John 10:1-10
Jesus the Good Shepherd
‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
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Have you ever been to a carnival out in the middle of a field? I recently read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and it described a magical circus that would appear in the middle of a field, seemingly out of nowhere, and people would stream to it from near and far. They’d see the lights illuminating the nearby countryside and curiosity would attract them—some would rush to the circus while others were pleased to be drawn slowly toward the pulsating center of attention. All would wait outside, some patiently, each full of wonder at what might be contained inside. The circus was full of curiosities and enticements, each one a spectacle to itself, none known until they were experienced by the individual. It was a wonder.
Imagine a world like that, full of attractions for every sense, wonders for the eyes, ears and mouths to behold, and having no way in. You stood outside the fence, certain that what was inside was too magnificent to miss, but you had no access, no place of entry—you were stuck on the outside, desperately searching for some gap in the fence or some knothole through which you might gaze upon the wonders you were certain that were contained inside. Imagine your disappointment upon finding that the fence was secure, that there was no way in, no point of access, and all you were left with was the light and the noise streaming over the fence that provided you hints as to what was contained inside.
It’s not a giant leap from this scenario to how we might think about God without Jesus Christ. For the glory of God is indeed a wondrous thing that draws people in—virtually every race of humanity since the beginning of time has had gods of some type or another—we are built to worship, built with a hunger and with an awareness that we are creatures with a creator. We pair this with the general revelation we find in creation—Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens tell of the glory of God while the earth proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 148 is an order to the mountains and hills and all of creation to praise him. Creation itself points to God—the knowledge of God can be discovered in the beauty of the earth and the wonder of its creatures. This general revelation that teaches us something about God can be likened to the noises and smells that might stream over the fence of a carnival—we learn something by them, and we experience something of the carnival, but it is not a full immersion in the wonders contained within.
Just as this experience leaves us wanting, so, too, does a knowledge of God without a personal relationship. Just as running around the fence and trying to discover what is within is a lousy way to experience what it’s like to see a magician or taste a funnel cake, standing the midst of the most beautiful valley on earth and being caught up in the wonder of it all is an imperfect way to experience the fullness of God. It may be a great experience, but it’s incomplete. Smelling a funnel cake is surely a great experience, but tasting it is even better. Having some sense of God’s wonder and love is good, but experiencing that on a personal level is far, far better.
This is what it means for Jesus Christ to be the gate. He is the way into the carnival, the door that allows us to pass from a general knowledge about God into a specific relationship with God. Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, is the gate that gives us permission to enter into the fullness of God. In our baptisms, we are joined with him—we are joined with him in his life, in his death, and in his resurrection. In this sense we can no longer die—death is a defeated enemy for those who are in Christ, who have passed through the gate, and after this life we can then enter into the fullness of God, because we have been justified by his death, purified by his blood, saved by his life.
Now, we may wonder why God bothered to put up a wall at all. Why doesn’t God just let the wall come down and let everyone enter in? If God is love, then wouldn’t the most loving thing to do be to allow everyone to come in?
The problem with this is sin, plain and simple. See, God is perfect, and we are not—and one of those things have to change if we are to dwell in eternity with God. I’ll give you a hint—it’s not going to be God. God cannot sin—it is impossible. God is love and God is good, and it would contradict a central part of who God is if God were to sin. Since God cannot contradict himself, he cannot sin.
So we have to be cleansed of our sins before we can enter into God’s glory. Think of sin as building a wall between us and God—in Genesis, we have a beautiful image of God walking in the Garden with Adam & Eve. Because of their sin, however, they were cast out of the garden. In order for us to enter the garden that is described in Revelation, we need to be cleansed of that sin. We need a way through the wall that we have built that separates God from our sin.
Jesus Christ is the way through the wall. He is the gate.
Now, God didn’t have to make a way through the wall. He could have just left the wall and refused to admit humanity back into his glory. We would have gone through our lives with a general knowledge that there was a creator, but we would have no specific knowledge of God’s love for us or his desire to be in relationship with us. Instead, God has formulated a plan to deal with the problem of sin. God wants us to enter into the feast, into the carnival, and so he enters into creation and makes a way where there was no way, a gate where there was previously only a wall, and in Jesus Christ makes it possible for us to enter into his glory. Where there was once only general knowledge of God, in Christ we have a very specific knowledge of the loving and merciful God who has created us and longs to give us abundant life.
But we have to pass through the only gate, Jesus Christ. It’s exclusive—because Jesus Christ is both God and man, only he can make us clean. Only he can take our sins upon himself and make it possible for us to enter into God’s glory. Only he can give us abundant life. As Jesus says, anyone else who promises to do so is a thief and a bandit.
Jesus is our way into the feast, the gate through the fence, and through him we enter into a world of riches unimagined. There is grace and mercy and love and wonder and power and might—all of it belonging to God, and God wants to lavishly pour it out upon us. God is the one who can fulfill our every true desire, the ones we spend so much time and energy finding other things to satisfy them. It’s a feast beyond my ability to describe it, but this is what awaits us when we enter into the fullness of God. This is the abundant life that God promises to give to us if we give everything over to Christ, to let ourselves enter into him fully, so that we might empty ourselves and let him fill us.
It’s way better than the greatest funnel cake—it’s everlasting life, and it’s available to each and every one of us through the gift of Jesus Christ.
Let us pray
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