John 10:11-18, 27-30
Easter 2
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
If you truly know yourself, how easily anger or greed can rise up within you, how hard it is for you to turn away from your sinful urges, how quickly fear and despair can take over, how weak you are in the face of death and the devil–if you really know yourself, then the words in today’s Scripture reading do not sound all that comforting. For our Lord says: “I am the Good Shepherd; and I know My sheep.”
So is that really good news or bad news? The Lord knows everything about you, every thought, every desire, every word you’ve muttered under your breath, every hidden thing you’ve done in secret. So where is the good news in these words, when Jesus says, “I know My sheep”? How does His knowing us make Him the Good Shepherd?
Well, when Jesus talks about knowing us, He’s not just talking about having the facts on us. He’s talking about something much more personal, knowing us in a way that understands and embraces us. That’s why Jesus’ words are actually good news in the end. For what our Lord knows about us, He can heal. What He grasps, He can subdue and overcome. What He embraces and takes in, He can suffer to death and bury and destroy in His own body.
We do not have a Jesus who knows us only intellectually while never actually feeling and enduring and bearing what we go through. And our Lord doesn’t have mere information about our heartache and our stress and our depression and our fears, all the while keeping his distance. Rather, we have a Jesus who commits Himself entirely to us, who shares in our flesh and blood and drinks down every drop of anxiety and temptation that is in us, who understands and takes in everything we are. We have a Jesus who sympathizes with our weaknesses, who was tempted in all points just as we are. And though He Himself was without sin, He endured your sin and experienced your suffering and underwent your judgment and your death to redeem you from it all on the cross.
Our Lord truly knows you. He knows what lies within you. But He doesn’t shun you; instead He sticks with you as your truest Friend. That is what makes Him the Good Shepherd, the Good Pastor. For since our Lord knows you in the fullest sense of that word, He can truly heal and help you, and see you through your troubles and temptations, and lead you safely to the new life that He has prepared and won for you. Our Lord knows you precisely so that He might be merciful to you. Our Lord sees you as you truly are, so that He might forgive and restore you entirely.
In fact, Jesus draws a connection between the way He knows you and the way the Father knows Him. He says, “As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” The Father knows His Son Jesus fully and perfectly with self-giving love, and Jesus knows the Father fully and perfectly, returning that pure love.
Now Jesus extends His unity with the Father to you. He knows and embraces all that you are so that you might embrace and receive all that He is. He shares in your brokenness so that you might share in His perfect holiness. What belongs to you belongs to Him, and what belongs to Him belongs to you. A certain prayer of Martin Luther goes, “Lord Jesus, I am Your sin; You are my righteousness.” Christ has taken up and taken away your uncleanness; and in turn you have taken up and taken on His purity. Because He knows you and you know Him like that, you are completely united with one another. And since you are one with Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit, you are also one with the Father. In other words, you have been drawn into the very life of the Holy Trinity, God Himself. It is all of this and more that Jesus means when He says, “I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me.”
And it is particularly through your ears that you know your Good Shepherd. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” That’s the way you know the Good Shepherd–you recognize His voice, that special sound of the Gospel which He speaks into your ears. There are all sorts of voices out there clamoring for your attention now, on TV and on the internet and in the popular culture, preying on your insecurities, wanting you to walk not by faith but by fear, to focus on the wolf rather than on the shepherd. These worldly voices entice you to follow their version of spirituality, to achieve righteousness by your own works, even by your own perfect keeping of COVID-19 rules and guidelines. As I watch the news and scan social media, it's clear that the Pharisees are still scolding and looking down on those who they think are less righteous than themselves. They want you to define who you are and your purpose in life by anything other than the Word of the cross. But just as sheep won’t follow an unfamiliar voice, so also the Holy Spirit leads you to know that such voices are not from the Lord. Only the one-of-a-kind Gospel voice of the Good Shepherd causes the ears of a Christian to perk up. That’s the only voice that rings true and beautiful in your ears. It’s the voice you hear in absolution and the preaching of Jesus’ Word. It is the voice of Him who does not flee when the going gets tough, who is not scared off by what He knows of you, but who seeks you out and gathers you to Himself.
And finally, remember what Jesus says here, “My sheep follow Me.” We walk after Him in His ways, according to His commands; for we have died with Him to sin so that we might live for righteousness. And then Jesus says, “I give them eternal life; and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.” There is no predator, not the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion, nor even the jaws of the grave, that can steal you sheep away from your Good Shepherd. You are perfectly safe in His care, even if the face of viruses and disease, even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. For Jesus has already walked this path and triumphed. We will surely follow Jesus through death to our own resurrection with Him on the Last Day. It is written, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, . . . nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Therefore, knowing the kind of Good Shepherd we have, we rest safe and secure in His hands, even in the midst of this fallen and troubled world. He’s not like a hireling who’s just aiming for the six figure paycheck or the nice retirement or the approval of the crowds. No, Jesus is the One who leads you beside the still waters to drink of His refreshing words and Spirit. He guides you with the rod and staff of His Law and His Gospel. He prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies, giving His holy body and blood in the Sacrament for your forgiveness. And so we say with the Psalmist, “I will fear no evil, for You are with me . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
(With thanks to John W. Fenton)