John 10:10-18
The 4th Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday, so we always read the 23rd Psalm and John chap.10 with Jesus’ naming of himself as the Good Shepherd.
Often we look at this image of Jesus as the good shepherd through the timeless beauty of the 23rd Psalm, but today we are going to look at it from a different angle, I hope, which John reveals in the verse immediately before the start of our passage.
So with v.10, our gospel begins: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11).
Today we bring to mind all we learnt over the Good Friday and Easter and as true resurrection people we consider what role the children of God have in creating this abundant life brought about through the good shepherd, Jesus.
All of our desires are grounded in a deep longing and desire for abundance of life. This is not abundance in terms of material prosperity, but abundance in terms of the very fullness that life in Christ provides.
“I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” That sets the tone for his telling of today’s story about the good shepherd, the hired hand, the sheep, and the wolf.
And let’s look at these four images in relation to abundance. What does the abundance of Christ look like? What does abundance mean for us? It has little to do with quantity and much to do with quality.
Abundance is that quality of life that lets us touch the deepest part of ourselves. It connects us with the divine, with the holy, and with what’s good, true, and beautiful in this world.
It’s not so much about getting something we don’t have, but living more fully into what is already present.
So this abundance is love that leads to love. It’s joy that leads to joy. It’s peace that leads to peace. It’s kindness that leads to kindness. It’s stepping more deeply and more fully into our own life and into the life of another.
So as redeemed sheep, we also work as Jesus’ kelpie. Jesus allows us to help him lead people to love, joy, peace, and all the fruit of the Spirit.
Abundance is Jesus’ way of being in this world. It is the presence of God lived through your life and my life.
So let’s look at these four images in today’s gospel, the good shepherd, the sheep, the hired hand, and the wolf, and considered them as a way of looking at abundance.
When you hear about the good shepherd, who do you think of? Jesus, of course! Absolutely, but could we be good shepherds too in this abundant life.
That is not to take away anything from Jesus. In our beautiful Psalm 23 today, what does the shepherd do? Leads, guides, revives, protects, is a companion too, nourishes and feeds, and sets a table of welcome and hospitality in the difficult places of life.
Sounds a lot like our parents, or our spouse. It probably sounds a bit like you too! It sounds a lot like love, and it sounds a lot like abundance.
Here’s the thing. The shepherd, regardless of who it is, is always leading to abundance. The shepherd is always leading to the green pastures, to the still waters, to the table that is set and to the cup that is overflowing. It’s always about getting to that place of abundance.
Now the sheep are us, aren’t they? So what could these sheep possibly show us about fullness of life. Well, as redeemed children of the living God, we are fellow sheep of God’s pasture for sure, but because we are the redeemed we are constantly being formed to be more shepherd-like.
People entrust parts of their lives to us, not just in a family sense of feeding and clothing, but emotionally and spiritually. If you have a friend, then they have entrusted their heart to you to some extent. And to our Lord and to us as children of God, that is very precious indeed.
Abundance always overflows and blesses because the living water is always welling up and overflowing in the life of the sainted sheep through the life of the good shepherd.
There’s something about sheep that is abundant. It’s in their vulnerability, their honesty, and the way they hope. They are full and whole and life giving. It’s why they matter, why we care for them. It’s why we receive that ‘entrusting’ with great respect, honour, fear and trembling.
Jesus then contrasts the good shepherd with the hired hand. The hired hand, he says, neither owns nor cares for the sheep. For the good shepherd, the sheep are the goal and the reason for everything the shepherd does. For the hired hand, however, they are just the means to a pay packet.
The hired hand lives by quantity not abundance. And probably every one of us can tell a story about someone in our life who we thought was a shepherd, but turned out to be a hired hand.
Even worse, when I was a hired hand.
Hired hands stay only as long as the wages are good. The hired hand either refuses to see or can’t see the abundance that’s already there, so they trade the whole world for mere wages.
Where there is a hired hand there is probably also a wolf. Wolves, Jesus says, snatch and scatter. Wolves devour life. They destroy abundance. They carry it off.
Wolves come in all sorts of shapes and sizes in our world today. Sometimes it’s the wolf of busyness, the wolf of achievement, the wolf of needing approval, or the wolf of having to be right and in control.
And sometimes it is the wolf of fear, or the wolf of anger and resentment. Or maybe it is the wolf of failure, the wolf of despair, the wolf of brokenness. Wolves kill sheep.
Now if we look deeply through these images and not just at them, these images all point to the abundant life Jesus is bringing and offering us.
It’s pretty easy to see the good shepherd and the sheep as images of abundance. They point to what is. But what about the hired hand and the wolf? That’s more difficult and yet, they also point to abundance but in a different way.
They point to what is not there. The remind us of what’s been lost and carried away. It is not as if the abundance was never there or can never be again. It’s just been lost, scattered and forgotten.
The question is, what do we see when we use these images to look at abundance in our life?
These images are invitations to open our eyes and look at our wild and free redeemed lives as children of God. Jesus is not a hired hand, but the Good Shepherd. He has already slain all the wolves that can possibly come after us his sheep, his prized flock, given to him by the Father from before the foundation of the world.
It is always helpful to look where a gospel passage falls in relation to what comes before and after it.
Immediately before this gospel, Jesus heals the man who was born blind at birth. He opens his eyes. There is a new seeing, new vision, new insight. Jesus then tells today’s Good Shepherd parable, then the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Do you see what’s happening and in what order? Restored sight, the Good Shepherd, new life.
“I have come,” Jesus says, “that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” It’s his beginning and ending. Abundant life is Jesus’ promise to each of us. Let me pray...