The Door of the Sheep
Sunday, 11 May 2014 - John 10:1-10
Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado ☩ www.hclchr.org
The text for this morning’s meditation is the gospel lesson appointed for today. I would specifically point to verses 7-10:
So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
In order to understand what our Lord is getting at here it is important to understand a little about how shepherds tended their sheep in Israel at that time. In order to assure that the sheep would be kept safe at night it was customary in some places to pen the sheep of several shepherds together in a pen. A pen was essentially stone coral with a wall about 3 ft. high and a large area in the middle usually big enough to hold a large number of sheep. The only opening to the sheep pen was a narrow gap or doorway in the wall about 2 to 2 ½ ft. wide where a board would be slid in to secure the animals at night. In the morning, the shepherds would pull out the board straddle the opening and call to their sheep. Since the sheep would recognize the voice of their shepherd they would come to him and he would boost them out between his legs through the opening. If any other sheep came, he would shoo them away, until he finally had all his sheep, then he would take them out to pasture. When he put them back in, he would do the same thing, counting them as he put them back in to make sure they were all there. So you see, in a very real way, the shepherd was the door or the gate because the sheep would go in and come out through him.
Now when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep…” He wants his audience to know that he’s making a particular point, in much the same way we might begin a statement by saying, “Now listen to this…” or, “Let me be honest with you…” It’s not to imply that the you weren’t already listening or that we’re not being honest the rest of the time, but it is a way of saying, I want you to be absolutely clear about what I’m going to tell you. To further stress his intention, he also uses a particular pronoun “I” in the Greek, which is used when a person wanted to make a very emphatic point. In other words he’s being quite adamant about this. Jesus wants the hearer to understand that he’s saying, “I alone am the door or the gate, not anyone else.”
We live in a society, of course, where it’s not very politically correct to make such statements, or even to claim you believe such statements. Most people want to believe that there are many doors and that all of them are equally valid. But that is not what the Bible says, which is why
Jesus also mentions that there are also thieves and robbers who like to steal, kill and destroy sheep. Sheep thieves generally would not go to the gate, because it was guarded and even if they did go to the door the sheep wouldn’t come to them, because even though sheep aren’t the brightest animals in the world, they do recognize the voice of their shepherd and so they wouldn’t come to a stranger. So the robbers would have to have to resort to jumping over the wall and grabbing an animal or two, or else use some sort of trickery to get them to follow.
Well, beloved the bad news is that we live in a world full of thieves and robbers, who sound very appealing, very appealing indeed. Like the sirens of the ancient Greek mythology who were said to have lured ancient seafarers with their beautiful voices causing them to wreck their ships on the rocks, these spiritual thieves also would call us to our deaths.
They sing to us from our televisions, computers, and smartphones. They appeal to us with airbrushed, computer enhanced and altered images of seemingly perfect people who never have a single blemish or hair out of place. Their message is always the same. They say they will make us happy and fulfilled, if we just use their product or vote for their candidate. We will have sex appeal. We will be cool or rich, if we just buy what they are selling. In the end, their promises are always empty, because they do not point us to God, but to this world, which is as we are accurately told in the Word of God, is perishing in sin and unbelief.
Other voices are more, subtle and come from unexpected quarters, like our friends or peers, who offer us booze or drugs or illicit sex. “You want to fit in don’t you? Come on everybody’s doing it. Don’t be a nerd or a goody two shoes. Just go along with the crowd.” Yes, those voices can be quite convincing, but not as convincing as that subtle thief who smiles back at you from the mirror and whispers in your ear that you are the only one who really matters. Your desires, your wants, your needs, you interests, are all that are important, so do what you’ve got to do to satisfy them; to satisfy yourself.
In the end, of course, it all plays into the hands of the biggest thief, robber, and liar of all, that enemy of God and man, Satan. Satan who disguises himself, as St. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 11: “as an angel of light.” The devil doesn’t show himself with hooves or horns or a pitchfork, no he always appears as the good guy, the guy who just wants to help you, in fact he appears to many to be the Good Shepherd himself, he presents himself as their Savior, only instead of giving life, he and those who work for him only bring death. Temporal and eternal death. He has an insatiable appetite you see, a large pile of sheep bones next to him that gets bigger every day.
That is why my fellow sheep we must not listen to any voice other than that of the one and only True Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who also just happens to be the door or the gate for the sheep. He is the only way to salvation because he, the Son of the Living God, became a sheep for us, a lamb without spot or blemish, and rather than allowing us to be destroyed he allowed himself to be slaughtered in our place, on a cross. He died for our sins, so that we would not perish eternally, but so that we could have life, not only today, but forever, through faith in Him. He is the one who makes us to lie down in green pastures and leads us beside the still waters, as he made us his own through the waters of Baptism where he washed and still washes all our sins away as the prophet Isaiah said: “Though your sin are as scarlet they will be as white as snow, though they are as crimson they shall be like wool.”
And He also nourishes our souls as we dine on his body and blood with the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of all of our sins and the strengthening of our faith in Him. And our Good Shepherd also nourishes us with the rich delicious grass of His Holy precious Word, which is filled with the more love and more gracious promises than we could ever hope for or dream of. His word where he tells us that he came not only that, “we might have life, but that we might have it abundantly.” Other translations, put it “have it to the full.”
If you do even a brief word study of the Greek word for “life” as St. John uses it in His writings you’ll notice that he uses different Greek words in different situations. In this instance he’s making a definite statement, about something that goes beyond the mere state of physical existence. This life that Jesus comes to give to his sheep has vitality and fullness. It’s genuine and involved, complete and whole. Above all it is spiritual, as in eternal life, life above and beyond mere earthly existence, merely breathing and eating and doing stuff. Jesus Christ and he alone can give us that life. In fact, the Bible tells us that apart from him you cannot find it, because without him and his resurrection everything is tainted by death and the fear of death.
I remember reading a story about an Army veteran who had been wounded in Vietnam and was on permanent disability and receiving benefits from the government. One day, out of the blue, he received an official notification from the government of his own death. Naturally, this came as quite a shock. To clear the matter up he wrote the government a letter stating that he was indeed very much alive and explaining the necessity of continuing to receive his benefits. When the letter did no good he tried calling the government. Now, I’ve never had to call the government myself, but based on what little experience I’ve had with civil service person-to-person interaction I can imagine this was a true test of the man’s persistence and patience. But the phone calls didn't change the situation either. Finally, as a last resort, the veteran contacted a local television station, which ran a human-interest story about his situation. During the interview the reporter asked him, "How do you feel about this whole ordeal?" To which the veteran chuckled and said, "Well, I feel a little frustrated by it. After all, have you ever tried to prove that you're alive?”
Well, beloved, the good news is we are alive. We are alive and we will live forever, because Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd has removed our sins by His death on the cross and He has risen from the dead so that we might live abundantly here and now, and hereafter which is why the Bible calls us: Children of the most high God, branches of the one true vine, the salt of the earth, the light of the earth, heirs of heaven, temples of the Holy Spirit, citizens of heaven, members of the very body of Christ, saints or his Holy ones.
And last but certainly not least we are his sheep. We are loved and cared for by an Almighty Good Shepherd, who says later on in this chapter: My sheep listen to my voice I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish: no one can snatch them out of my hand.
My friends what can we do, but by the power of God the Holy Spirit, heed His voice as He speaks to us through His Holy Word, and enter through him, he who is the door of the sheep, living in His promises and trusting in his salvation, so that as David wrote, “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” May God grant it in Jesus Name. Amen.