Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today is “Good Shepherd” Sunday. Every year the Fourth Sunday of Easter is “Good Shepherd” Sunday. For us in the church it is the day to celebrate the relationship between God and Jesus by means of the image of the shepherd. It is also a day for us to realize who we are in relation to the Good Shepherd. We are the sheep of his pasture.

In our religious culture there is a tendency to privatize the relationship of God the shepherd and each individual sheep. There is nothing inherently wrong with concern. We cannot, however, let such a concern eclipse the biblical concern with the image of the Good Shepherd and the flock, the Lord and his church.

The second reading from the Book of Revelation prepares us for the playful imagery of the Gospel of John. The narrator of the Apocalypse tells us of a throne vision in which he sees peoples of all nations standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They are robed in white.

Then there is a great scene of worship in which the angels sing a song of praise. It is such songs of praise that we sing in our liturgy. This was emphasized by Pr. Liebster in last Sunday’s sermon. After the hymn of praise is sung, we hear that the people robed in white are all those who suffered for the sake of the Lamb. We are told that their robes are white because they washed them in the blood of Lamb. Now already that is a strange image. One would expect that their robes would be bloody red. They are not red, but white. This Lamb is one who leads in a different way from the other shepherds of the earth.

There is a rich treasure of imagery based on the shepherd in the traditions of Israel. One has only to turn to the Hebrew Bible to here this. Many of the leaders of Israel were shepherds. Moses and David are but two examples.

In the case of David we are told that it was Samuel who found him. David was a shepherd of his father’s flocks. It was Samuel who anointed David to be king over Israel. One sees the close tie in the titles of king and messiah. The prophet anointed the candidate for king. That made him “meshiach” or messiah in English, the anointed one.

Because David was a shepherd, the image of shepherd became intimately tied to the image of king. To this day when we read the Twenty-third Psalm, we can still think of David in his bucolic, peaceful days as a young shepherd.

Of course, this peaceful image is not the whole story of David who becomes a bloody warrior, an adulterer, and a murderer. As a shepherd-king he represents a different course of action than the Good Shepherd who is to come.

David was so blood stained that one might say his robes were red from blood. In fact, the tradition says that God refuses to allow David to build the temple because he is a man of war and there is too much blood on his robes.

David does not understand the Lamb except when it is too late. The biblical historian tells us that David “fell” for Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. Uriah was one of David’s most successful and loyal commanders. David took Bathsheba to his bed while Uriah was on the battlefield.

Bathsheba became pregnant. David, desperate to conceal his disloyalty, had Uriah murdered. He took Bathseba as a wife. No one dared mention David’s arrogance and betrayal of the commandments. Still it was no secret in Jerusalem what he had done.

Finally Nathan the prophet approaches the powerful king and tells him a story.

"There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Nathan said to David, "You are the man! (2 Samuel 12:1-7)

Here the lamb is the innocent one who suffers at the hand of the high and mighty. The question is whether the image of the lamb can be taken up into the image of the king as shepherd.

If we go back to the reading in the Book of Revelation, we discover that somehow we cannot neatly separate Lamb from throne, throne from Shepherd, Shepherd from Lamb.

And the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:15b-17)

Such is the distinguishing mark of the faith delivered by Jesus to his followers. The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is at the same time the Good Shepherd. This image is what characterizes the sheep which belong in the flock of God. They are those who recognize a new type of kingship in the rule of a king who is truly Son of God.

In the Gospel lesson the enemies of Jesus come to him and ask him to declare clearly whether he is the anointed one, the Messiah. They are asking if he is to be the king and rule. Jesus never testifies to himself directly. He refuses to do so here. He simply refers to the great signs that he has done.

Jesus then declares that the Father and I are one. This recognition statement is meant to assert the revelation of God in Jesus. Do you want to know what God is up to in the world? Then look at what Jesus is doing. The Father and the Son are doing the same work in the world.

They are enough to clarify who he is. He is the Good Shepherd. His sheep know his voice and they copy him in their lives. They have chosen the life of the Lamb. They know life as it is poured out from the heart of God. They do not fear when the world’s reaction would cause them deep anxiety that they will be abandoned.

Dear congregation, an Amish man was once asked by an enthusiastic young evangelist whether he had been saved, and whether he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior? The gentleman replied, "Why do you ask me such a thing? I could tell you anything. Here are the names of my banker, my grocer, and my farm hands. Ask them if I've been saved."(1)

Israel knew itself as the sheep of God’s pasture (Psalm 100:3). It is perhaps ironic that the most powerful psalm is attributed to David who declares,

The LORD is my shepherd. (Psalm 23:1)

The identity of Israel, the identity of Christ, the identity of the church, are all wrapped up in understanding who is the Good Shepherd. Just claiming to be Christian is not enough. We have to be recognizable as the sheep of the Good the Shepherd.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

1. From Gospel Notes by Pr. Brian Stoffregen