May 3, 2020 Sermon Transcript

May 3, 2020                        John 10: 1-10     “Jesus is the Gate”                          Rev. Peter Hofstra

                Jesus, our theology describes him as fully God and fully human.  He has experienced everything that we, as humans, have experienced, yet without sin.  Today, he appears to experience frustration, frustration at an audience who is too thick to follow his metaphor.  And I will admit, I was also too thick to follow His metaphor.

                When Jesus says the word “shepherd”, my mind automatically associates that with Him.  And for good reason.  Psalm 23, ‘the Lord is my Shepherd’.  And Jesus makes this explicit in other passages, “The shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”.  These are two examples of a multitude we can draw from the Bible.  But that is not Jesus’ focus today.  He says it explicitly, in verse 7, “Very truly I tell you, I am the GATE for the sheep.”

                Have you every played Pictionary?  It is where you have to draw what your teammates have to guess.  If Jesus was playing, and we got the first two words, “I am”, I can see myself trying desperately to figure out why a shepherd looks like a gate.

                The key to this passage, from verse 7, is that Jesus is the Gate.  But there is another, broader, key here, one that comes in a lot more of Jesus’ teachings.  It is that opening, “Very truly I tell you”, or, as I remember it, “truly truly I say to you”.  Or, if you are a King James person, Verily, verily…  It is a trigger phrase, it is his signature opening.  Read this and it is best to tune in carefully to what comes next, because Jesus is singling it out.

                His audience did not get, through the first six verses, what Jesus was trying to share with them.  So, in verse 7, when he makes it clear, marked with his signature opening.  But this is the second time he uses his signature opening.  The first opens the passage, in verse 1, “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.”

                If Jesus is the gate, and he wants us to understand that, it is in this context that he wants us to understand that anyone who does not come to us by way of Jesus-the gate-is a thief and a bandit.  I think this might be in follow up to what comes in the previous chapter.  We shared this in worship a few weeks ago.  Jesus cured a man who was blind from birth, a miracle of genetic rebuilding, and the leaders of the people, the priests and Pharisees, they drove him out from their presence.  They refused to recognize a miracle from God but sought to undermine Jesus’ work on a technicality.  Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  This was their typical pattern-attack Jesus, not accept Him. 

                Pardon the expression, but “those people” were responsible for the faith and nurture of God’s people and this is how they did it-badly.  Jesus has come to set the record straight, to be the true presence of God among God’s people.  Very truly I tell you, there are thieves and bandits not entering the sheepfold by the gate, but climbing in another way.  And what does Jesus say about the gate, “I am the gate of the sheep”, so these thieves and bandits are NOT coming to the sheep (to us) by way of Jesus.  And, Jesus adds toward the end, “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”  The implication is that these bandits and thieves, first, are NOT going to be saved and they are not going to find pasture.  And, second, they are going to try and pull the people of God, the sheep, along with them.

                This is a huge distinction that Jesus makes in his ministry.  On the one hand, there are the people, the mass who have lost hope under the Roman occupation and who do not know how their faith is going to bring them forward into something better.  Jesus came for them.  Jesus calls them ‘sheep without a shepherd’, and in that metaphor, He is the shepherd.

                But then there are those who are in charge.  These are the leaders of the people, collectively including the scribes and the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the priests, the lawyers and others of that top class.  They are immersed and educated in the things of God.  They claim Abraham as their father because they understand how God called Abraham to the Promised Land.  They claim the law of Moses because they know how Moses transitioned the people from slavery in Egypt to a nation in the Promised Land.  They know the Prophets and the Psalms, because that is what they were raised on, that is what they were educated in, that was what they were meant to do, lead God’s people in the ways of their God.

                And they were the ones who would conspire to have Jesus killed.  Not all of them of course.  There are notable exceptions, like the Pharisee Nicodemus or the council member Joseph of Arimathea.  But Nicodemus, according to John, only came to see by Jesus by night-he didn’t want to be seen with him.  And Joseph only acts after Jesus is dead and no longer a threat.

                Their colleagues are the thieves and the bandits because they know what the Bible says about the Messiah, they see Jesus and talk to Jesus and have direct access to the miracles Jesus has performed (like questioning the man blind from birth) and they turn their backs on him.  Heck, they try and trap him, to his very death.

                When they are the ones who should understand and be the first in line to back the play that Jesus has come in the name of God.

                In the ministry of Jesus, he was never the one to condemn those who did not get it.  However, he attacked and even called them names, those who did get it but chose to turn their backs on the truth of Jesus for their own gain.

                And what Jesus wants to do it to protect the people from such leaders, from such bandits and thieves-from anyone who twists the ministry of God.  He is the Gate, he is the measure by which the faith of any leader should be compared.  He is looking to those who are gathered to listen to them and he is telling them to take what someone else “in authority” is saying and put it side by side with what Jesus teaches.  If it matches, they are coming through the gate, through Jesus, to be among God’s people.  If it does not, they are climbing the fence, they are thieves and bandits.

                So here’s a very interesting challenge for everyone watching this worship service, or for any worship service that you may attend or participate in.  The preacher is in the category of the leaders, the people in the know.  The good ones, Jesus’ followers, became the apostles.  The other ones, they are relegated to the position of ‘thief and bandit’.  So the challenge is this.  It is up to all of you to measure what the pastor says, put it side by side with what Jesus says, does, and commands, to see if they match up.

                But this is not just the measure of a religious leader.  It’s a measure for everyone who would presume to tell you what to do or what is good for you or what is best for the world. 

                Jesus is structuring the world for his audience.  He is the Gate for all that is good and proper and loving.  The rest, well, thieving and banditry.

                So last week, we took a look at the two Christian sides arguing over the propriety of this ongoing quarantine.  Yes we should continue, no, we don’t need to…  With Jesus as the Gate for all that is good and proper and loving, it is against what we know and believe about Him that should be our measure of decision. 

                This, in return, demands a few things from us.  Jesus saves.  Do we really understand what that means?  What does Jesus have to say about what is good and proper and loving?  What does the Bible really have to tell us?  As the pastor, I have a special responsibility to offer up the truth of our faith, but that is no means the single pillar that supports what we believe.  I don’t want that kind of responsibility. 

                The beauty of the system is that it does not depend on us.  We may be sincere and have thoroughly considered an issue, prayed about it, talked to others about it, and decided this is something that is in line with our faith, only to find out that it is not.  It happens all the time.  We go to war and, in the beginning, we give our full support, only to find out that it is far messier than we assumed. Someone offers to do something nice, then we find out about the catch.  We put money into this project, now it, the project, and the money, are gone.  These are the things that happen in a sinful world.

                This is the stuff of being human.  But the best thing about being human is that we have a friend who will always stand by us, no matter what.  We always have someone who can push the ‘reset’ button and give us a fresh start.  When something has come in over the fence of our lives, and not through the Gate that is our Lord Jesus, He is always there, ready to usher us back through the Gate into the fold once more.

                We have it both ways.  We can do our best and we can mess up and Jesus is still there for us.  But his warning in this portion of Scripture is not about our interior lives.  That is how we will react.  What he is serious about are the thieves and bandits who will seek to prey upon us (p-r-e-y, not p-r-a-y).  We live in a world of sin that is constantly bombarding us with opportunities to take us down paths that are away from Jesus. 

                This is where Easter overlaps with the world.  He died for us, he rose for us, he loves us, he forgives us.  That is the foundation of a new life, an eternal life.  But he adds a piece to that in our passage today.  Passing through the Gate that is our Lord Jesus is not simply about salvation, it is also about the gate we pass through to find pasture.  Or, as he puts in in the final verse, that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

                So if something happens to pull us away from the Lord, Jesus is always there to welcome us back.  He is the Good Shepherd who always seeks out His sheep, and His sheep know him.  But even more, he is the Gate to our Salvation, he is the Gate to life, and life lived abundantly.  He will protect us from all those who seek to pull us away.  And he will be there to guide us back when we do get pulled.  May we ever know the cradling arms of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.