoted disciple of Christ. A woman whose ministry is vital to the community in Joppa. Peter prays and the spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead brings back to life this faithful woman whose acts of compassion are central to the new reality of the resurrection. The people recognize God’s hand in this and give God the glory. Tabitha will eventually die but her example is still alive in the faithful who live a life of love and care as our great shepherd showed us.

The faithful of every nation, in John’s vision who “have come out of the great ordeal” are gathered together in the presence of God singing a chorus of praise to the Lamb. They have known hunger and thirst, exposure and weeping, but the Lamb they know will be their shepherd who guides them to a shelter and a way to the “springs of the water of life” where they will hunger and thirst no more. With John, we get a picture of a future that holds nothing but joy and bliss, a church triumphant. The faithful multitude who praise and worship the Lamp, challenge us today to bear witness to the ways of our true shepherd. A shepherd who loves us, knows us by name, cares for and protects his flock. We have the assurance that no matter what the future holds, God is holding us and nothing can snatch us away. God alone is our true safety, our true shepherd.

A paraphrase of psalm 23 written by the late theologian and minister Isaac Watt’s expresses beautifully the care of a loving God:

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Your House be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, or a guest,
But like a child at home.

 “I am the good shepherd” Jesus tells us, my sheep hear my voice. I know them, they know me and they follow me. I invite them as a gracious host to eat and drink at my banquet table singing eternal praise and worship. “To our God forever and ever! Amen.