21 April 2024 John 10:11-18
It is pretty clear that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and we are the Sheep in Jesus’ Discourse on the Good Shepherd. It is one of the most popular images for Jesus in the history of Christianity – there is a lot of “shepherd-speak” in Church parlance to this day. Congregations are often called “flocks,” and Church leaders are called “Pastor” – in Latin it means “shepherd.”
It is pretty clear that “the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the Sheep,”but we don’t talk as much about the danger that calls for such a costly sacrifice. The danger in the story is the Thief, who comes to “steal, slaughter and destroy” (John 10:10), and is pretty clearly the Devil.
It is unfortunate that Churches speak little of the Devil. To some he is a clownish character, garishly red, pitchfork in hand, leering smile, horns. To others he is a cypher, a curiosity of no real importance. They use his name to indicate someone merely naughty – “Oh, you little devil!” The Devil is far worse than that, however, and we should take him as seriously as Jesus did.
For one thing, the Devil is real, and has direct access to Jesus. The Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness for several weeks. Jesus took the Devil with complete seriousness, and while Jesus resisted all the temptations, He did not think any of the temptations were frivolous or insignificant (Matthew 4:1-11).
For another thing, the Devil has enormous power. He was able to offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, was able to quote scripture easily and in detail, and when Jesus resisted him, he was not conquered, but simply withdrew until a more opportune time (Luke 4:13).
For a third thing, it takes a lot to defeat the Devil, and we don’t have it. The Devil is, after all, an archangel, and though fallen with respect to his will, he is not fallen with respect to his power. He knows the Bible better than we do, knows us better than we know ourselves, and it took Jesus laying down His life to defeat him. Our lives, apart from Jesus, are child’s play for the Devil. The Devil is not an enemy to be underestimated.
“Apart from me, you can do thing,” Jesus said (John 15:5), and that is certainly true with respect to the Devil. The Devil is not afraid of us – he is afraid of Jesus, and so it is certainly in our best interest to have a living relationship with Jesus as a first line of defense against evil. The Devil, it appears, has a list of all those whom Jesus inhabits. It is a good thing to be on that list, because they are the ones whom the Devil avoids, or has given up on. When St. Paul was in Ephesus, he encountered some who were trying to use Paul’s spiritual power on the cheap, attempting exorcisms saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” The evil spirit wasn’t the least intimidated and replied calmly, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know. But who are you?” The grifters who were trying to use spiritual power without a true spiritual relationship were subsequently beaten and humiliated by the evil spirit and “they fled out of the house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:15-16). Intimacy with Jesus makes us terrors to demons.
Similarly, when Jesus was tempted by the Devil, his first line of defense was Holy Scripture. Each time the Devil made a suggestion, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth were, “It is written…” (Matthew 4:1-11). The Devil knows the Bible, but he doesn’t have to know it better than we do. If he does, we have already begun to surrender. Intimacy with Jesus means intimacy with Holy Scripture, too. It puts us on the Devil’s list (the Keep Away list, that is).
The Good Shepherd is good because he protects us from the Devil. The Good Shepherd makes us into good shepherds, and we defend against the Devil, too.
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