May 2, 2004
Acts: 13:13,43-52 + Revelation 7:9,14-17 + John 10:27-30
“THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE!” It is verse thirty of chapter ten. This is the ultimate expression of what “Jesus” means. In those six English words, the identity of the risen Christ is proclaimed. In them we understand all that John has to say about Jesus. This is why his listeners picked up rocks to stone him. This is why believers have gone to their death in every generation since then. The Gospel of John, and the other gospels too for that matter, are not history reports of what Jesus said and did, they are about who Jesus is and what it means.
This Sunday the Church reflects upon who Jesus is and what it means. Next Sunday we shall reflect upon who we are and what it means. In all the other Gospels, Jesus is portrayed in one way or another as a Jew. He is a Pharisee, a Rabbi, a teacher: always in the context of Judaism. In John’s Gospel this is not so.
Listen in the Easter weeks as we work our way through the identity of Jesus from John’s perspective. Notice how Jesus stands outside of Judaism. He talks to the Jews, they react to him. Some are against him. Some are with him, but he is always distinct from them.
What is emerging in this Gospel is an image of God revealed by Jesus. This talk of Shepherd” and the image that goes with it must be heard in the context of Jesus. In the Hebrew scriptures “Shepherd” and “King” are linked together. Remember David the “King”. Remember where he came from – he was the shepherd boy. When John has Jesus speak of himself as “Shepherd” don’t be getting all sentimental and romantic with thoughts of little wooly lambs cuddling up to someone who just crawled out of a dryer with sheets of “Bounce” clinging to his white robes.
This is revolutionary talk. These are the images of a King, a Leader, whose presence and whose message sets people against one another. Hear that talk about sheep of one-fold and sheep of another. Yet this is noble talk, and in Israel, these are images of God; and so those six words of verse thirty in chapter ten are an Act of Faith, a proclamation that Israel’s Lord is present in Jesus Christ. There is then a political dimension to the Gospel, and people who belong to the “flock” of Jesus, who live by the Word of God who are God’s people are political revolutionaries.
They will stand against laws, office holders, and regimes because their first loyalty and their own identity is with God. This is not just spiritual stuff.
It is real.
It is social.
It is political.
It is economic.
It is not just about the soul, it is about the whole human person. Jesus cured people. He did not just go around and say: “God loves you.” He made a difference now, in this world, in time; not in some far off-distant “heavenly” realm. To see Jesus as an “a-political” person alters sharply the biblical figure of the Lord as Shepherd. The Bible is not a book that has an exclusively “spiritual” meaning. To think that way is to seriously misinterpret it. It is always concerned about the whole life of people. Atheists and atheistic governments have always known that which is why they out-law or ban the Bible from their realm.
Our response to Jesus Christ is not then simply a spiritual response either. It is a total response of the whole person. It does not simply make us pious. It makes us just. It does not simply make us holy. It makes us free. It does not just give us a vision of the Kingdom of God. It gives us the way to get there. Our response is not simply to pray, but to act. There is a difference in us, in our behavior, not just in our soul.
Proclaimed in these days between Easter and Pentecost, this Gospel looks ahead to what we shall become by the power of the Spirit. We shall become, or because of it, we are a force that can bring a breath of new life and the power of the Spirit like Fire to transform our world because we can see and we believe that God has come to be with us and has called us by name.