Third Sunday in Easter

John 10:22-30

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Just before our text is a brief note from the writer. He mentions that there is some division among the Jews over what to think about Jesus. Some are saying, why listen to Him? Others are pointing out His Words and actions as a reason they should consider listening to Him.

We can see why the Bible says faith is brought about only through the power of God-The Holy Spirit, as He works in Baptism and the Word. God has to convince a person of the truth, or else he can’t know it. So, we preach the Word and we baptize according to God’s command.

If it were up to us to convince people that listening to Jesus is the thing they should do, it really wouldn’t be possible. Every heart naturally goes away from God (think of Adam and Eve hiding from Him in the Garden after they’d sinned), and must have Him powerfully motivating change if things are to go the other way. St. Paul talks about the natural mind of a person being hostile to God (Romans 8:7). He says in another place, that the natural person isn’t able to understand the things that come from God because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

That’s specifically why we baptize infants. In saying, That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6), Jesus is saying that even infants have this same heart, need this same motivating change from God. And He provides it through the Spirit’s work in Baptism. He gives faith so that the person can know God’s grace in Christ. How does it happen in an infant? We don’t know; that’s God’s business. But this need of theirs is clearly taught in the Bible, and we know God doesn’t have any limitations; so, we bring even infants to the Lord Who can do for them what we can’t.

Our text demonstrates that everyone has the same problem. It’s even true for people who were Abraham’s descendants, who were of the people known in the Bible as God’s people; their heart, too, naturally opposes listening to Jesus.

That’s who Jesus is talking to in our text—not to those who’ve never had any acquaintance with God, but to ones who’ve known His Word throughout their lives. These, who are Jesus’ fellow Jews, are gathered with Him in Jerusalem. They’ve known the Scriptures. They anticipate the coming of God’s Anointed One. That one’s coming, they know, will be accompanied with certain words and actions. The prophets have said this. Jesus’ audience have been anticipating the coming of this person all their lives. They should be able to recognize it when they see it.

And it’s evident to some of the Jews, that Jesus is this person Whose coming they’ve been anticipating. But again, there’s this division among the Jews over what to think about Him. The naysayers have argued that He talks like someone who must have a demon. The ones kind of arguing for Him, ask, Can a demon open the eyes of the blind (John 10:21)?

That’s the same kind of reasoning that Jesus uses in our text. They say, If you are the Christ, tell us plainly; He says, I told you, and you do not believe. So, He’s pointing to His words. And then He points to His actions. He says, The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me. He means they show that He is what the Scriptures had foretold that the Messiah or Christ would be.

When He talks in our Gospel lesson, about being the Good Shepherd, He is alluding to the things that are said in our Old Testament lesson. The LORD, as a shepherd, seeks out His flock, rescues them from the places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. Those words have their greatest fulfillment in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus’ hearers in our text haven’t seen the conclusion of that particular thing yet; they haven’t seen the cross and grave and Resurrection, but they’ve seen plenty. Opening the eyes of the blind (mentioned by some of them); well, that’s one of things the prophet Isaiah had said this Christ would do. To some who wondered one time, Jesus pointed out: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them (Matt. 11:5). It was another way of saying, You’re wondering if I’m the Christ. Of course I am, look what I’m doing. Look how the things I’m doing are what the prophets said the Christ would do.

But Jesus’ audience is divided. Again, we see in it the great problem that is our inherited sinful nature. It would always tend to say of Jesus, Why listen to Him?

If we think about it, this text can be looked at as a trilogy along with the Easter morning text, and last week’s text in this way: prior to Easter, Jesus had said He would rise from death, and it wasn’t believed. If anything, it had been rationalized in this way: Nobody rises from death; He must have meant something else. Then, on Easter evening He’d said He’s really risen from death, and it wasn’t believed. They’d rationalized it, thinking it must be a spirit they were seeing. Now, He says, I’m really the Christ, but He isn’t believed. Instead, they think He must have a demon.

The audiences were different; but it really doesn’t matter. That’s the point of all this: everyone has this same nature that refuses to listen to Jesus, refuses to believe His clear words and works. To these last ones it’s like He has said, I’m really the Christ, and they’ve said, No, tell us plainly, Who are you?

It goes against your very nature to listen to Jesus, to believe the things the Bible says about Him. It’s important to recognize that, because then it isn’t so startling to think that at times you’ve had doubts about it, that at times you’ve tried (along with the world) to rationalize things about Jesus to make them make more sense to you, to make them seem less un-believable.

One of the ways you might have done this is to doubt whether Jesus could really make you right with God, without you having to help in the matter. Could He really take your guilt on His shoulders as the Bible says He has? There’s a lot of it, you’ve thought to yourself. There’s so much! Just as stridently as the disciples had questioned of Jesus’ resurrection, How could it be?—you might have questioned in this matter: How could it be that this person [pointing to self] that falls so short of God’s glory, that adds to the debt of guilt every day—how could it be that Jesus could take it all away so that I could be made fit for God’s kingdom, without me having to (or even being able to) contribute anything to it?

You might even have asked these things with skepticism (in your skepticism you’d have been standing shoulder to shoulder with the disciples, by the way). And now, here you sit in this church this morning, brokenhearted, miserable in the thought of it. You’re among those Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes. You’re the poor in spirit. You’re among those who mourn. You share the sentiment of the man who said to Jesus one time: “I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24)!”

Now, think of what it means that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. What a picture that is for you. In one of our hymns, O Dearest Jesus, there’s that line in the fourth verse that says:

What punishment so strange is suffered yonder!

The Shepherd dies for sheep that loved to wander;

The Master pays the debt His servants owe Him,

Who would not know Him.

Now, think about Jesus’ words in our text: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. What words could be more sure than those, could bring more comfort? My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

The fact is, your listening and your following have fallen short. But those words are spoken by the One without any sins. They’re spoken by the One whose life never had any sinful doubts in it like yours has; so His sacrifice made payment for yours. He has put Himself in your place. God has forgiven your doubts and your other sins because Jesus has put Himself in your place. Before God it looks like you’ve never committed them; He looked at Jesus as if He had, and punished Him for them. Justice has been served, then. Your sins are forgiven because the Good Shepherd has laid down His life for you. His rising from death is the evidence that it worked! Your sins really were paid for. Jesus has made you right with God without anything more being required of you. The Holy Spirit has made you aware of Jesus’ worthwhile Words and actions. He gives you eternal life. Amen.

Ezekiel 34:11-16

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

1 Peter 2:21-25

To this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

St. John 10:11-16

[Jesus said], “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”