Easter 4, Year B | John 10:11-18
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
April 21, 2024
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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The fourth Sunday of the Easter season has become known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The Lectionary readings tend to contain a good bit of shepherding imagery, and the Gospel always comes either nearby or directly from a section in John known as Jesus’ Good Shepherd discourse. English-speakers tend to have a rather dreamy, romantic view of sheep, probably due to our language’s long history of idyllic descriptions found in the traditional stories, poetry, and songs from the British Isles. Based on my limited experience with our pet goats, I’d guess the reality of tending sheep is a good bit messier—and probably stranger—than we’ve been lead to imagine, but for firsthand experience in the matter, I’ll need to refer you to Bob Anderson.[1]
In the modern world most of us have little or no context for what Jesus is talking about here—not just the ins and outs of sheep husbandry, but even the immediate situation he’s facing in our passage. He isn’t making isolated statements while cuddling a newborn lamb or resting in a pasture. He’s addressing and trying to make sense of a very real and potentially dangerous experience.
To get the full context of what’s going on, we need to swing all the way back to the end of chapter 8, where Jesus leaves the Temple as a crowd was preparing to stone him to death. As he and the disciples slip out, they walk past a blind person and debate ensues about what might have caused this man to be born without the ability to see. If everything happens for a reason, who’s responsible for this? Had his parents or one of his ancestors done something to displease God? Had God maybe looked ahead at his life and decided to pre-punish him for some sin he might eventually commit? Jesus steps in to correct their line of thought and then turns to the man, makes some mud with his spit, and rubs it on the man’s eyes. Realizing that he still needs to make himself scarce, Jesus tells the man to wash his face at a specific pool in the area and then leaves for somewhere a little more safe.
The man follows Jesus’ instructions, and when he rinses off his face, he discovers that he can see. This congenital birth defect has completely disappeared! An uproar begins to foment among the people, and soon both the man and his parents find themselves in custody facing interrogation about what exactly happened. The man reports what Jesus did, and the religious leaders start to argue. When the man refuses to say anything negative about this person who miraculously healed him, the leaders decide to expel the man from the community, apparently hoping the story and hubbub will disappear along with him.
Hearing what happened to this person he had just given a new chance at life, Jesus sets out to find him. When he does, the man voluntarily pledges his loyalty. Some other religious leaders overhear their conversation and take offense. At that point Jesus begins this Good Shepherd discourse, first using the imagery of how sheep listen to their shepherds but won’t follow a stranger’s voice. This blind man had simply heard a call and took heed, following God’s voice to the pool where he was healed. Jesus then tries to expand on his metaphor, claiming, “I am the gateway for the sheep.”[2] His object isn’t to restrict movement within God’s Kingdom—to cut certain people off or decide who does or doesn’t belong in any given situation. He’s simply allowing access, providing safe passages through the various walls and barriers that circumstance and society use to divide and alienate us from one another.
Here we hit today’s Gospel, with Jesus still trying to explain himself to the religious authorities. He returns to the shepherd metaphor, emphasizing his nature as a Good Shepherd—someone honorable and responsible, someone who returns to protect and defend those who would join his flock. He isn’t some random employee more interested in praise or a paycheck than the actual job. Nor is he a wolf rushing in to harm people or divide them from their friends and family. He’s a Good Shepherd—one who has literally and voluntarily returned to a threatening situation in order to continue to offer some semblance of care for an innocent person trapped in a precarious position.
In our Midweek Message email, Deacon Anne reminded us that “the world is always ending, and the world is always beginning.”[3] This blind man’s world had ended in a very unexpected fashion. Just as hope and joy and a new future appeared to be dawning, just as he finally had the opportunity to begin contributing to the society that had helped support him for so long, his entire life was snatched away. Banned from the familiar sounds and smells of the streets he had wandered since childhood; cut off from the people whose voices and touch he knew but whose faces he was only beginning to recognize. One of the first things he ever sees is strangers—people who had never even considered his existence—allowing their unrelated agenda to shatter and crush what should have been the beginnings of an impromptu festival.
But Easter is a season of resurrection, of new beginnings and unexpected futures. Exiled from the wreckage of a world this person was just beginning to experience in a brand new light, Jesus comes for him. Jesus risks himself to find this man he had only ever tried to help. Although it was a simple act of kindness that had precipitated the whole situation, Jesus takes responsibility for this man banished to the border of life and death. He returns and invites him to explore a different pathway, helping navigate a new and unfamiliar day. The world the man had known and hoped for was irretrievably gone, but Jesus wasn’t going to leave this person to fade away with it. Instead, he returned, helping the man forge a new way forward.
For someone, somewhere, the world is always ending, and the trauma it leaves behind—the loss, the ache, the loneliness and grief—it’s all real. No one can undo the past. No one can alter the reality of what is. As we read the Sunday after Easter, even a risen Christ continues to carry the wounds from his torture and crucifixion. But there’s something about Jesus, about Life himself, that refuses to stay dead. Somehow, his presence keeps returning, not necessarily in the ways we would expect but through a message at empty tomb, by a peaceful greeting to those hiding behind locked doors, in the conversation with a stranger as we walk a familiar road. Again and again and again Christ returns, remaking, re-forming, renewing.
Whether on a cosmic scale or in the quietness of your own bedroom, the end is real. For each of us—for all of us—the sun is bound to set. But despite its depth, despite our fear and uncertainty, night can never swallow dawn, and even in the grave, the risen Christ offers his hand, lifting us from the present devastation and once again leading us into new and unexpected life.
[1] A sheep and pecan rancher from our congregation
[2] John 10:7, 9
[3] https://mailchi.mp/8a1ec3aee269/midweek-message-6365594?e=e2e0e7d49f