“Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them” (Ezekiel 34:2-6).

Bad leadership corrupts the whole community, and no one feels secure anymore. When Jesus spoke of Himself as the Good Shepherd who protected his sheep, the people knew exactly what he meant. They had seen the result of bad shepherd leaders, and they were looking for someone who made more than empty promises but someone who would satisfy them and give them lasting security.

They longed for the shepherd described in the rest of that prophesy in Ezekiel 34: “For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice” (Ezekiel 34:11-16).

So, here at the Feast of Dedication, with all the eyes of the people and the corrupt religious leaders upon Him, he declares that He Himself is the Good Shepherd who will the people out of their great bondage. He did it by telling them a story about a Middle Eastern shepherd watching over his sheep, sleepless, weather-beaten, and listening to the dread tread of the wolf stealthily sniffing the night air. He watches intently for thieves who might come to steal the sheep. He corrals the animals into a stone enclosure, called the “sheepfold,” one by one, checking them for burrs and wounds. When he finds a wound, he pours oil on it so that it will heal. That is the imagery the Psalmist uses in Psalm 23: “He anoints my head with oil.” He lays himself down over the opening of the enclosure, hence becoming the gate to the sheepfold, protecting the curious little animals whom he knew and loved. Each one was precious to him. They were timid, helpless, stubborn, and rather stupid really. Yet in many ways, they were not so different from the people in the bustling city below those pastoral hills of Judea. Perhaps they also needed a shepherd to shatter the disconsolate nature of their lives.

Look at verses 3 and 4. It says there that He “leads them out.” That is a familiar phrase in the Bible. God often “brings his people out.” For example, in Numbers, chapter 27, Moses is praying to God. He asks God to appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before these people, one who will lead them out and bring them in so that God's people will not be like sheep without a shepherd. That is Moses' prayer for his people. Raise up a man who will bring them out. It connotes the idea of the exodus from bondage in Egypt. In asking this prayer, Moses is supplied with Joshua. Of course, Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of the Aramaic Jesus. He is one who brings us out or takes us in.

“I am the good shepherd," He says in verse 14. In verses 7-20, he says, "I am the gate of the sheepfold. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers; 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.”

The hireling shepherd has no personal relationship with the sheep, and therefore will give nothing of himself for them. He gives them over to foreign leaders who care nothing for them. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who guarantees something that the hireling leader never can: he offers life instead of death, and not just any life, but abundant life. The secret is to let Him be the door of your life.

The thief in our lives is the thing or person who claims to be the door instead of going through the door. Those things are filled and fulfilled if they go through the door; they become a thief if they try to become the door. What goes through the door results in good. What tries to become the door, like these religious leaders had done in Chapter 9, does harm. When our yearnings, ambitions and our quest for love become the door of our lives, those things become a robber. When our religion becomes the door instead of Jesus being the door of our lives, we inflict harm on others. When we go through the door that is Christ, we thrive. When we try some other door, we go adrift and lose our way.

But it is not just life that we find at this gate – it is life that excels – life that is truly abundant. I love a great reception. I have learned how to work it for the maximum benefit. They always give you those tiny plates and expect you to to get all that mound of food waiting on the tables on that tiny plate. But if you arrange the food just right, you can get a lot to eat. I have figured out how to line the shrimp around the outside rim so that there is plenty of room in the middle for smoked salmon and all the good stuff. I avoid the tables with the broccoli and carrots. I want the good stuff – the steak, the shrimp, the cheese. But suppose that before the reception began, the reception coordinator came to me and said, “Todd, we have five boxes of shrimp and smoked salmon waiting for you in the back room. You can take it home with you and eat all you want.” Well, then I don’t have to load up the plate. I even start desiring the broccoli and carrots. I eat a lot less, and enjoy the reception a lot more. You can really enjoy the reception when you already are satisfied.

When all of your needs have been met, you become generous and relax. You have nothing to prove, nothing to fear. But you cannot fear until your needs and you want no more. Jesus comes to us as the Good Shepherd who longs to give you more life than you ever expected or dreamed. To put it into more familiar words: "The Lord is my shepherd. I will want for no good thing." You cannot live abundantly if you make your ambitions, or yourself, or even your religion the door. Jesus is the door, and this door laid down His life for you. When you understand that, you can be set free from making false doors in your life and find the love you have been looking for all along. When you have found that great life and love, you are then set free to really live and to enjoy the journey.

Jesus our Good Shepherd leads us out of the places where we have wandered to a place that is beside still waters where He restores our souls. He knows us intimately, and he not only knows us, he has laid down his life for us.

Listen again to verses 14-18: I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

In contrast with their corrupt leaders that always failed them, Jesus was the Good Shepherd who never would. Jesus knows his sheep, and they know him. It is a relationship that is secure in the knowledge that this Leader has authority, but he does not lord his authority over others but rather gives it up in total self-sacrifice, even unto death. Much has been said in recent weeks about the portrayal of the Jews in the movie The Passion of the Christ. While the movie accurately tells the gospel story that the Jewish leaders and people were involved in the death of Christ, the movie even better depicts how, over and over again, Christ resists the devil and chooses by his own accord to lay down his life for all people. Jesus was not a victim of the political or religious power of His time. It was his decision to lay down his life so that his sheep might know Him and come Home to His eternal love.

Finally, look at verses 27 through 29. Jesus is speaking, “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. The Father and I are one.” I encourage you to read these verses again yourself, this time replacing them with the personal pronoun "me." “Christ's father who has given me to him is greater than all. No one can snatch me out of the father's hand.” When Jesus Christ is our great shepherd, life takes on profound satisfaction. We discover this is exactly where we need to be, under the shadow of his wing; conscious of the everlasting arms underneath us, around us and bearing us up; confident in a life that will never know an end. An old song from my childhood goes, “We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened to the rock that cannot move. Around it firm and deep in the Savior's love.” Can you sense that welling up from the deep parts of your being? Jesus is the great shepherd who holds you close to his heart. He carries you over his shoulder, and you have nothing to fear.

When you come in through the Jesus door, you have nothing to fear. You don’t have to set yourself up as the judge of who is in the fold and who isn’t. The Good Shepherd says that He has herded some sheep that you don’t know about yet. You don’t have to go around looking for a devil in every corner, ready to snatch your soul away to God. You don’t have to face death wandering how you will answer to God. You are secure in the fold of the Good Shepherd.

I still know Christians who believe they are saved, but barely saved. Their spiritual lives are plagued with fear that they are going to “miss the boat” or “miss heaven” because they failed to understand or grasp something God wanted them to do. Because we can never grasp all that God is or wants from us, you can never rest assured in your eternal security if you believe that your salvation depends on you getting it all right for fear you will be snatched away from God. You do not have to be consumed with getting everything right to be secure in God’s love when you hear the promise of this text: “No one will snatch you out of my hand.” The New Testament proclaims that Jesus has defeated evil and death so that you do not have to live in fear. Jesus has stomped on the head of the serpent, and the Shepherd lies across the gate of your salvation so that you can know that you are secure in the Father’s love.

Rulers and leaders always will disappoint us. They always end up being human, and we can never ever really rest assured that we are secure. But there is one Leader who never fails us because He knows us and He has gone to the most extreme limits of suffering and death to prove to us that He can be trusted to keep us safe. Rulers and leaders, and even our own ambitions, can end up being thieves that take life from us. But the Good Shepherd never takes life – he gives it up so that we can have it more and more.

That is the promise given to us in Romans 8:38, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

» Back to top