Kids Talk:

Good morning! Have you ever been travelling? I know I have. In fact, last week I was travelling around Sydney with my family. There are three things you always need to do when you go travelling, 1) find a way to get where you are going, 2) pack your bags and 3) work out where you are going to stay when you get there. If I don’t book the right tickets on the plane or fill the car with enough petrol, I might go to the wrong destination or not make it all the way. If I don’t pack my bag with everything I need, when I get to the holiday destination, I am in a pickle, right? No toothbrush, what a disaster! And if I don’t know where I will stay when I get there, then I might be sleeping under a tree or just have to turn around and come home.

In today’s reading from the book of John, Jesus describes himself as the “good shepherd”. A good shepherd knows the safe way to get places, a good shepherd makes sure that the sheep have what they need, and the good shepherd knows the best places to go to get rest and for the sheep to be fed and happy. It is a bit funny for us to think of ourselves as sheep, isn’t it? I think Jesus comparing us to sheep is really lovely, and I will share a story to explain why.

When I was a kid, my family rescued a sheep called Mary. As we were travelling home on a dark rainy night from Launceston to Hobart my Mum caught a brief glimpse of a lamb alone under a small tree near the highway. Mum turned the car around and we found the farmer to tell them that there was an abandoned lamb looking very sick. The farmer told us that this sometimes happened and if the mother Ewe didn’t find the lamb it would die. He told my family that if we wanted to rescue it we could. I remember my Mum and Dad going out in the wild stormy rain, in the dark, to rescue the lamb! Mary came home with us and we nursed her back to health.

Although the farmer was kind enough for us to rescue Mary, I also know that a good shepherd would have walked out in the rain, called out to the mother Ewe, reunited the Ewe with the lamb and walked them to a safe dry place so that the lamb would survive. The farmer had abandoned the sheep to the fate of the wild wintery night and was fine for the lamb to be abandoned & die.

Unlike this farmer, I feel Jesus is an excellent Shepherd to us his sheep. When we are travelling life’s journey and don’t know what direction to take, Jesus speaks to us and says I am the way. When life gets hard Jesus understands what that is like, because he has lived through hardship, he knows what we really need and says I am the truth. When we can’t imagine what comes at the end of our journey, Jesus promises green pastures and says I am the Life. Jesus is the kindest of Shepherds because he cares for his flock, us, so much that he was willing to lay down his life for us. This is what we talked about over Easter when Jesus died on the cross so that everyone could have access to life in God again.

So next time you pack your bags and set out on a drive to somewhere nice, and you happen to look out the window and see a bunch of sheep in a paddock, maybe you could say a little prayer for the farmer that they will take good care of their sheep, and another prayer for yourself to thank God for giving us the Good Shepherd Jesus to show us the way, the truth and the life.

 Adults Talk:

Good morning! As I mentioned in the kids talk, last week our family went to Sydney for a holiday. We did all the touristy things; we saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we sat on the steps of the Opera House, we rode the Ferris Wheel at Luna Park, but one of the craziest experiences we had was taking selfies with the Wax Statues at Madame Tussauds. We took photos with famous politicians, scientists, sports stars, movies celebs and pop icons. Whilst wandering around you could go up to panels on the wall and read up about the famous people portrayed in wax. There were a few wax statues of famous people that looked familiar to me, but I just couldn’t recognise them, and so these panels were really helpful!

In today’s reading from the book of John chapter 10 we see Jesus in Jerusalem talking with the Pharisees trying to help them to recognise who he is. Like me at the wax museum, the Pharisees knew Jesus was familiar because his miracles and teachings pointed to who he was, but they just couldn’t or perhaps wouldn’t recognise him.

The Pharisees were a group of Jewish leaders who separated themselves from society to study and teach the law, and there are many times in the gospels where the Pharisees confront Jesus to ask who he is. The Pharisees were very angry that Jesus was teaching in opposition to them, claiming heavenly authority, and that he was backing up his words with miracles from God, such as the healing of the blind man in chapter 9.

We also know from reading further in John chapter 10 that the Pharisees could not accept what Jesus was saying about himself, and so they picked up rocks to stone him to death. Jesus asks them “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” The Pharisees responded, “We are not stoning you for any of these” “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God”.

These Pharisees were men bound by an oath to live by the law of Moses, which included instructions in Leviticus chapter 24 to stone to death anyone “who blasphemes the name of the Lord”, that is, to bring down or claim the name of God. They knew they did not have authority in Jerusalem to judge and kill someone, this authority was owned by the occupying Romans. So, if they killed Jesus they risked being caught and sentenced to death by the Romans for inciting violence. What could Jesus have said that convinced them that he was claiming to be God to such an extent that they were willing to risk their own lives?

A few weeks ago, I binge watched the Netflix series “Testament: The Story of Moses”. It is an amazing 3-part docu-drama series which has interviews with Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars to explore the historical life of Moses. This historical narrative is then portrayed in dramatic re-enactments with some fantastic actors. I can recommend this series to you if you like documentaries, and if you don’t have Netflix I am happy to play it out the back for you, thanks to Gabe who has kindly set the church up with Google Chromecast on our TV! In the Story of Moses there is a brilliant reenactment of the scene where God comes to Moses in the appearance of a Burning Bush from Exodus chapter 3, and commands Moses to go back to Egypt and announce himself to God’s people the Hebrews as his messenger. Moses is scared and does not trust that the Hebrews will believe him, so God shares with Moses his most sacred and secret name, the name “I am known by” so that the Hebrews will know that God sent him.

In this scene, in the documentary, Moses is told God’s sacred name and later when he presents himself to the Hebrews, they bring out an elderly woman to test him. The Hebrews have been in Egypt living as second class citizens, doing the work of slaves for 400 years and during this time their faith has diminished and they feel God has abandoned them. Yet in all this time, generation after generation the secret and sacred name of God has been passed down, so when Moses whispers to the Elderly woman God’s name she immediately recognises that Moses has been sent by God and will redeem them and save them. The Hebrews celebrate that God has come back to them just by recognising a name.

Moses tells them God’s sacred name, Yahweh. Yahweh is often represented in our bible as Lord in all capitals and is sometimes spoken out loud as Jehovah. Yahweh is a verb in English meaning “I am”, and “I will be”, in summary “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be”. God is a verb, a personhood of doing, having and being. God is I am. This name for God is found in the books of Genesis, the Psalms, Malachi, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation to name a few.

“I am” is the name that God says “is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation” (Exodus 3). And as we see in the book of John when asked who he is, Jesus repeatedly says “I am”. I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the true vine, and in John 14:6 the famous words “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

In all these statements Jesus is helping the people he meets to recognise who he is by using the name of God. Like Moses, Jesus is saying “I have been sent to redeem and save you”. Unlike Moses who needed a staff to channel the power and authority of God, Jesus is able to do this through his person. Jesus uses his spit mixed with dirt to make a paste to heal the blind man’s eyes, and later he uses his body on the cross to be the object of redemption and deliverance for all the world.

The three “I am” statements in chapter 10 appear to be a climatic summary of the earlier “I am” statements, and the foundation for the later great “I am” statement of John 14:6 I am the way, the truth and the life. The three significant “I am” descriptions come together leading to the clear claim of Godship. These three “I am” statements from chapter 10 are “I am the gate”, “I am the good shepherd”, and “I am God’s Son”.  If Jesus is having a final attempt at opening the eyes of the Pharisees, something foreshadowed by the symbolic miracle healing of the blind man, then it appears he is leaving nothing vague or unclear about who he is.

Jesus starts by saying “I am the gate”. Judaism is famously recognised as the first monotheistic religion, a religion of belief that there is only one God. This belief flew in the face of religious people of ancient times who regularly believed in a pantheon of personal and communal gods. It can be observed that the belief there is only one true God continues to be something people today find very difficult to accept, with common belief in modern society being that there are many ways to find God and it is arrogant to suggest that there is only one way. Yet, this is exactly what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying that there is only one gate, one door, one way to the green pasture of relationship with God -him. Jesus is making it clear that he is the way.

This ultimatum that shook the Pharisees is quickly followed by another sheep metaphor when Jesus says, “I am the good Shepherd”. If Jesus is the only way, how can we know that we can trust him? Jesus claims that when we accept his way, we “will know his voice, and he knows ours, and nothing will steal us from him”. Whereas “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8) the good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. How can we trust what Jesus says is true, we can trust him because he fulfilled his promise and went to the cross to defeat the devil and death. The Pharisees felt they had the monopoly on truth and in their pride were infuriated that Jesus might claim he is the only one to lead the flock. Today we often get told we live in a post-truth world, where truth is subjective, no one can claim to have absolute truth. But here we have Jesus’ claim to be that truth, the truth that knows each of us individually, can speak into our lives and can be relied on as the good Shepherd. He is the truth.

Following these two seminal statements of being the only way and truth, the Pharisees corner Jesus at the feast of dedication in Jerusalem and ask “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly”. Reflecting on the response of the Pharisees earlier to Jesus’ “I am” statements it is clear they knew what Jesus was claiming, Jesus had been speaking plainly, they just didn’t like what he was saying, and they did not want to recognise him.

A good example of this is in chapter 5 where they planned to kill Jesus because he was “calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God”. Jesus’ claims were plain, but the eyes of their hearts were blind to the truth, and Jesus makes this clear when he states to the Pharisees “you did not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life…”. It is at this point that the Pharisees pick up stones and move to kill Jesus. Jesus then completes his third “I am” statement of chapter 10 by repeating his earlier claim that “I am God’s Son”.

Claiming to be God’s Son, is to claim that you are the source of life, the creator and sustainer of all things. The Pharisees’ position in society was one of power and influence, and Jesus’ claim of Lordship as the great “I am”, the Son of God required them to submit to his power and influence on their lives. Despite Jesus proving his claim by miracles and the authority of his teaching, the Pharisees chose not to submit and continued to grasp on to their own power and influence which we can assume they felt would sustain them.

I can relate to this! I have been dealing with a tough choice this past year. Later this week it will be made public that I have stepped down from my role as Executive Officer at Anglican Health and Welfare. I have had many signals from God to submit to his authority and step aside from the power and influence of my job, but I struggled to do this, instead feeling the need to sustain my own life through the work I was doing. It is one of the hardest things I have had to do but I am attempting to submit myself more fully to God and trust in him to sustain me and bring me fulness of life. I trust the claims Jesus makes here to be the Son of God, to be the source of life.

In a moment I will finish in prayer, but first I would like to leave you with a few questions to meditate on. Does the experience of the Pharisees seem remote to you today, or can you see yourself in their story? Is it possible that you are familiar with the signs that point to Jesus’ authority in your life but are asking for another sign before submitting? Are the claims Jesus made to be the only way to God, the source of truth and the sustainer of life, sometimes difficult for you to accept? And lastly, is there a way this week that you can listen closer to the voice of the Good Shepherd?

Let’s pray:

Dear Lord Jesus, the great I am, we thank you for showing yourself to us.

Sometimes the things of life grip us and make it difficult to hear your voice and follow you.

We seek your ongoing deliverance and redemptive works in our life, and acknowledge that you are the way, the truth and the life.

In the name of Yahweh we pray, Amen.