Text: John 10:22-30 (The Message)
22-24 They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon’s Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, “How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.”
25-30 Jesus answered, “I told you, but you don’t believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
When our kids were little, their version of “are we there yet?” was “How longer?” “How longer, Daddy?” “How longer ‘til we get to Grandma and Granddad’s?”
Kids have a very different view of time. An hour to them is like a day to us. A day is like a week! And a whole year – well, that’s a lifetime!
How longer?
That’s also the question put to Jesus by that group of people who confront him on Solomon’s Porch. And it wasn’t an idle question, either: The people of Israel had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to come. One invader after another had conquered Israel, and each time that happened, the cry went up: “How long, O Lord, how long?” Psalmists, prophets like Habbakuk, and everyone else lifted up their voices, pleading for God to end their suffering, to send them that One God had promised to restore Israel. But the centuries came and went, and they waited still. I’m reminded of the opening scene of the greatest movie ever made – Casablanca – where the narrator says that some of the people who flee to Casablanca might obtain exit visas and fly to America, “but the rest are forced to wait in Casablanca … and wait … and wait … and wait …”
So it was with great anticipation, and maybe a sort of hopeless hopefulness, that these unnamed people got up the nerve to ask this Nazarene rabbi whether all the things they’d heard about him might actually be true, and that he might actually, really, finally be the Messiah they had been waiting for.
Have you ever wanted something so badly that you were even afraid to talk about it, just in case you might jinx it? But, eventually, you just had to – you just had to get it out into the open, you just had to ask. And so you did, and then waited, heart pounding, to hear the answer…
Like, for example, when a man proposes to his girlfriend. You pop the question, and then wait for the answer. When I proposed to Katie, though, she initially said ‘no”! Two thoughts chased themselves simultaneously through my head – the first one was “WHAT?!? She said NO?!?” and the second one was, “Whew! I just dodged that bullet!” As I stood there, Katie looked at me, grinning, and said – “HA! You didn’t think I’d make it easy on you, did you?” I knew then that I was pretty much in for it…
Anticipation. Uncertainty. Fear. I think that’s what those people – at least some of them – were feeling that cold, windy, wintry day in Jerusalem. The question burned within their hearts; they had to know – but that were also afraid of the answer. They couldn’t stand it anymore, so they blurt out: “How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.”
The answer Jesus gives them doesn’t really help them. Instead of simply saying “yes” or “no,” he says, “I told you.” You’ve already gotten your answer, “but you don’t believe…You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep.”
Eh? How’s that? Come again?
Some of the commentators I read when putting this sermon together are downright harsh regarding these poor people. They write that the Jews don’t understand Jesus’ answer because they have chosen not to. They have deliberately decided not to be among his sheep. My question to that point of view is, “If that’s the case, why are they there on that cold winter day pestering Jesus with questions?” If they have chosen not to be a part of the flock, why didn’t they just stay home?
Throughout his Gospel, John makes it clear that everything regarding Jesus happens the way it does because God means it to happen that way. I have no problem with that; but some theologians, particularly John Calvin, assert that this shows that God has chosen some from the beginning of time to be saved, and others not – and there’s not one thing a person can do to change that. This is called “predestination,” and I think it’s a lot of hooey. If you believe that God’s saved some, but not others, you have a 50% chance of being one of the unfortunates – so why bother at all with being a faithful person? Why bother going to church? Why bother being kind to others? And – even more to the point – why would God go through all the trouble of sending Jesus in the first place?
There’s another, opposite, point of view to Calvin’s. According to this view, held by early church fathers like Pelagius, we do have a definite role to play – we have been given the gift (and curse, too) of free will, which we can use to either accept God’s way, or reject it. Also, God is a god of grace, who can and does overlook our own foibles and obstinacy, and saves us just the same. That’s far more consistent with what I’ve been taught and have come to believe about God.
People have been arguing these points of view for hundreds of years, and I’m sure they’ll argue them for hundreds more.
In any case, I see something else going on here. Certainly, there were some in that crowd who really didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and just badger him with their questions to try to get him to incriminate himself. They’d heard him speak; they’d seen the signs. They didn’t care. They refused to hear. They refused to allow the power of God to work in their lives. They liked the old ways. They were the type of people Isaiah had written about a thousand years earlier: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray;
But there were others, maybe even the majority, who hoped and prayed with a deep desperation that he would say, “yes, I am. I am the Messiah.” They were sheep without a shepherd, and came to Jesus to see if he would fit the bill. They were the ones who had that burning question I mentioned a minute or so ago, and they just had to get an answer.
What they were looking for, hoping for, is the same thing that brings us here, week after week. We aren’t looking for pre-packaged theological answers – theology is important, to be sure, but what we all are really looking for when we gather here on Sunday morning is an actual relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. We want a genuine encounter with the divine, and we hope for an experience of grace.
What we want to hear is the same thing those desperate people wanted to hear: The words of promise Jesus offers. We want to hear the promise that is at the heart of this passage and, in fact, of the whole Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.”
Hear those words. Feel those words. And then hear and feel this: God will not abandon us. Jesus will hold on to us through all things. God will never, ever let us go.
Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice.”
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, calls us. He wants us to hear his words. He wants us to understand who he is for our lives. He wants us to know and believe that he is our shepherd and we are his sheep. He wants us to follow his voice; he wants us to hear his words of peace and comfort for our lives. He wants us to know that nothing can separate us from his love – no earthquake, no illness, no emergency, no car accident, no nothing.
No matter how out of control or crazy or difficult or stressful or scary our lives are, nevertheless God chooses us, loves us, walks with us, and will hold onto us through all of life and even through death into the new life he offers us.
“How longer?” NOW!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.