The Good Shepherd: SALT’s Commentary for Easter 4

Fourth Week of Easter (Year B): John 10:11-18 and Acts 4:5-12

Big Picture:

1) This is the fourth of the seven weeks of Eastertide. The gospel readings for the first three weeks were resurrection appearance stories; the next four weeks will explore Jesus’ teachings about living in intimacy with God.

2) Many early followers of Jesus would have been familiar with describing the promised messiah as a caring and skillful “shepherd”:  Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel each use such language, and likewise, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah contrast the divine shepherd with “worthless shepherds” who neglect, exploit, and scatter the flock. For listeners today, Psalm 23 (this week’s psalm) is likely the best-known reference to God as a shepherd, with the “rod and staff” evoking the hazards of the wilderness: the rod is for fending off wolves and lions, and the staff for rescuing sheep trapped in thickets or crevasses.

3) In the next chapter (John 11), the high priest Caiaphas will unwittingly and ironically prophesy that “Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:51-2). And in the chapter after that, Jesus explains to his disciples that after his resurrection and ascension, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Woven through these three chapters, then, is the idea that God’s salvation extends beyond expected or conventional bounds: “dispersed children of God,” “all people” — and, in this week’s passage, “other sheep.”

Scripture:

1) In the phrase “good shepherd,” the Greek word translated as “good” (kalos) means not “morally good” but rather “real and proper” or “true,” as in, “I am the true shepherd” or “I am the genuine shepherd.” But what is that, exactly? It may be helpful to begin the reading not with verse 11 (“I am the good shepherd”) but with verse 10b, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd…”  The goal of the true shepherd’s work is to give the sheep abundant life. And what is “abundant life”? According to John, it’s a life of love and intimacy with God (in next week’s reading, John will go on to describe this intimacy as comparable to the close, almost indistinguishable relationship between a vine and its branches). To give the sheep this vibrant fullness of life, Jesus is willing to lay down his own.

2) But we may ask: How will the sheep be better off if the shepherd dies? If a wolf comes and the shepherd steps in and gets killed — well, this might buy the sheep a little time, but won’t the wolf just come for them next? And all the more easily now, since the shepherd is dead? Clearly John has something else in mind. As we’ve seen earlier in this commentary, in John’s gospel, Jesus’ death is just the first movement in a larger symphony that will swell to even greater crescendos on Easter morning and beyond. “Laying down his life” is a crucial and difficult step for Jesus to take, but then he will rise from the dead, ascend from the earth, and "draw all people”; the Holy Spirit will arrive on the scene, the church will be born, and the ecclesial community will go on to do what Jesus calls “greater works than these” (John 14:12). For John, Jesus’ death makes possible this surprising chain of events, this grand reversal and ever-opening entrée into “abundant life.” It’s for the sake of this chain of events, and ultimately that abundant life, that “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

3) We can find a similar pattern in Acts 4. Standing before the council, Peter declares that Jesus is “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders,” the very stone which now “has become the chief cornerstone.” Peter is quoting Psalm 118 — but he’s also quoting Jesus, who himself alluded to the psalm in the context of a parable just a few pages earlier in the story (see Luke 20:17; Luke and Acts have the same author). Both Jesus and Peter frame the crucifixion as an enactment of the psalm’s ancient choreography: a stone is rejected, but it then becomes the cornerstone (or “the keystone”) of an even greater edifice. For Peter, that edifice is the community of the church — and similarly, for John, the fact that Jesus is rejected and killed ultimately makes possible his resurrection, ascension, and the birth of that community. Unbeknownst to his killers, Jesus’ death is just the first act in this larger drama.

4) Beneath and throughout all of this is the dynamic of an ever-expanding circle of salvation. The Jewish messiah, Luke and John and the whole New Testament insists, will also welcome Gentiles (and remember: Jews + Gentiles = everyone!). Jesus ascends and “will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). In this week’s passage from John, Jesus puts the same theme this way: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold” (John 10:16). Precisely who these sheep are is left unspecified; that’s the shepherd’s business, not ours. The practical effect of this teaching for us today is that we dare not imagine anyone to be outside of God’s love and care (even those who reject Jesus!); as Jesus himself hints, in the end the flock may well include “all people” (John 12:32).

Takeaways:

1) The ancient prophets’ critique of the “bad shepherds” is both clarifying and convicting for Christian churches today. Ezekiel pulls no punches: “You have not strengthened the weak,...healed the sick,...bound up the injured,...brought back the strayed,...sought the lost… So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals” (Ezekiel 34:2-5). Embedded in this critique is the church’s job description, and a challenging standard against which to measure our work.

2) Jesus lays down his life — for the sake of resurrection. Jesus rises from the tomb — for the sake of ascension. Jesus ascends — for the sake of "drawing all people,” and for the sake of the Holy Spirit’s arrival that gives birth to the church. And the church is born — ultimately for the sake of what Jesus calls “greater works than these” (John 14:12). Good Friday and Easter morning, far from the story’s climax, is actually only the beginning! The church is formed and called to be the good shepherd’s hands and feet, protecting and nourishing the sheep for the sake of the good life, the real and genuine life, the abundant life — not abundant in possessions, but rather in dignity, beauty, and love. Call it “life in God,” a fully human life in which we abide in God, and God abides in us (John 15:4).

3) Finally, many Christians today wonder how we should think of people who belong to other religions, or to no religion at all. The mysterious idea of God having “other sheep” can help in at least two ways: first, as a guardrail against ever presuming that we can draw a definitive circle around the beloved children of God (as if we could ever say, “these, not those”); and second, as an encouragement to trust that in the end, God will save all people, and indeed all of creation, in a final restoration of all things for which we hope and pray (see, for example, Acts 3:21 and John 12:32).