John 10.1-10
‘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.’6Jesus 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.
Acts 2.42-end
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
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In my spare time I spend far too much time on YouTube watching videos when I could be doing something more useful like reading.
But what I have noticed in many of these videos are from so called ‘influencers’ is that they are sharing their wisdom, their knowledge, their way of living.
This is ‘the way’ to make lot’s of money
That is ‘the way’ to a happy life
This is ‘the way ‘to fulfilling relationships with others.
These people are influential, they have an impact on others. They even have sponsors now, who fund them so that they can advertise their products on their videos. Companies wouldn’t do this unless these influencers have large audiences.There’s always an advert that comes up on my videos who claims to have a course to help to teach you how to invest your money. There are others who have found a way of life that they want to share with the world. These people are followed by many thousands if not millions of people. They espouse their world views and persuade people to come on board to their way of thinking. And people are searching, they are searching for meaning and purpose, in this purposeless age.
I’m not saying that there is no wisdom in anything that they are saying, but what I am saying is that the promises of a better life, health, wealth and happiness through these people drastically fall short of what God wants for us. Jesus says in our passage this morning that ‘all who came before me are thieves and bandits;’ sadly, many that came after are as well, all saying that there is another way to get it where we need to be, there’s another way into the sheep fold, a way that leads to a life of abundance.
In our gospel passage, Jesus claims that there is only one way to salvation, and that is through him. He is the Gate for the Sheep.
This is a stark claim, and it is a claim that Jesus makes at other times in the gospels as well, that salvation is him, and him alone.
These days its is not popular to claim any form of exclusivity about faith. All faiths, we are told, are ultimately the same, they are all pointing to the same truths; the ‘sacred spirit’ or ‘the divine within us all’. The faith that goes round these days seems to be ‘I can do what I want as long as I don’t harm anybody else.’
This makes sense that we think this way in a society where we can’t decide what is right or wrong anymore, where there are so many opinions flying around that can be hard to work out what anybody thinks about anything anymore. The notion that there are any definite views in the moral or spiritual sphere is generally seen as a bit silly.
Some of it is just poor thinking and reasoning; a classic one is when people say ‘of course you are a Christian, you were brought up in a Christian country. If you were brought up elsewhere then you would probably be a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist, so why should I follow Jesus. The person may be right about my own personal story and no doubt where I have been brought up has had a huge influence on my beliefs. but what does that have to do with the truth or falsehood of what I’m talking about? It doesn’t. In logic this is called the ‘genetic fallacy’ claiming a view is false by explaining where the view comes from. And it is rife in today’s society. They also forget to apply the same fallacious argument to their own atheism. It also suggests that somehow, we have no choice but to believe what we are brought up to believe; which denies our free will as rational agents.
In our story in Acts, it speaks about how the early church would gather together in joy, sell their possessions and give to any who were in need. Today we make look upon some such people as either morally praiseworthy, and we may think that there is something good in what they are doing. Or we may dismiss them as members of a strange cult. Indeed the first Christians were a part of a Jewish sect, called ‘the way’ that was the original name for Christians.
But here’s the thing, like Jesus says in the gospel reading; the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. They have heard the voice of the Shepherd, and will endeavour to follow him. They knew that in Jesus, the promised messiah, Lord and king had come.
Christianity is not popular these days in the west. And it wasn’t popular in the ancient world; the early Christians were persecuted tremendously for their faith as Paul speaks of in his letters. They were persecuted because they, like the Jews, denied the polytheism that was rife, the belief in the existence of many gods, of many ways of thinking and many ways of living that were around at the time. To this the Christian, said, ‘no’ there is one God, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.’ The Judeo-Christian World view at the time, was (and indeed still is!) the most counter cultural world view.
In fact, the fact that Jesus was worshipped shows the radical nature and change that happened to these first followers. Remember that these first followers were Jews. They believe in only one God. In the Old Testament we read that the Jews weren’t allowed to have images or statues or anything like that because the people in the lands around them worshipped the images as if they were gods. In fact, in the book of the prophet Isaiah he scorns the idea that somebody could sit down and carve an idol out of wood and worship it as if it could help them at all. No idol is God, no human is God, only THE LORD is to be worshipped
For the first Christians to worship Jesus, for them to worship a human being required such a radical paradigm shift in their thinking, they it should stop to make us think that perhaps there is indeed something in all this. Perhaps they worshipped Jesus because in him, they did indeed find God incarnate.
This makes us uncomfortable, and it should, because what if it is true. What if I t is true that all others are charlatans and the only one who brings salvation is Jesus Christ? What if it’s true that the Holy Spirit of God breathed new life into the apostles as it speaks about in the book of Acts, and they formed a new community around this truth, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What if they truly did have life and life to the full as Jesus said he came to bring. What if in him, all their hopes were satisfied. What if in him, all our hopes can be satisfied. What if in him we had a friend, helper and Lord?
What if it’s true that Jesus is indeed the Sheep Gate, and the only way that we can be reconciled with God the Father? What if everything you were taught in Sunday School all those years ago about who Jesus is, is true? That he is indeed the Lord, God incarnate. What does that mean for us?
It means that we have heard the voice our our shepherd. It means that we should follow him where he leads. It means we should have faith in him, and trust in him. It means that we walk closely with him; we walk close to the shepherd and, receive life eternal that can only be found in him.
Amen.
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