Sermon: God is our Shepherd

Homily: 21 April 2024

The verse before today’s Gospel is my verse. From the age of 12 this verse has sustained me. I love asking people what their favourite biblical verse is, because it gives true insight into what is important to them.

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

JOHN 10:10

The thief is Satan.

Jesus often talks in metaphors, as in today’s Gospel, Jesus is our shepherd.

This verse is God’s mission statement.

It is why he created us.

Today’s beautiful Gospel outlines how God will carry out his mission.

The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

Jesus will die for us.

He will not abandon us.

This is wonderfully illustrated by the image of two sets of footprints on the sand, which then become only one set. The man turns to God and says “Father you were with me, but when I needed you, you deserted me.”  And God replies ‘My son, when you needed me, I carried you.”

Let God carry you. If life is hard, whatever crisis you are facing, and we will all go through pain, misery, fear and loss, let God take control:

As Jesus said:

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

MATTHEW 11:28

WE ALL NEED A GOOD SHEPHERD.

Why trust God?

Because Jesus has ultimate power and control.

God is Sovereign.

The Gospel ends with Jesus making it clear that giving his life for us is his choice. He has the power to lay down his life and the power to raise it up again. The supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, which made Jesus incarnate and which rose him from the dead, is also in us. Our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus beautifully reveals his obedience to the Father in the final verse of today’s Gospel:

This command I received from my Father.

Jesus obeyed without question, as he did at the hour of his death;

Yet not as I will, but you will.

MATTHEW 26:39

What commands has God given us?

1. Love me.
2. Love each other.
3. Obey me.

As Jesus teaches us to pray in the Our Father

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Finally, today’s Gospel makes it clear that we belong to God.

The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep.

When the Pharisees again tried to trick Jesus and asked whether the Jews should pay the punitive taxes to the Romans he asked for a coin, and he asked whose face was on the coin. They replied “Caesars”.

Jesus continued:

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.

MARK 12:17

Whose face is on us?

So God created mankind in his image.

GENESIS 1:27

God made us in his image. 

I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

My sheep belong to me. God is our shepherd and we are his sheep. The sheep follow the shepherd, or they are lost and at risk of death from the wolves and we must follow God’s word or we are at risk from Satan. 

Back to my verse…

God’s mission is to defeat Satan and to give us eternal life… 

Today’s Gospel encapsulates two key messages from the Bible:

1. God loves us
2. We belong to God

I shall conclude with the Jesus prayer:

LORD JESUS CHRIST, 

SON OF GOD

HAVE MERCY ON ME,

A SINNER.

AMEN