The Shepherd of our Souls
In those countries of the East where our Lord appeared, the office of a shepherd is not only a lowly and simple office, and an office of trust, as it is with us, but moreover, an office of great hardship and of peril. Our flocks are exposed to no enemies such as our Lord describes. The shepherd here has no need to prove his fidelity to the sheep by encounters with fierce beasts of prey. The hireling shepherd is not tried. But where our Lord dwelt in the days of His flesh it was different. There it was true that the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
I. From the time of Adam to that of Christ a shepherd's work has been marked out with special Divine favour, as being a shadow of the Good Shepherd who was to come. The shepherds of old time were such as Jacob, Moses and David men at once of peace and of war; men of simplicity indeed, "plain men living in tents"; the "meekest of men," yet not easy, indolent men, sitting in green meadows and by cool streams, but men of rough duties, who were under the necessity to suffer, while they had opportunity to do exploits. And if such were the figures, how much more was the Truth itself, the Good Shepherd, when He came, both guileless and heroic. Jacob endured, Moses meditated, and David wrought. Christ, too, not only suffered with Jacob and Was in contemplation with Moses, but fought and conquered with David. Jacob was not as David, nor David as Jacob, nor either of them as Moses; but Christ was all three, as fulfilling all types the lowly Jacob, the wise Moses, the heroic David all in one, Priest, Prophet and King.
II. Christ is our Shepherd, and His sheep know His voice. Let us beware of not following when He goes before. Let us not be content with ourselves; let us not make our own hearts our home, or this world our home, or our friends our home; let us look out for a better country, that is, an heavenly. Let us look out for Him who alone can guide us to that better country; let us call heaven our home, and this life a pilgrimage; let us view ourselves as sheep in the trackless desert, who, unless they follow the shepherd, will be sure to lose themselves, sure to fall in with the wolf.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. viii., p. 230.
Of all the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, there are none more deeply engraven in the mind of the Church, none more dear to her than these. This is one of the Divine sayings in which there is so much of truth and love, that we seem able to do little more than to record it and ponder on it, to express it by symbols, and to draw from it a multitude of peaceful and heavenly thoughts. Let us, then, consider the surpassing and peculiar goodness of the One True Shepherd.
I. And this He has revealed to the world by His voluntary death. There was never any other but He who came down from heaven, that He might lay down His life for the sheep. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us, "that He might gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad."
II. Again, His surpassing goodness is shown in the provision He has made of all things necessary for the salvation of His flock in this state of mortality and sin. There can no soul fail of eternal life, of reaching the rest of the true fold in heaven, except by his own free will. As the blood-shedding of the Good Shepherd is a full and perfect ransom for all His flock, so has He pledged the perpetual exercise of His unseen pastoral care, to give us all that is needed for our salvation. (1) And for this He has provided, first of all, in the external foundation and visible perpetuity of His Church. He has secured it by the commission to teach all nations, by the universal preaching of His apostles, by shedding abroad the Holy Ghost, by the revelation of all truth, by the universal tradition of the faith in all the world. For the perpetuity of the Church, He has pledged His Divine word that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;" and in this He has provided for the perpetuity both of truth and grace. What the Church does on earth, it does in His power and name; and He, through it, fulfils His own shepherd care. This, then, is the external ministration of His goodness. (2) But once more. His love and care are shown, not only in the external and visible provision which He thus made beforehand for the perpetual wants of His flock, but in the continual and internal providence wherewith He still watches over it. When He says, "I know My sheep by name," He means that there is nothing in them which He does not know; there is not one forgotten, not one passed over, as He telleth them morning and evening. His eyes are upon us all. And all the complex mystery of our spiritual being, all our secret motions of will, our daily sorrows, fears, and thoughts, are seen and read with the unerring gaze of our Divine Lord. So let us follow Him now "whithersoever He goeth." Be our path through joy or sorrow, in the darkness or in the light, let us follow on to the fold which is pitched upon the everlasting hills; where the true flock shall "pass under the hand of Him that telleth them one by one, till all the lost be found and all His elect come in.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iii., p. 1.
When our Lord calls Himself the Good Shepherd, is He using a title which has lost its value since He has ceased to live visibly upon earth, or has this title a true meaning for us Christians for you, for me, at the present day?
I. Here we cannot but observe that, writing some forty years after the ascension, St. Peter calls Jesus Christ the Shepherd, as well as the Bishop of Souls; and St. Paul calls Him the Great Shepherd of the sheep. And in the earliest ages of the Christian Church, when the cruel stress of persecution drove the faithful from the streets and public places of Rome down into those catacombs which were burrowed out beneath the busy life of the vast pagan city, there was one figure above all others which, in the depths of their dark prison homes, Christians delighted to draw in rude outline upon the vaults, beneath which they prayed. It was the figure of the Good Shepherd. And ever since those days of persecution, when Christmas been asked to bless from His throne some work of mercy for relieving suffering, or for teaching the ignorant, or for delivering the captive, or for raising the fallen, it has been as the Great Shepherd of Christians the Good Shepherd of humanity.
II. Let us briefly reflect what this truth involves as to our relations with our Redeemer. (1) As the Good Shepherd, He knows His sheep. He knows us individually; He knows all about us. It is because He knows us thus perfectly that He is able to help us, to guide us, to feed us if we will, to save us; ay, to the very uttermost. (2) And besides this knowledge, He, the Good Shepherd, has a perfect sympathy with each of us. He is not a hard guardian, who sets Himself to keep us in order without any bit of feeling for our individual difficulties. He is touched, as His Apostle says of Him, with a feeling of our infirmities. Nothing that affects any one of us, is a matter of indifference to His tender heart. (3) Above all, as the Good Shepherd, the Christ, He is disinterested. He gains nothing by watching, by guarding, by feeding such as we. We can contribute nothing to His majestic glory. He seeks us for our own sakes, not for His.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 575.
I. Consider this subject, first of all, in its widest possible range. The vast family in heaven and earth, all created being, is under His guidance as the risen and exalted Redeemer. Not only has He created all things, not only does He uphold all things by the word of His power; but, by virtue of redemption, He exercises a peculiar and special government over all things. However little we may be able to enter into the meaning of such a closer relationship being established by redemption, of the fact itself there can be no doubt. Our blessed Lord has become, in a closer sense than before, the guide and overseer and shepherd of the vast and innumerable flock of created beings, since He was born at Bethlehem, since He was crucified on Calvary, since He rose triumphant over death and hell, and was received up into glory. The Christian claims for His own Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the lordship and rule over all the chances and changes of human affairs, and the ordering of the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, to the furtherance of His own high and glorious purposes.
II. We have advanced thus far; but it is plain that, so far from exhausting, we have not even yet approached the full and proper meaning of the term "Shepherd," and the office thus designated. Christ rules and orders the universe, and thus He may be said to be its Shepherd; He governs and arranges the nations and events of the world, and, so far, He may be said to be its Shepherd; but there is a sense even closer than any of these, in which our risen and ascended Saviour is the Good Shepherd; in which all the tenderness of that character, all the individual nearness, all the constant personal vigilance felt and leaned on, may be filled up and realised. Let us note His pastoral care of His people, and the consequent condition of and effect on themselves. (1) He is their Almighty Shepherd. (2) He is an ever-watchful Shepherd. (3) He is a tender and compassionate Shepherd. (4) He is an all-wise Shepherd. Lie still, then, little flock, assured by His almightiness, guarded by His watchfulness, rooted in His sympathy, and safe in His unerring wisdom. Seek no other shepherd, for He is all-sufficient. Question Him not, nor distrust Him. However unpromising life may be, He will bring out of it blessing and joy; for thus saith the Lord God, "Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep and seek them out."
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermon,vol. vi., p. 226.
Our Saviour mentions three evidences, which He gave to entitle Him to the name of the Good Shepherd. And
I. He says, "I know My sheep." The Lord Jesus not only knows the number of His great flock, but His acquaintance is so close and intimate, that "He calleth His own sheep by name."
II. "I am known of Mine." We speak of knowing an earthly friend, not because his name, his position, his character, or his occupation, are known, but because we have tested his sincerity, his liberality, his affection. So, too, in regard to the knowledge which Christians have of the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. The third proof which Jesus gives that He is the Good Shepherd, is the most convincing one of all: "I lay down My life for the sheep." He entered the sheepfold by the same door with them; and, having led them through the gate of death, He will go before them also through the gate of the resurrection, to the better land beyond. J. N. Norton, Golden Truths,p. 171.
Christ is the Good Shepherd
I. Because He owns the sheep. He is the proprietor of the flock. It follows naturally, that He would exercise greater vigilance, and risk greater danger, on their behalf. (1) They are His by the gift of the Father. Over and over again in the course of the Gospels, He gives utterance to this truth: "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me." (2) They are His by creative ties. This probably is the deep meaning of the phrase, "His own sheep" sheep which are His, even before they are called. The anthem of redemption excites reminiscences in the soul of the melody of creation; the Shepherd's voice is not strange, for we have heard it before. The sheep know His voice. (3) They are His also by purchase. He shed His blood, not in His own defence, but for the sake of those whom He came to rescue.
II. Because He knows His sheep. "I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine." (1) He knows the sheep by their faces. When a sinner is converted, he is brought face to face with the Saviour; he looks the Saviour in the face, and the Saviour looks him in the face; and He never forgets any face, once He has a full, fair view of it. (2) He knows you by your names. When men are comparative strangers, they surname and master one another; but the Saviour surnames and masters no one. Like the mother, the sister, or the wife, full of tenderness and affection, He calls you by your Christian names. (3) He, furthermore, is perfectly acquainted with your circumstances. (4) This word "know," means something deeper yet; it means thorough, complete apprehension of your deepest character.
III. Because He feeds His sheep. "They shall go in and out and find pasture." They go in first to the fold. This supposes that they shall rest awhile after their weary wanderings in the desert. (2) They shall go out to graze,Here is safety and satisfaction.
IV. Because He leads the sheep. He leads them (1) Gently, (2) Safely, (3) Through life and death.
J. C. Jones, Studies in St. John,p. 282.
References: John 10:11. Contemporary Pulpit,vol. v., p. 282; S. Baring Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 154; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 85; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiv., p. 301; H. P. Liddon, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 85.John 10:11-16. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., pp. 239-241; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 222; vol. iv., p. 224; Homiletic Magazine,vol. i., p. 195.