The Blood Of The Lamb And The Voice Of The Shepherd
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
Who is Jesus? How are we to understand him? In the novel, The Brothers K, David James Duncan tells the story of the Chance family, a family of four boys, two girls, an agnostic father, and a mother of passionate fundamentalist faith. They all have very different ideas about who Jesus is. One of the boys, Kincaid, describes how each family member tries to make sense of Jesus and religion:
It's strange the way everybody has their own pet notion about Jesus, and nobody's pet notion seems to agree with anybody else's. Grandma, for instance says He's "just a defunct social reformer." Then there's Papa, who once said He's God's Son all right, and that He survived the crucifixion just fine, but after the two-thousand-year-old funeral service his cockeyed followers called Christianity probably made Him sorry he did. Meanwhile, there's Freddie, who's six now, and who told me she saw Christ hiding under her bed one night ... And Bet, who spent a whole day making a Christmas card for Uncle Marv and Aunt Mary Jane last year, then got so proud of the card that she refused to mail it to anybody but herself ... Then we looked to see what she was so proud of, and it turned out to be this whole army of crayon angels, in this gold sort of football helmet, charging into Bethlehem while in the sky above them huge red and green letters copied from a Christmas carol book Bet couldn't yet read proclaimed: "JOY TO THE WORLD! THE SAVIOR RESIGNS!"1
And elsewhere in the novel one of the children says:
Personally I'm not sure just who or what Christ is. I still pray to Him in a pinch, but I talk to myself in a pinch too -- and I'm getting less and less sure there's a difference ... Mamma tried to clear up all the confusion by saying that Christ is exactly what the Bible says He is. But what does the Bible say He is? On one page He's a Word, on the next a bridegroom, then he's a boy, then a scapegoat, then a thief in the night; read on and He's the messiah, then oops, He's a rabbi, and then a fraction -- a third of the Trinity -- then a fisherman, then a broken loaf of bread. I guess even God when He's human, has trouble deciding just what he is.2
In the midst of all this confusion, today's scripture lessons make it very clear who Jesus is. When you see Jesus, you see God. In the gospel, Jesus says, "The Father and I are one." When you have seen and heard Jesus, you have seen and heard as much of God as you ever hope to see and hear. Then Jesus uses what has become among Christians one of the most important of all these biblical images to describe our relationship to God: the shepherd and his sheep. We call John 10 "The Good Shepherd Chapter." Today's gospel brings to a conclusion Jesus' extended use of what for Christians over the centuries has been one of the most important images to describe Jesus and his relationship to us: the good shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd, and we are his sheep.
That same image is used in today's reading from Revelation. Jesus, on the one hand, is a lamb. Recalling images of the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus is the lamb whose blood was shed on the cross to set free all of God's people who have ever suffered. Then John takes the image one step further. Jesus is not just the lamb but also the shepherd who "will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God [the shepherd] will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
This must have been an amazing word of comfort to those suffering and persecuted Christians at the end of the first century to whom John addressed these words. In the midst of a world that was falling apart, John reveals to them the truth: Jesus is the good shepherd reigning victoriously from his throne in heaven. That victory will soon be theirs.
With the way today's lessons are filled with images of sheep and shepherds, we should not be surprised that this fourth Sunday of Easter has historically been designated by the church as "Good Shepherd Sunday."
I once knew someone who actually grew up on a sheep farm. He said that, contrary to popular opinion, sheep are not that dumb. He said that cattle ranchers are the ones responsible for spreading that ugly misunderstanding because sheep do not behave like cows. He said that cows are herded from the rear by hooting cowboys with cracking whips, but that won't work with sheep. Stand behind sheep and make loud noises and all they will do is walk around behind you, because they want to be led. You push cows but you lead sheep and they will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first -- namely their shepherd -- who goes ahead of them to show them that everything is all right.
The implication of this relationship for understanding our relationship to Jesus is obvious. When John calls Jesus our shepherd reigning over the universe from his throne in heaven, he is reminding us that there is no place in this universe that he has not gone before us, including death itself. And look what happened to him. Like the Passover Lamb, his blood was shed, but that was not the end of him. He was raised from the dead. He reigns as king on a throne in heaven. All the enemies of him and his people have been destroyed. Therefore, we can follow him, we can trust him, and we can walk in his steps with complete confidence. We have nothing to fear, not even death itself. For as Jesus lives, so also will we.
There is even more to the relationship between the sheep and their shepherd. Sheep tend to grow fond of their shepherd. Any shepherd who has grown up among sheep will tell you that he can walk right through a sleeping flock of sheep without disturbing a single one of them, while a stranger could not put one foot in the fold without causing total confusion and chaos. Sheep seem to consider shepherds part of the family and the relationship that exists between the shepherd and his sheep is quite exclusive. They develop a language of their own to which outsiders are not privy. A good shepherd learns to distinguish a bleat of pain from one of pleasure, while the sheep learn that a cluck of the tongue means food or a two-note song means that it is time to go home.
In Palestine today, it is still possible to witness a scene that Jesus almost certainly witnessed 2,000 years ago -- that of Bedouin shepherds bringing their flocks home from the various pastures they have grazed during the day. Often those flocks will end up at the same watering hole around dusk, so that they get all mixed up together -- eight or nine small flocks turning into a convention of thirsty sheep. But the shepherds do not worry about the mix-up. When it is time to go home, each one uses his or her own distinctive call -- a special trill or whistle or a particular tune on reed pipe, and that shepherd's sheep withdraw from the crowd to follow their shepherd home. They know whom they belong to. They know their shepherd's voice, and it is the only one that they will follow.
It reminds me of some of the research done by Harvard's Dr. Barry Brazelton I once saw demonstrated on television. He showed how even very young infants quickly become aware of the identity of their parents and can recognize their parents just by the sound of their voices.
He took an infant in his arms and asked the audience to watch the infant's eyes. He spoke to the baby. Then he asked other people to speak to the infant. There was little reaction or recognition from the baby in both cases.
When the mother of the baby spoke, the baby's eyes visibly brightened, and the infant turned toward the sound of the mother's voice. It was obvious that the child knew her mother's voice in distinction from other voices.
We are the sheep of God's flock. God is our loving parent. We are God's beloved children. We know the voice of our shepherd when we hear it just like we know the voice of our mother when we hear it. We have been listening to the voice ever since we heard about Jesus. For some of us that may be have been ever since we were baptized as an infant when all we were able to distinguish was the voice of our mother or father from the sound of others voices we did not know and often may have frightened us. But not this voice! It has been assuring us and comforting us as long as we could ever remember.
This voice, unlike any other voice, has been saying, "You are the apple of my eye. You are the crown of creation. You are my beloved son and daughter. I love you always and forever. Nothing in the whole universe can separate you from my love. Have you had to earn it? Have you had to prove yourself? No, I love you simply because I want to. And just in case you don't believe me, look at Jesus, the good shepherd, the lamb who shed his blood and what he did for you. You belong, no matter what!"
That doesn't mean that believing this voice has been easy. Our own self-doubt and insecurity are constantly gnawing on that belief. A world that only seems to honor those who can climb to the top of the mountain ridicules such belief. Even the evil one, who is alive and well in this world, chips away at such belief. As a result, we know that our trust in the good shepherd often wavers and at times even seems to disappear.
But your belief or unbelief is not the point. The point is that you are here this morning. You may think that there were many reasons for your coming: your parents made you, this is your Sunday routine and you wouldn't feel right without it, you would feel guilty if you didn't. The real reason you are here is that once upon a time you heard the voice of Jesus, the good shepherd, the lamb who reigns over the universe from the throne of heaven. You came because you wanted to hear that voice again. You have heard about God's love for you before. You know that you need to hear it again.
You have had a tough week and you needed to hear a word of comfort. You needed to hear someone assure you that everything is all right in this messed up world, that all is right, not because you have been so right but because Jesus is right. Because you know that because Jesus suffered, died, arose, and reigns from his throne, all is right for you. You know that you aren't going to hear that kind of good news any other place, but you know that are going to hear it here.
I remember back in my first call when I complained to the senior pastor about the poor church attendance. What was wrong with those lazy, irresponsible, indifferent church members who couldn't get their bottoms out of bed on a Sunday morning to come to church? He then gently put me in my place. He reminded me that we have no right to expect a single person to walk through the doors on a Sunday morning. That they come at all is a miracle of the Holy Spirit. It's not about us and our attractiveness or about their commitment to support this organization or their lack of it. It is about the voice of the shepherd. It is about the lamb who reigns from his throne. They have heard his voice and have come.
Therefore, people, let me assure you of this. You are here. You are here because you have heard the voice of the good shepherd and have come to hear it again. Jesus has called you because you are one of his sheep.
The lamb who reigns from his throne in heaven is your shepherd. He "will guide [you] to springs of the water of life, and [He] will wipe away every tear from [your] eyes." Amen.
____________
1. David James Duncan, The Brothers K (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 61.
2. Ibid, pp. 58, 61.
It's strange the way everybody has their own pet notion about Jesus, and nobody's pet notion seems to agree with anybody else's. Grandma, for instance says He's "just a defunct social reformer." Then there's Papa, who once said He's God's Son all right, and that He survived the crucifixion just fine, but after the two-thousand-year-old funeral service his cockeyed followers called Christianity probably made Him sorry he did. Meanwhile, there's Freddie, who's six now, and who told me she saw Christ hiding under her bed one night ... And Bet, who spent a whole day making a Christmas card for Uncle Marv and Aunt Mary Jane last year, then got so proud of the card that she refused to mail it to anybody but herself ... Then we looked to see what she was so proud of, and it turned out to be this whole army of crayon angels, in this gold sort of football helmet, charging into Bethlehem while in the sky above them huge red and green letters copied from a Christmas carol book Bet couldn't yet read proclaimed: "JOY TO THE WORLD! THE SAVIOR RESIGNS!"1
And elsewhere in the novel one of the children says:
Personally I'm not sure just who or what Christ is. I still pray to Him in a pinch, but I talk to myself in a pinch too -- and I'm getting less and less sure there's a difference ... Mamma tried to clear up all the confusion by saying that Christ is exactly what the Bible says He is. But what does the Bible say He is? On one page He's a Word, on the next a bridegroom, then he's a boy, then a scapegoat, then a thief in the night; read on and He's the messiah, then oops, He's a rabbi, and then a fraction -- a third of the Trinity -- then a fisherman, then a broken loaf of bread. I guess even God when He's human, has trouble deciding just what he is.2
In the midst of all this confusion, today's scripture lessons make it very clear who Jesus is. When you see Jesus, you see God. In the gospel, Jesus says, "The Father and I are one." When you have seen and heard Jesus, you have seen and heard as much of God as you ever hope to see and hear. Then Jesus uses what has become among Christians one of the most important of all these biblical images to describe our relationship to God: the shepherd and his sheep. We call John 10 "The Good Shepherd Chapter." Today's gospel brings to a conclusion Jesus' extended use of what for Christians over the centuries has been one of the most important images to describe Jesus and his relationship to us: the good shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd, and we are his sheep.
That same image is used in today's reading from Revelation. Jesus, on the one hand, is a lamb. Recalling images of the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus is the lamb whose blood was shed on the cross to set free all of God's people who have ever suffered. Then John takes the image one step further. Jesus is not just the lamb but also the shepherd who "will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God [the shepherd] will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
This must have been an amazing word of comfort to those suffering and persecuted Christians at the end of the first century to whom John addressed these words. In the midst of a world that was falling apart, John reveals to them the truth: Jesus is the good shepherd reigning victoriously from his throne in heaven. That victory will soon be theirs.
With the way today's lessons are filled with images of sheep and shepherds, we should not be surprised that this fourth Sunday of Easter has historically been designated by the church as "Good Shepherd Sunday."
I once knew someone who actually grew up on a sheep farm. He said that, contrary to popular opinion, sheep are not that dumb. He said that cattle ranchers are the ones responsible for spreading that ugly misunderstanding because sheep do not behave like cows. He said that cows are herded from the rear by hooting cowboys with cracking whips, but that won't work with sheep. Stand behind sheep and make loud noises and all they will do is walk around behind you, because they want to be led. You push cows but you lead sheep and they will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first -- namely their shepherd -- who goes ahead of them to show them that everything is all right.
The implication of this relationship for understanding our relationship to Jesus is obvious. When John calls Jesus our shepherd reigning over the universe from his throne in heaven, he is reminding us that there is no place in this universe that he has not gone before us, including death itself. And look what happened to him. Like the Passover Lamb, his blood was shed, but that was not the end of him. He was raised from the dead. He reigns as king on a throne in heaven. All the enemies of him and his people have been destroyed. Therefore, we can follow him, we can trust him, and we can walk in his steps with complete confidence. We have nothing to fear, not even death itself. For as Jesus lives, so also will we.
There is even more to the relationship between the sheep and their shepherd. Sheep tend to grow fond of their shepherd. Any shepherd who has grown up among sheep will tell you that he can walk right through a sleeping flock of sheep without disturbing a single one of them, while a stranger could not put one foot in the fold without causing total confusion and chaos. Sheep seem to consider shepherds part of the family and the relationship that exists between the shepherd and his sheep is quite exclusive. They develop a language of their own to which outsiders are not privy. A good shepherd learns to distinguish a bleat of pain from one of pleasure, while the sheep learn that a cluck of the tongue means food or a two-note song means that it is time to go home.
In Palestine today, it is still possible to witness a scene that Jesus almost certainly witnessed 2,000 years ago -- that of Bedouin shepherds bringing their flocks home from the various pastures they have grazed during the day. Often those flocks will end up at the same watering hole around dusk, so that they get all mixed up together -- eight or nine small flocks turning into a convention of thirsty sheep. But the shepherds do not worry about the mix-up. When it is time to go home, each one uses his or her own distinctive call -- a special trill or whistle or a particular tune on reed pipe, and that shepherd's sheep withdraw from the crowd to follow their shepherd home. They know whom they belong to. They know their shepherd's voice, and it is the only one that they will follow.
It reminds me of some of the research done by Harvard's Dr. Barry Brazelton I once saw demonstrated on television. He showed how even very young infants quickly become aware of the identity of their parents and can recognize their parents just by the sound of their voices.
He took an infant in his arms and asked the audience to watch the infant's eyes. He spoke to the baby. Then he asked other people to speak to the infant. There was little reaction or recognition from the baby in both cases.
When the mother of the baby spoke, the baby's eyes visibly brightened, and the infant turned toward the sound of the mother's voice. It was obvious that the child knew her mother's voice in distinction from other voices.
We are the sheep of God's flock. God is our loving parent. We are God's beloved children. We know the voice of our shepherd when we hear it just like we know the voice of our mother when we hear it. We have been listening to the voice ever since we heard about Jesus. For some of us that may be have been ever since we were baptized as an infant when all we were able to distinguish was the voice of our mother or father from the sound of others voices we did not know and often may have frightened us. But not this voice! It has been assuring us and comforting us as long as we could ever remember.
This voice, unlike any other voice, has been saying, "You are the apple of my eye. You are the crown of creation. You are my beloved son and daughter. I love you always and forever. Nothing in the whole universe can separate you from my love. Have you had to earn it? Have you had to prove yourself? No, I love you simply because I want to. And just in case you don't believe me, look at Jesus, the good shepherd, the lamb who shed his blood and what he did for you. You belong, no matter what!"
That doesn't mean that believing this voice has been easy. Our own self-doubt and insecurity are constantly gnawing on that belief. A world that only seems to honor those who can climb to the top of the mountain ridicules such belief. Even the evil one, who is alive and well in this world, chips away at such belief. As a result, we know that our trust in the good shepherd often wavers and at times even seems to disappear.
But your belief or unbelief is not the point. The point is that you are here this morning. You may think that there were many reasons for your coming: your parents made you, this is your Sunday routine and you wouldn't feel right without it, you would feel guilty if you didn't. The real reason you are here is that once upon a time you heard the voice of Jesus, the good shepherd, the lamb who reigns over the universe from the throne of heaven. You came because you wanted to hear that voice again. You have heard about God's love for you before. You know that you need to hear it again.
You have had a tough week and you needed to hear a word of comfort. You needed to hear someone assure you that everything is all right in this messed up world, that all is right, not because you have been so right but because Jesus is right. Because you know that because Jesus suffered, died, arose, and reigns from his throne, all is right for you. You know that you aren't going to hear that kind of good news any other place, but you know that are going to hear it here.
I remember back in my first call when I complained to the senior pastor about the poor church attendance. What was wrong with those lazy, irresponsible, indifferent church members who couldn't get their bottoms out of bed on a Sunday morning to come to church? He then gently put me in my place. He reminded me that we have no right to expect a single person to walk through the doors on a Sunday morning. That they come at all is a miracle of the Holy Spirit. It's not about us and our attractiveness or about their commitment to support this organization or their lack of it. It is about the voice of the shepherd. It is about the lamb who reigns from his throne. They have heard his voice and have come.
Therefore, people, let me assure you of this. You are here. You are here because you have heard the voice of the good shepherd and have come to hear it again. Jesus has called you because you are one of his sheep.
The lamb who reigns from his throne in heaven is your shepherd. He "will guide [you] to springs of the water of life, and [He] will wipe away every tear from [your] eyes." Amen.
____________
1. David James Duncan, The Brothers K (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 61.
2. Ibid, pp. 58, 61.
