According to the Liturgical Church Calendar, today – the fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. Our introit invokes the 23rd Psalm and our Gospel text is John 10 – where Jesus connects those beautiful passages about the Good Shepherd to himself. He says, “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” And then here in the portions we read today, “I am the door of the sheep. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved… and will find pasture… I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
Good Shepherd Sunday is a wonderful and beautiful opportunity to call to mind and remember all of the scriptural texts that talk to us about our Good Shepherd. The texts are beautiful texts. They paint a picture for us of the love that Jesus, our Lord and Savior has for us. They show us how he loves us by giving to us examples of the many things that he does for us to care for us. Truly our God who is our Good Shepherd is a god who loves us deeply and who sees to it that every need that we could have has been met.
Ah, life in the flock of the Good Shepherd. As our Jesus tells us in the Gospel from John, he is familiar to us. We follow him because we know his voice. He draws us into his flock, he is the door through which we enter. He does not abandon, as a hired hand would do, instead he lays down his life to protect us. He comes to give to us a life that is abundant. In Psalm 23 Jesus tells us that He makes us to lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside quiet waters. He restores our souls. His rod and his staff they comfort. He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Our cups overflow. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. Truly it is good to live life in the flock of the Good Shepherd.
But wait, there was something we left out – what about that part about the Valley of the Shadow of death? “Even though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me your rod and your staff they comfort me.” There are times that the sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd will walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death. There are times that will be dark. That is to say, for the Christian, for the one who believes in the name of Jesus, there will be times when they look up to find that they have arrived in some dark and foreboding territory, some difficult and threatening places.
This begs the question. If we are following our Shepherd and our Shepherd is good, what are we doing in the valley of the shadow of death? Why would our Good Shepherd take us there? Why would he lead us through such a place? Why would we go there at all? I don’t know about you, but the green pastures and quiet waters sound a whole lot nicer than the shadow of death. Why would Jesus who is supposed to be our Good Shepherd lead us through such a horrible place?
That’s a difficult question. Sometimes we struggle to find an explanation. Often interpreters of this Psalm will try to reconcile this very difficult question by simply blaming ourselves. Yes that’s right; we are sheep and sometimes sheep like to wander. We loose sight of our shepherd. We run off down the wrong path and sure enough we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death. And then, when things are almost at their worst, in he comes to find us.
Certainly that is true, sheep like to wander and we are restless sheep, but I am not sure that accounts for what has been told to us in the text. After all why is it that we fear no evil, when we are in that valley? It is because our Good Shepherd is with us. He is comforting us with his rod and his staff. All along as we have been there in that valley he has been comforting us. He has been there all along. We found our way into that valley by following dutifully behind our Good Shepherd. Therefore, we can only conclude that it has been his will and his desire hat we go through that valley all along. How can that be?
This certainly does not fit with the mental image we have created for ourselves as far as what it means to be sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd. When we read the 23rd Psalm, when we read John 10, when we think of Jesus as our Good Shepherd, we have these wonderful bucolic, peaceful and pastoral images of rolling hills bubbling brooks, a bright sun in the sky shining down on a flock of little lambs with Jesus the gentle shepherd sitting closely by, lovingly taking each little lamb into his arms to cradle it and coddle it. We see ourselves spending our days in that pasture feeding on the green grass. We picture ourselves satisfied and well fed as we sit at the banquet table prepared in the presence of our enemies.
The image is comforting and satisfying. And who wouldn’t want to enjoy just such an arrangement. But this is not what our Good Shepherd has planned. Our Good Shepherd does not have it in mind that you and I should live out our days free from trouble and free from difficulty. He does not have in mind that each day be set aside for basking in the sun and eating our fill of spiritual delights. He does not have in mind that we simply grow into fat sheep as we gorge ourselves on the plentiful gifts that he has given. Our text, both the Psalm and the Epistle, remind us that The Lord of the Church, our Good Shepherd has in mind that each one of us take up our cross to follow him.
This is the Apostle’s message to us in the text from 1 Peter. “But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” Our call, from Christ our Good Shepherd is to follow him where he leads, where ever He leads, even if, even when that means that He leads us into those places that we do not want to go, even when he leads us through the Valley of the Shadow of death, even when he leads us into suffering.
As sheep, we must follow our Good Shepherd where he goes. We must go where he takes us. Jesus did not settle down in the green pasture. He did not find a nice cozy spot in the sunshine on a peaceful hillside and make that his permanent place of residence. Jesus walked right into the midst of the shadow.
Jesus was poor. He was impoverished. He literally had nothing. Jesus left behind everything he had, Jesus didn’t even have a place to lay his head. Likewise Jesus calls upon us to not lay up for ourselves earthly treasures – possessions and income, but that our treasure be in heaven.
The life of Jesus was one that was destined for the death of the cross. Our text reminds us that, He committed no sin and there was no deceit, no false words that were found in his mouth. And when he was reviled, that is to say when he was cursed, he did not return the curses of his accusers but allowed himself to be falsely accused and condemned. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. In fact when Jesus was ridiculed he prayed to His Heavenly Father that He would forgive his enemies for their sin. Jesus’ path was one of suffering. As we follow Jesus who is our Good Shepherd we follow him to the cross, we follow him along that path that leads us into suffering.
This is not where we want to go. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to go through this valley of the shadow of death. We would much rather spend our days frolicking in the meadow munching on the green grass. This is what is appealing to us. But this in not what we have been called to by our Good Shepherd. We have been called to a life of suffering. We have been called to this life because it is in this suffering that we, as our text says, die to sin. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” As we follow our Good Shepherd through the valley of the shadow of death, as we follow Jesus to the cross, as we ourselves find ourselves in the midst of all kinds of suffering we die, our old Adam, our sinful flesh is crucified and we die to sin.
Our old sinful flesh has a strong survival instinct. Therefore, we don’t want to die. But we need to die. We are so filled with sin. We are so filled with pride and selfishness. We are so caught up in ourselves, so addicted to our own comfort or entertainment, so longing to being pacified or coddled or satisfied or pleased that the last thing we would ever want is to die. Yet it is for that very reason that we need to die. We need to have our sinful flesh put down and put away. And we cannot do this on our own. We do not have the strength or the character to do it so Jesus our Good Shepherd does this for us. He leads us into the Valley of the Shadow of death.
As Peter tells us we follow in Jesus steps. Just as he suffered so do we suffer. Just as he died so do we die. Peter tells us that this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. It is good. It is even a gift. When we suffer, as we understand all that Jesus is doing in us and accomplishing in us we should see this and we should thank God because of it. Lord thank you that you have not left me to be lulled to sleep in my sinful flesh, thank you that you have not given me over to being enslave by the appetites of my flesh but have allowed me to suffer in my flesh so that I can be well fed and cared for in my Spirit. Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
We have a Good Shepherd who knows our laziness and our sin and he calls us away from that sin. He gives us over to suffering so that through it we can come to see the worthlessness and the futility of our flesh, so that we can see the ultimate glory of the things that he has set aside for us in heaven.
When we find ourselves in that place that we least want to go, when we look up to discover that we are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we ought not cry out, we ought not complain, we ought not be afraid. Instead we should recognize that Jesus our Good Shepherd has brought us here to help us to put to death the sins that live in us, that this is God’s good gift given to us in love. We ought to look to him in faith and give to him thanks that he has granted us to follow him in suffering as we make our way into his heavenly pastures.
