WHY LISTEN TO HIM?
John 10:11-21
Many of them were saying, “He has a demon
and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?”
There are five years between my
brother Stephen and me; there are seven years between my brother Robert and me:
Five years is a significant distance between siblings, but not as long as
seven. Seven years between the oldest child and the youngest leads to some confusion
in the youngest child: He thinks he has three parents.
Rob would ask my
mother if he could, say have a cookie, and if she said no, Rob would go to my
father and ask if he could have a cookie. If my father said no, Rob was not out
of options; he came to me to get permission to have a cookie and, of course, I
said yes. That way he could have a cookie, and I could have one, too! We had a
good thing going, until the parents caught on.
No matter how
many times Jesus tried to teach the Pharisees the correct order of authority in
God’s family, they either did not get it or would not allow it. They wanted to be
in charge. They liked the power; they wanted the authority over the people.
When Jesus challenged their authority, showed them how and where they had
misinterpreted God’s law to their own benefit rather than that of the people,
they didn’t like it one bit.
They fought
Jesus on an intellectual level, and when that did not work out, they got mean. They
plotted to kill Jesus. They could not do it themselves; and they dared not ask
the people to do it for them, because their evil ways would be exposed. So they
found a scapegoat in Judas, and he was happy to do their dirty work; thirty
pieces of silver would certainly buy him a lot of cookies! And we all know how
that turned out, don’t we?
If we are with Jesus,
instead of against him, then we need to understand that Jesus has authority over
our lives, and his authority comes from God; it’s not anything that we give
him. To know the Good Shepherd is to know that we are helpless sheep who have
gone astray, and without Jesus in our lives, we will die.
The society in
which Jesus preached and healed, taught and comforted, was an agricultural one.
The people knew about sheep. So when Jesus introduced himself to them as the
Good Shepherd, they were familiar with the job of a shepherd.
Jesus takes this
knowledge they have of a shepherd’s physical job and leads them to a higher
understanding of the spiritual work and protection that only the Good Shepherd
can give.
Though there is
a multitude of truth to pursue in this passage about the Good Shepherd, I want
to spend this time with you this morning looking at just one: the
Good Shepherd is willing to die for the sheep [vv 11-13].
A shepherd will
put his life on the line to protect his sheep, and he hopes that he will not
die in the process. Sheep are very vulnerable animals; wild predators are
everywhere: waiting, watching, thirsty for blood and hungry for flesh, always
ready to take the life of a sheep and feast on death. There is no thought, no
concern, no love for the enemy here. There is life; there is death; and nothing
can change that.
The Good
Shepherd, Jesus, goes way beyond physically protecting his sheep. He is not
only willing to die for his sheep, he went to the cross to die in our place. He
laid down his life for us, his sheep, because we are mortally and morally
vulnerable to the forces of evil present in our world today.
We may deceive
ourselves into thinking we are not vulnerable to these predators, but that
would be a deadly mistake. Scripture tells us that there is a very real force
of evil in the world, and it is very personal…it knows your name, your social
security number, and even your password on your computer.
For instance, in
Chapter 5 of First Peter, the apostle warns us to “be self-controlled and
alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for
someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know
that your brothers [and sisters] throughout the world are undergoing the same
kind of suffering.”
There are
spiritual predators everywhere: waiting, watching, thirsty for sin and hungry
for souls, always delighting to rip us away from the Good Shepherd. C.S. Lewis’
The Screwtape Letters shows us the
insidious, disastrous, destructive mayhem that evil can cause.
“So long as we
live in a world struggling under sin, Satan will still struggle for our mind.
Jesus protects us by reminding us of truth—truth that nothing will shake us
from Christ’s grip….Jesus protects us from evil’s combat for our [souls] by
instilling truth in us, body, mind, and soul, so that we will ultimately not be
deceived.”[1]
There’s a
popular Christian colloquialism that says, “If you have trouble sleeping, don’t
count sheep, talk to the shepherd.” It’s cute, it has its place, but there’s
something with far more depth that will remind us of how amazing, strong,
wonderful, fierce and protective our Good Shepherd is. We know it as Psalm 23.
Let’s say it together (bible p ____).
The Pharisees
tried to discount Jesus, our Good Shepherd, at every turn. At the end of the
passage, we read, “The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of
them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” 21 But
others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a
demon open the eyes of the blind?”
No! A demon can
do no such thing, but the Good Shepherd can not only open the eyes of the
blind, but he can open the ears of the deaf, the mouths of the mute, and the
hearts of sheep who recognize his voice, follow him beside still waters, lie
down in green pastures, and are led in paths of righteousness for his name’s
sakes.
How life-giving
it is to know that our shepherd, the Good Shepherd, will supply our need so
that one day, someday, we too shall dwell in the house of the Lord, forever. I
cannot think of any better reason to listen to him!
Amen.
April 26, 2015
First Parish Federated Church of
South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise,
Pastor
[1][1]
Smith, Rev Russell B. “A Sheep’s Life: A Sermon on John 10:1-21.” IIIM Magazine
Online, Volume 4,, Number 2, January 14 to January 20, 2002. www.thirdmill.org.
