Fourth Sunday of Easter, John 10:11-18

April 21, 2024 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s long been a tradition throughout the wider Western church for this particular day in Eastertide to be devoted to the theme of the risen Lord Jesus as our Good Shepherd. 

But not too many, if any of us, have been shepherds or have first-hand knowledge of what shepherds do. So, we may need to unpack what it means for Jesus to be our Good Shepherd. 

To jump right in, let’s first examine what it means to be a “hired hand,” the position that Jesus in John contrasts with the Good Shepherd. 

On first blush, we probably have a sympathetic view of hired hands – frontline workers who get a lot of our hard work done, often migrant laborers. 

But while the translation of the Greek “hired hand” is correct, the ancient use of the word really has to do with mercenaries. So, the passage might more accurately read: “The mercenary runs away because a mercenary does not care for the sheep.” 

Exactly right. In ancient times – and today – mercenaries were hired by tyrants to do their dirty work. Mercenaries were and are in it only for the money. They don’t care which side you’re on, they don’t care if they’re working for good or for evil, so long as they get their paycheck. 

So, the hired hand understood as mercenary is not a benign or sympathetic designation at all, but a rather sinister one. In short, to be a mercenary is exactly the opposite of being a good shepherd. So now we know what a good shepherd is not. 

So, what is a good shepherd? The Greek translated “good” more fully means “ideal, true, or model.” So, the Good Shepherd is the ideal, true or model shepherd. A good shepherd is exemplary. 

And the exemplary model, the ideal, is to lay down the life for the sheep. Jesus used the phrase “laying down the life” five different times in this brief passage. So, it’s central to understanding what “good shepherd” means. 

In ancient times, these good shepherds had skin in the game. They risked their lives to care for the sheep, to feed them, to give special attention to the weakest and most vulnerable sheep, to search for and rescue the lost ones. They laid down their lives.

Because literal shepherding is remote to us and our experience, let’s explore who may exemplify good shepherding in our day and age. I think of soldiers who lay down their life for their comrades and for our country. I think of police officers going into the line of fire, not knowing what they’ll confront in our heavily armed society. And then, too, firefighters. Having lived in New York City, I cannot help but remember the image of hundreds of city firefighters who rushed into the World Trade Center towers, climbing into horrific circumstances when everyone else was rushing out of the building. I also think of the medical personnel and other front-line workers who did not have the luxury of working remotely during the pandemic, but risked their health to keep hospitals and the rest of society running during those terrible years. So often, these frontline workers are immigrants – as in the six who perished taking care of the roadway on the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore as it collapsed. The list of current day good shepherds could go on and on. You get the idea. 

Which is to say, now we have a better sense of what “good shepherd” means, especially in contrast to the mercenary hired hands. 

And God knows we are weighed down in our current world with mercenaries of all kinds. Private, for-profit military contractors are basically mercenaries. They’re in it for the money. But any time anyone in any field is doing their work solely for the money or power or prestige, they are essentially mercenaries. To this list we can add various politicians, and business leaders for whom shareholder value is the only concern, and even preachers who prey on the vulnerabilities of the flock for their own gain. If you think about it, there are mercenaries aplenty all around us.

But the good news, of course, is that God has sent good shepherds of one sort or another throughout human history – Moses and David among others, who were shepherds who became leaders of God’s people. And ultimately God sent his own Son, Jesus, the Christ, to be the ultimate Good Shepherd who laid down his life for all his human sheep. 

And here’s the great paradox: by laying down his life for us, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, also at the same time became the lamb who was slain. He was slaughtered so that we, his sheep, could be spared that horrible outcome. 

And then on the third day after his death, having laid down his life, Jesus took it up again, when God, Jesus’ Father, raised him from the dead – that which we celebrate during this Eastertide. Our Good Shepherd is a risen and living shepherd!

In response to this wondrous reality, we then are called to turn away from any of our mercenary impulses to engage in good shepherding, extending Jesus’ caretaking in our own day – again, God’s work, our hands. 

Here’s how it reads in today’s second reading from 1 John: “We know love by this, that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for the members of the community. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees someone in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) In short, we are called to good shepherding in offering ourselves for others in need.

But how is it that we can overcome our broken, sinful, mercenary tendencies to seek to engage whole-heartedly, convincingly, and effectively in good shepherding, in laying down our lives in various ways for others? 

Of course, we cannot do this on our own without help. It’s in the name of Jesus, the risen Lord, that we can even begin to try. It’s not unlike how it worked in the miracle healing we heard about in today’s first reading when others wondered how the healing took place. The answer is this, as we heard: “Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people…, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, [who was] crucified, whom God raised from the dead.” (Acts 4:10)

It's by the power inherent in the name of Jesus that we can attempt our good shepherding efforts. But how do we receive the power of Jesus’ holy name? You know the answer by now.

We receive the healing, transforming power of God in the name of Jesus when we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and are thereby immersed in the transformative power of Christ’s death and resurrection through water and the word.

We receive the power of the name of Jesus when we hear the words, “the body of Christ given for you” and “the blood of Christ shed for you” – which is also a share in the transformative power of Christ’s death and resurrection. 

Through these means of grace, we become the body of Christ, the church; we become good shepherds individually and collectively. And we are given the gift of faith, of trust, of boldness and good courage to go out into our scary, risky world full of mercenaries, putting skin in the game to lay our lives down for others. 

Thus, we are sent out to the other sheep who do not yet belong to our fold, and we bring them also, that they may listen to and hear and benefit from the voice of Jesus in restorative ways. 

But doing this work may bring about our own suffering as we lay down our lives for the sake of the other sheep, the wanderers, whom God wants to be included in the safety of the sheepfold, the church. It’s a tall order.

So, I leave you with this question as you discern how you may extend the good shepherding ministry of Jesus in your own life and circumstances: what are the concrete ways in which you may be called to lay down your lives for others, following the example of Jesus, our Good Shepherd? 

For such self-giving is what Good Shepherd Sunday is all about. This is what our Christian journey and the church’s mission are all about. For Alleluia, Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.