The Shepherd's Voice

Jesus' good news Word is a pile driver that sinks into us to give us blessings beyond all imagining

[This is a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, this coming Sunday, May 11. Congregations without pastors, pastors who run out of time to prepare their sermons, Bible study leaders, and others, feel free to use it with attribution. God bless you.]

John 10:22-30
On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel lesson, John 10:22-30, doesn’t tell us, as we might expect, about one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances. Instead, it takes us back to a point in Jesus’ ministry before His death and resurrection. But it deserves to be considered in this Easter season because it assures us that Jesus’ resurrection isn’t only a victory for Jesus, but also a victory for us!

Let’s set the scene.

The place is Solomon’s Colonnade, an open-sided, roofed porch on the east side of the temple, a sensible place to gather to get relief from the elements in this wintry season, and a spot where rabbis often met with their students.

The time is that eight-day period during the Jewish month of Chislev, roughly corresponding to our modern month of December, when Jews celebrated the Festival of Dedication. Also known as the Festival of Lights. Also called Hanukkah.

Hanukkah commemorates an event that took place in 164 BC. At that time, a Jewish army led by warrior kings known as the Maccabeans, defeated and expelled the occupying forces of the Seleucid Empire from both Jerusalem and the temple.

The Seleucid conquerors had desecrated the temple, erecting altars to their own gods there. With the retaking of Jerusalem, the temple was rededicated to God. Jews, often the victims of invasion and prejudice, have celebrated their people’s military victory at Hanukkah ever since.

We read in verse 24: “The Jews who were there gathered around [Jesus], saying, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense?’”

Actually, John doesn’t say that Jesus’ fellow Jews gathered around Him, but ἐκύκλωσαν (ekuklosan), they encircled, surrounded, besieged Jesus. They were like accusers zeroing in on Jesus. And their question of Jesus, “How long will you keep us in suspense?,” is a common Greek idiomatic phrase, used even today, that means, “How long are you going to keep annoying us?”

They’re annoyed by Jesus because they want Jesus to reveal to them whether He is the Messiah (the Christ) promised by God. The Messiah, the Old Testament taught, was to be a descendant of David anointed by God to bring God’s kingdom into the world.

These fellow Jews of Jesus have their own ideas about what this Messiah should do and be.

Again in first-century Judea, as had happened in the second-century BC, God’s people found themselves under the thumb of foreign conquerors, this time the Romans. This group wants Jesus to be a Messiah modeled after the Maccabean warrior kings, a Messiah who would lead an army to dispatch the Romans from their homeland. So, they tell Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” (John 10:24)

It’s easy to understand how Jesus’ fellow Jews feel, isn’t it?

Aren’t there times when we, despite knowing that we have been saved by Christ, we’ve wondered whether God is there?

Or, hear the promise of Jesus with the bread and wine, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” and doubt His Word?

Or, when we look at our own failure to love God and neighbor and wonder whether Jesus’ death on the cross for sinners was for everyone else, but not us?

Have we ever bargained with Jesus, offering Him our undying loyalty if He will only give us some earthly blessing, if He’ll spare us the suffering that is the common lot of fallen humanity and that’s even more common among Christians in a world that hates God?

But the God we know in Jesus Christ doesn’t make deals.

And He wants to bless us not just with the temporary removal of pain or inconvenience in this life!

Jesus came into our lives to give us so much more than that.

To His fellow Jews’ demand for a plain declaration of His messiahship, Jesus says: “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 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 will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:25-30)

What in the world is Jesus talking about?

Jesus says that He already has declared openly that He is the Messiah. He has repeatedly given them the saving Word of the Gospel, the good news about His life, death, and resurrection, of how He will offer His sinless life as the perfect sacrifice for sinners like you and me on a cross so that we have the forgiveness of sin and eternal life with God.

Jesus had told people Who He was, first of all, by His actions. The Gospel of John is built around seven signs performed by Jesus, all pointing to Him as the Messiah and as God-in-the-flesh. At this point in John’s narration of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has performed six of those signs: turning water into wine at Cana, healing a royal officer’s son, healing a paralyzed man at the pool of Siloam, feeding 5000 with a few fish and scraps of bread, walking on water, and healing a man born blind. These signs pointed to Jesus as more than a trickster or a clever preacher, but as the world’s true King with power over everything in the cosmos and beyond.

Jesus had also told people who He was in His words. He had spoken words of promise and power that had caused proud sinners and the once hopeless and marginalized to view Him, along with faithful believers like John the Baptist, as “the Holy One of God” (6:69) and “the Lamb of God.” (John 1:36) They had received the gift of repentance—a change of heart and mind—from their sin and the gift of saving faith in Christ alone for forgiveness and everlasting life.

Jesus’ Word of promise had been like a pile driver, tearing down walls of doubt, self-righteousness, and fear, allowing people to hear Jesus’ gospel for them…for you. With the psalmist, King David, these believers in Jesus could say to God, “you have given me an open ear…” (Psalm 40:6) And with this open ear, open to God’s Word, Jesus could deliver the word that saves sinners from sin, death, and condemnation, demonstrating the truth that, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

So, what words did Jesus speak to bring many to saving faith in Him?

He told a prominent teacher of the Jews: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

He said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

He said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes ⁽n him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

He said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)

Both of the ways Jesus identified Himself as the Messiah of God—His actions and His words—yield the simple reason why His inquisitors in today’s lesson don’t know (or won’t acknowledge) that He is the Messiah: “...you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…” The reason you can’t see that I’m the Messiah, Jesus tells His questioners, is that you have closed your ears to My Word.

When I consider myself and my sinful life, I wonder how there can be any hope for me to have life with God? But then I remember that just last Sunday, I gathered with the people of God in worship, we confessed our sins, and heard that for the sake of Jesus, Who died and rose for sinners, all our sins—all your sins—are forgiven. And I received the bread and wine of Holy Communion and was assured—you were assured—as we will be assured again in a few moments, that Jesus graciously covers our sins and makes us new in His grace!

Let’s be honest. Jesus doesn’t always say what we want to hear either. “Take up your cross–that is, admit that you’re a sinner deserving of death and eternal condemnation–and follow Me,” Jesus says elsewhere. (Luke 9:23) “​​In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” He says elsewhere. (John 16:33) I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have any trouble in my life!

But at Jesus’ transfiguration, God the Father made it clear that whether we like everything Jesus says or calls us to do or not, we need to listen to Him: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)

But, of course, there’s a very good reason to heed Jesus and follow where He leads us. As He tells us today, He gives to those who listen to Him, who believe in Him, something that all the kings and conquering armies, all the wealth and power, all the fame and popularity, all the things of this world cannot give us: eternal life with God.

And while we may decide to walk away from God, neither God the Father nor God the Son Jesus will ever walk away from us.

We may sin, but God will forgive the repentant believer.

We may endure pain, adversity, or hardship or be tempted, but God will not let us go: “...no one will snatch them out of my hand,” Jesus says, and “no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand…” (John 10:28-29)

Whenever these words of promise are spoken to us, Jesus’ sheep, and we do not turn away, we know that Jesus’ Word is doing its saving work in us, giving us faith in Him.

Before Jesus raised her brother from the dead, Jesus asked Martha, after describing Himself as the Resurrection and the Life, the One Who gives to those who believe in Him everlasting life with God, “Do you believe this?”

Mary, her brother, still rotting in the tomb, no less grieved than she was the moment before Jesus spoke to her, could, by the power of Jesus’ Word, confess to Jesus: “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ [that is, the Messiah], the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” (John 11:25-27)

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has spoken–from the cross and the empty tomb–and still speaks–from the Word and from the water, the bread, and the wine.

His voice calls to you now not to settle for the things this dying world offers, but to hear Him, receiving the gift of saving faith He gives to you in His gospel Word to you, and be empowered to follow Him alone to eternal life with God. Your God and Messiah Jesus has spoken forgiveness and everlasting life to you and His Word has made it so! Amen