WHAT is the new life engendered by the Easter victory of Jesus Christ? How will it transcend the dark clouds of evil? What is required of those who would be saved? The Fourth Sunday of Easter (John 10:27-30) brings us back to the self-portrayal of Jesus that was the basis of last Sunday’s account of the risen Lord telling Peter to take care of His flock like a shepherd.
Hearing and following
THE Jews gathered around Jesus as He walked about the temple area on the Portico of Solomon and asked Him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Today’s narration contains the reply of Jesus. The problem was not that He had not told them, but that they did not hear because they would not believe Him. His deeds in His Father’s name do proclaim who He is. But they lacked faith and so could not hear Him.
Shepherds and their flocks know one another. Just as by the distinct voice and call of a shepherd the sheep can know their own guardian, so also Jesus claimed that His sheep know Him and hear His voice and follow Him. He was sent to the world precisely so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16). Faith in Jesus is indispensable.
No political or military Messiah
THE nationalistic celebration of the Jews of the feast of the Dedication or “Hanukkah” (John 10:22), commemorating the victorious revolt led by John Maccabaeus in 164 BC (1 Maccabees 4:54-59) triggered by the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, might have stoked up at the moment the people’s messianic expectations. So their question “Are you the Messiah?” had a distinctive ring of relevance to it. The people suffering under Roman domination were wishing for another arm-bearing leader who would lead them into a new political era. They would have readily offered themselves as fighters to a political Messiah. But Jesus had an entirely different understanding of His mission. He did not approve that any of His men should take up arms even in defense of Him (John 18:11). He was a leader ready to suffer in expiation for others and to whom self-interest or survival was not a primary consideration. The kingdom he was establishing does not belong to this world (John 18:36). It is kingdom of truth and of love, which is not borne of weapons of death and deception.
Jesus invited the people to assess Him on the hard facts of His own deeds, not just on the basis of some promises or political program wistfully welded together. His works in God’s name give testimony to Him, and He summed up His work in the image of the good shepherd (John 10:11), as God has been portrayed in the Old testament to be a caring, protective, compassionate shepherd (Psalm 23:1-4; Ezekiel 34:11-16). In so presenting His work and leadership as more than just political, Jesus was actually equating His work as the messiah with the work of the Father (John 10:30). The people understood what Jesus was saying and they picked up rocks to stone Him for what they took to be a blasphemy (John 10:33).
Alálaong bagá, Jesus was the exemplary good shepherd precisely because He was willing to lay down His life for His sheep. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). In this primacy and rule of love, “dying for” is the hallmark of servant leadership in the Christian community. Jesus expected such pastoral love for His sheep from Peter (John 21:15ff—Third Sunday of Easter). Those who, lost in their own temporal or political agenda, do not recognize and follow Jesus as the shepherd-messiah do so because they are not sheep, as Saint John Chrysostom would put it. They are not “of God” (John 8:47), nor “of the truth” (John 18:37). The necessary spiritual sensitivity and attunement can only flourish in a faith relationship with Jesus, not in some ideological or exclusive nationalist program.
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