Jesus, the Shepherd of our Souls
Jesus guards, feeds and calls His sheep, and we follow Him
John 10:1-18
Verses 1-5, our opening scene, describe a typical morning shepherding scene. With the sun just peeking over the horizon, a shepherd enters through a door/gate into a walled enclosure which has several flocks in one sheep pen. The enclosure, with stone walls, is guarded at night by a doorkeeper to prevent thieves and beasts of prey from entering. Anyone who would climb the wall would do it for no good purpose.
Our curiosity is piqued… Here we have some questions that come from Jesus’ illustration: Who are the sheep? Why do they need to be guarded? What is the door/gate? Who is the Shepherd? Why do the sheep follow him? And who are the thieves and robbers?
The setting for this illustration is important to grasp. Jesus is in a running debate with the sect of the Pharisees. The debate lasts some days, and this pericope introduces debate number 5! It is the last debate in the struggle and push and shove that Jesus has with them over the truth of His identity and who has the right to teach and lead Israel… Him or them. It is so heated that after debate #3 at the end of ch 8, they almost killed him by stoning. At the end of debate #4 (end of ch 9) they claim to see and know, but Jesus says that claim simply locks them into the responsibility of the guilt and sin of being false teachers, false shepherds! Jesus is referring to God’s complaint in Ezekiel 34:1-10, and as we’ll see in John 10, Jesus points to Himself as God’s Spirit-led Good Shepherd of God’s sheep as the fulfillment. And of course we’re intimately familiar with Psalm 23.