John 10:11

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

‘I am the Good Shepherd.’

John 10:11

When our Blessed Lord called Himself the Good Shepherd, and spoke of His loving care for His sheep, those who heard Him felt the full force of the beautiful and original allegory. He spoke to men who came of a shepherd race. He appealed to those who knew what a shepherd’s life was. A more fitting illustration could not have been chosen, and time has only shown how fully and universally the allegory has been appreciated.

I. The Shepherd leads.—How many troubles would be avoided, how much suffering and misery spared, if the sheep of Christ’s flock would only follow Him closely, and with the confidence shown by those sheep for their guardian. But alas! how many professing Christians are like the sheep which have but little confidence in the shepherd, and only follow him with fear and hesitation. The Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is ever present to lead us, and if we follow, nothing doubting, when we come to the river of death which lies before us all in the shadows of the future, we shall then feel no fear, no hesitation, but follow eagerly till the eternal fold is reached.

II. The Shepherd knows.—You should, in the next place, try to realise what is meant by the Good Shepherd knowing His sheep. In this country sheep are marked, and a shepherd can thus distinguish his own sheep, but in the East he always learns to know his flock without the aid of marks. Christ, the Good Shepherd, knows each one of His flock, but not by name alone. The character, the weaknesses, and virtues of each one are well known to Him. We cannot stray away from the right path without the watchful Shepherd knowing full well; but there are no trials and temptations through which He will not gladly and lovingly help us; no joys and sorrows with which He will not sympathise. Every true follower of Christ can say, in the words of the Psalmist, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing.… Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.’ In all times of trouble (and who is there who has not or will not have times of trouble?), in all times of temptation and suffering, this thought of the Good Shepherd’s knowledge of our affliction should rise up to bring comfort and peace,

III. The Shepherd seeks.—As you follow the Good Shepherd you will often find that, in some weak moment, you have been tempted to take your eyes off Him and wander aside after some worldly pleasure, tempted, perhaps, by some other wanderer who has strayed away from the right path. But then for our great comfort comes the thought that the Good Shepherd will never leave one of His flock thus wandering without making every effort to bring back the wanderer. No sheep from the flock of this Shepherd ever went astray that was not sought for, and how many, thank God, have been brought back!

—Rev. W. S. Randall.

Illustration

‘One bitter January night the inhabitants of the old town of Sleswick were thrown into the greatest distress and terror. A hostile army was marching down upon them, and new and fearful reports of the conduct of the lawless soldiery were hourly reaching the place. In one large commodious cottage dwelt an aged grandmother with her granddaughter and her grandson. While all hearts quaked with fear, this aged woman passed her time in crying out to her Saviour that He would “build up a wall of defence round about them,” quoting the words of an ancient hymn. Her grandson asked why she prayed for a thing so entirely impossible as that God should build a wall about their house that should hide it; but she explained that her meaning only was that God should protect them. At midnight the dreaded tramp of the soldiers was heard as the enemy came pouring in at every avenue, filling the houses to overflowing. But whilst the most fearful sounds were heard on every side, not even a knock came to their door, at which they were greatly surprised. The morning light made the matter clear, for just beyond the house the drifted snow had reared such a massive wall that it was impossible to get over it to them. “There,” said the old woman triumphantly, “do you not see, my child, that God could raise up a wall around us?” This Christian woman knew what it was to have a perfect trust in the Good Shepherd.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE DIVINE SHEPHERD

‘I am the Good Shepherd.’ Is it not a Self-revelation which comes as a necessary corollary to that interpretation of the Divine relations to mankind which finds expression in the 23rd Psalm and elsewhere in the writings of the Old Testament? If once we accept such a conception of God; if once such a creed takes full possession of our hearts and minds, we are impelled by it to ‘a sure and certain hope’ of such a Self-manifestation as we have in Jesus Christ.

I. The Divine Shepherd!—God is not only the Guide and Mainstay of great bodies of men—of nations and churches, of generations and kingdoms; He is the Guardian and Friend of each individual life. We are all known by Him with a knowledge that is perfect. Nothing is hidden from Him—no temptation, no anxiety, no strain, no failure, no sin, no repentance. His is the hand that has faithfully upheld us and brought us safely through the dangers and troubles which have sorely beset us. Those strange coincidences, which we could not understand at the time, have been realised in the light of subsequent knowledge to have been His loving counsels for our welfare. It has been His ministry that has provided with such sufficiency for our wants. We are all ‘the sheep of His pasture.’ He is, as has been beautifully said of Him, ‘that Eternal Tenderness which bends over us—infinitely lower though we be in nature—and knows the name of each and the trials of each, and thinks for each with a separate solicitude, and gave Itself for each with a Sacrifice as special and a Love as personal as if in the whole world’s wilderness there were none other than that one.’

II. He is our eternal Shepherd of infinite perfection.—He ‘calls’ us ‘by name.’ We may go to Him and thankfully walk in His footsteps and rejoice in the comfort and strength of His protection. We may be certain that there is, and can be, no lowliness, no obscurity, no poverty, no desolation, no suffering, no unmerited reproach which His ‘goodness and mercy’ do not ‘follow’ day by day and hour by hour. We are confident that nothing that we now are or ever have been—no vice, no depravity, no crime, no dishonour—need continue to separate us from Him. He is ever ready to receive us back, to welcome us once more into the shelter of the fold. ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found My sheep which was lost.” We are none of us, even the worst and the vilest, beyond the blessing of His care. Because of His Cross and Passion, because of that supreme victory in which the ‘suffering of death’ issued, because He is ‘stronger than the strong’ and in His own Person has overthrown death and Satan, because He has ‘ascended on high’ and ‘led captivity captive,’ He can be—He is—the Shepherd of us all. In a deeper sense than was ever revealed even to the inspired Psalmist, He will be our Guide along ‘the paths of righteousness’—‘the straitened way that leadeth unto life’—our unseen but ever-present Companion on that last tremendous journey through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’—the valley which leads to the Paradise of God. Whenever we will, He feeds us, from His own sacred table, ‘with the spiritual food of His most precious Body and Blood.’ Aye, and when all here is over and done with, when our time comes sooner or later, expectedly or unexpectedly—

‘To-day, or may be not to-day,

To-night, or not to-night—’

He will receive us, through the wondrous efficacy of His own Self-sacrifice and triumph, into ‘the house of the Lord.’

Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.

Illustration

‘The figure of the Good Shepherd was one which the young Church was glad to depict. It has often been pointed out that the earliest delineations of our Saviour place Him before us, not with the signs and evidences of suffering upon Him, not with worn visage and tired body, but in all the strength and vigour of unwearied manhood. The “Ecce Homo” of these Christians was unmarked by horror and outrage. “Neither the paintings in the Catacombs nor the sculptures in the ancient Christian sarcophagi reveal a single representation of the Passion of our Lord.” It was a later generation that ventured to introduce the Crucifixion into the sacred circle of subjects suitable for Christian art. And sometimes we are asked, indeed urged, to go back to this older type of representation as better, wiser, truer, healthier. It is an invitation which at first makes a strong appeal to us. But none the less we cannot consent to respond to it. An adequate picture of the human Christ will not exclude those deep lines of suffering which came through His voluntary Self-abasement.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE IDEAL SHEPHERD

There are three parables in this chapter. In the first six verses there is the parable of the Shepherd. To the fold mentioned in John 10:1 many flocks would be brought at night. Then their own Shepherd would come in the morning and lead away his flock to pasture. Then in John 10:7 begins the parable of the Door. This was the Door of the day enclosure, where the sheep could go in and out and find food. In John 10:11 there is the parable of the beautiful or ideal Shepherd. Here evening has come, and as the shepherds are leading back their flocks to the fold for the night, the wolf darts forth; but the Good Shepherd flees not like the hireling, but lays down His life for the sheep.

Let us notice three things the beautiful Shepherd is here said to do for His sheep.

I. He knows them.—The words are even more striking in the Revised Version: ‘I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father’ (John 10:14). Christ knows His sheep with the same loving knowledge that the Father knows Him, and He knows the Father. The weakest, the feeblest, the very sickliest lamb in the flock the beautiful Shepherd loves and knows. Not one is overlooked, or forgotten, or omitted.

II. He dies for them.—‘I lay down My life for the sheep.’ The prophet had foretold this—‘Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd’ (Zechariah 13:7).

‘One came by with wounded Side,

And for the sheep the Shepherd died.’

III. He gathers them.—‘Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold (i.e. not Jews): them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock, one Shepherd’ (John 10:16).

IV. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’—Can you say, ‘My’? Everything depends on that. If you can say, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd,’ then all is yours—the quiet rest by the still waters, the restoring, the leading, the presence in the valley, the rod and the staff to comfort, the prepared table, the ointment for the head, the cup running over, goodness and mercy all the days of your life, and a home beyond the grave; all this is yours if you can say ‘My.’

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘Garabaldi and some of his army were marching through the mountains, and as they drew near to where they intended to spend the night they met a shepherd wandering alone. He was taken to the General, and his account of himself was that he was walking across the hill in search of a lost lamb. Garibaldi heard his story, and then called on his men to scatter and seek for the lost. They separated and sought, but without success; and as night closed in the soldiers returned tired and dispirited, without the lamb. They slept well that night; and when the morning call roused them from rest they opened amazed eyes to see a great figure looming through the white mists and advancing towards them. They marvelled, and their wonder was none the less when the new-comer proved to be their General carrying a little lamb in his strong arms. They had slept, but Garibaldi had sought all night, and at dawn he found that which was lost.’