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When the Shepherd Becomes the Sacrifice
A sermon by Dr. Jim
Somerville
Pastor, Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
May 3, 2009
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Psalm 23; John 10:11-18
This fourth
Sunday of Easter is sometimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the readings
always include Psalm 23, which begins with the words, “the Lord is my Shepherd,”
and a passage from John 10, in which Jesus refers to himself as the Good
Shepherd. But the reading for this year, from the middle of chapter 10, is the
one where Jesus says “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, but
the hired hand, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the
sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired
hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good
shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I
know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep” (vss. 11-15).
It reminds me of
the time David, the shepherd boy, went to visit his brothers on the battlefield
and found out that they were terrified of a giant named Goliath. “Who is this
uncircumcised Philistine,” David asked, “that he should defy the armies of the
living God?” When King Saul heard about it he sent for David, who said, “Let no
one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this
Philistine.” But Saul said to him, “You are not able to go against this
Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior
from his youth.” But David answered: “Your servant
used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took
a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb
from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike
it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this
uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the
armies of the living God.” And then he added, “The Lord, who saved me from the
paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this
Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:26, 32-37).
David was a good shepherd. Although he never laid down his life for his sheep
he certainly risked his life for them. He went running after lions and bears,
catching them by the jaw, striking them down, and killing them, all for the sake
of the sheep. And if you had asked him he might have said that he did it not
because he was so brave, but because he trusted God to protect him, and because
those were his father’s sheep. If he had been a hired hand, watching someone
else’s flock, he might have let a bear or lion have the occasional lamb. But
not one of his father’s lambs! What belonged to his father belonged to him, and
David defended the flock with his life. It was that kind of experience that led
him to write, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
I’ve always
imagined it as one of his first psalms, written on ruled notebook paper with a
Number 2 pencil, while he was still just a schoolboy. I’ve pictured him out
there watching over his flocks by night, wondering how many wild animals were
lurking nearby, feeling terribly alone and more than a little afraid but
thinking, “It’s OK. The Lord is my shepherd. He always takes good care of me
and he’s going to take care of me now. Even if I walk through the darkest
valley I won’t be afraid. He is right here with me.” Have you ever thought
about God that way? That he is watching over you at all times like a good
shepherd? That he won’t give you up or let you down? David thought about him
that way, and it helped to make him who he was.
When David became king over Israel the people never forgot that he had once been
a shepherd. Some called him the “shepherd king,” and compared his care for the
nation of Israel to the care he had provided for his father’s sheep. I think
that may be what John had in mind when he included this passage in his Gospel.
None of the other Gospel writers speak of Jesus as the good shepherd, but John
does. Maybe, in the same way Matthew seems to think of Jesus as a
“prophet-like-Moses” John thinks of him as a “shepherd-like-David”—a good
shepherd, one who lays down his life for the sheep. But if that’s true it makes
this other part of John’s Gospel hard to understand, the part in chapter one,
verse 29, where John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of
God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
You tell me: how can the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep,
also be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world? When you ask John
the Baptist he simply repeats it in verse 36: “Behold the Lamb of God!” And so
you have to start digging through the Scriptures, looking for any reference to
lambs or sin or sacrifice, and believe me there are plenty. There is that story
from Genesis 22, where Abraham takes his son up on the mountain, and Isaac asks
that heartbreaking question: “Father, here is the wood and here is the fire, but
where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Which Abraham answers by saying:
“God himself will provide the lamb, my son.” And there is the institution of
the Passover in Exodus 12, where each family is instructed to take a lamb, a
year-old male without blemish, and then slaughter it, and smear its blood on the
doorposts and lintel of their homes. If they do this, the angel of the Lord who
comes to kill all the firstborn in the land will see the blood and pass over
those homes, sparing the lives of the firstborn.
Throughout the books of the Law there are instructions for sacrificing lambs as
offerings for sin and guilt, but there is never any mention of a lamb who takes
away the sin of the world until we come to John’s Gospel, and suddenly there is
Jesus, the Lamb of God. But then in chapter 10 he says, “I am the Good
Shepherd,” and it leaves you scratching your head. How can the lamb be the
shepherd? I get the feeling John has done what we often do—put on his “Jesus
glasses” and started reading through the Old Testament. When you do that you
begin to see him everywhere. Every good shepherd reminds you of Jesus. Every
sacrificial lamb could be him. As John makes those connections between Holy
Scripture and his own experience of Jesus he wants us to see everything he has
seen. I think he does want us to see Jesus as a shepherd-like-David, but the
image that catches his attention and holds it in the end is the image of Jesus
as the Passover Lamb.
New Testament scholar Raymond Brown has pointed out that in John’s Gospel Jesus
is sentenced to die at noon on the Day of Preparation, just as the priests began
to slaughter the Passover lambs in the temple precincts. When he says from the
cross, “I thirst,” someone holds up a wine-soaked sponge on a stalk of hyssop,
which is what the people used at that first Passover to smear lambs’ blood on
their doorposts and lintels. When the soldiers come to break the legs of the
crucified they find that Jesus is already dead, fulfilling God’s instructions
about the Passover lamb that, “not a bone shall be broken.” And finally, Brown
writes, “In his death Jesus gives meaning to that mysterious acclamation of John
the Baptist uttered when Jesus made his first public appearance: ‘Behold the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”
All of this has made me think a good bit more about the Passover lamb, which not
only served as the sacrifice that saved God’s people from death, but also
nourished them for the journey they were about to take. Perhaps this is why
those other Gospel writers—Matthew and Mark and Luke—remember Jesus sharing the
Passover meal with his disciples and offering up symbols of his own body and
blood. Not only was he about to die for them, to save them from sin and death,
but in the years to come as they gathered at his table they would be sustained
by “feeding on him” in faith. This symbolism was not lost on the Apostle Paul,
who in 1 Corinthians 5 speaks of “Christ, our Passover.” And it hasn’t been
lost on the church through the years. In the Episcopal tradition, as the priest
lifts up the bread and breaks it he says, “Christ our Passover has been
sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.”
It’s all very beautiful, isn’t it? Which sometimes makes it hard to remember
that the story behind all this tradition wasn’t beautiful at all. In order to
smear its blood on the doorposts and lintel of the house that lamb had to be
slaughtered. And before Christ could be our Passover he had to be nailed to a
cross, where he bled and died. Suppose that David, the shepherd, had gone after
one of those bears or lions that was stealing lambs from his father’s flock and
didn’t come back? Suppose his father found him out there in the fields the next
morning mauled and bloody, no longer breathing, but still holding that living
lamb in his arms? That’s the kind of thing John wants us to think about when we
hear Jesus, the Good Shepherd, talk about laying down his life for the sheep.
He wants us to remember that he did just that, he laid down his life for us, and
because he did it our lives have been spared. That body sagging on the cross is
our shepherd, who died so that we might live. Not only that, but as we come to
the Lord’s table we recognize that the one who saved us has also sustained us
through the years, feeding our faith with his own body and blood. Has anyone
ever done so much for us? Should we not burst into tears each time we gather at
the table? Should our hands not tremble with gratitude as we reach for the
bread and the cup?
In
the Book of Revelation, John, the writer, is caught up to heaven where he sees a
throne, and someone seated on the throne, and twenty-four elders around the
throne, with four living creatures who sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” day and night
without ceasing. But then John saw that the one seated on the throne was
holding a scroll, sealed with seven seals. And an angel asked who was worthy to
open the scroll, but no one was found, not in heaven or on earth or under the
earth. And John began to weep, because no one could open the scroll and reveal
its contents. But then one of the elders said to him, “Don’t weep; look!” And
when he looked he saw a lamb “standing as if it had been slaughtered.” Everyone
in heaven fell down before this lamb and said, “You are worthy to take the
scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you
ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
And then thousands upon thousands of angels burst into song, singing, “Worthy is
the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
It’s a vision of how things will be in the end, and although the Book of
Revelation is sometimes hard to follow, it seems clear that the Good Shepherd,
who laid down his life for the sheep, is also the Passover Lamb, by which they
are saved and sustained, and will one day stand before us as the Lamb who is
worthy to receive blessing and honor, glory and might, forever and ever. Amen.
As we
prepare to receive communion let me remind you that this table does not belong
to First Baptist Church, it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and all who call
themselves his are welcome. And let me remind those of you who may be watching
from home that you are also welcome to participate with a cracker and some
juice, or in spirit and in truth, as we gather at the table of the Lord.
Hear these
words from the Book of Common Prayer:
Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has
been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,
Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.
Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all;
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin,
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.
Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by a man came death,
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.
—Jim Somerville © 2009
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