John 10:22-30

Is there a more frequently reoccurring metaphor than that of the shepherd in the Bible? To be honest I don’t know – there are other contenders, the vine, perhaps, or ‘light’. But in any case the shepherd is up there, naturally enough, one might say, given the importance of agriculture in that time and place.

In this week’s passage from John we have a continuation on the ‘good shepherd’ discourse that begins at the start of chapter 10, and includes a jumble of sheep-related metaphors: “I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus says in verse 7, having already said that “the one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep,” – he then goes on to declare that “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…” Perhaps it’s no wonder that John says of Jesus’ hearers that “they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

If the explanation of who, or what, is the shepherd is convoluted, so too is the discussion of the sheep: “I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd…” (14-16) And then: “but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” (26-27)

John’s tendency towards dense, poetic language, language which draws heavily on Old Testament sources and themes, doesn’t make him the easiest of the gospel writers to navigate, no matter how much grounding one has in the subject matter.

A clue to help us get started with this particular passage, which comes after the confusion of riches at the start of the chapter, comes with the phrase: “At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem.” How apt for our service this evening!

The only mention of the ‘Festival of Dedication’ (now known as Hannukah), the Jewish festival of lights, in the New Testament is this one. Neither is it found elsewhere in many Protestant Bibles, because it stems from the so called ‘intertestamental’ period, and the stories related in the books of the Maccabees which you can find in the apocrypha.

In the first chapter of 1 Maccabees we read how the triumphant Judas Maccabeus re-consecrated the temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Antiochus was the emperor whose name meant, effectively, “Antiochus the god made manifest.” He was understood, by some at least, to be the personification of Zeus – the Greek deity who represents ‘life’ (zoe/ζωή) itself.

Without wishing to be to nerdy about this, it’s worth pointing out that there are three Greek words that have similar meanings in the New Testament: ‘bios’, ‘psuche’ and ‘zoe’ all refer to ‘life’.

The first two have clear echoes in contemporary English: ‘bio’ is obvious, I suppose, even if ‘psyche’ is slightly less so. Zoe, on the other hand really only survives as a given name, but in the text it refers to life of a different order to that which we can study under a microscope – just as there a number of words for love, each of which have different meanings, so there are words for life, and zoe in the New Testament refers, effectively, to life in it’s fulness, which is understood to be an ongoing cosmic event, neither limited to the body (bio) or the mind (psyche).

John deliberately situates this argument about the nature of who, or what, Jesus is alongside the historical reference to the restoration of the temple after Antiochus’ desecration. In doing so he situates it in the context of a greater argument about who, or what, can be understood to represent the fulness of life.

But of course this is written in the context of a now physically-destroyed temple – John writes some time after the failure of the Jewish rebellion, and after the crucifixion of the man Jesus. Ultimately he is not concerned with the physical building, for him this is symbolism. He is concerned with the ongoing cosmic event: Jesus as the manifestation of God/life in its fulness, and therefore what Jesus personifies, is what is important. So here Jesus personifies the Messianic political role of the ‘shepherd’, just as he personifies ‘the gate’, and as he personifies ‘life’ in its fullest form. The way, the truth, and the life.

The argument with ‘the Jews’ related in this passage is a political spat, effectively, between different factions each vying for prominence in the temple. It has Jesus at odds with people who want to continue in collaboration with the Roman empire, trying to claim that this is the best way to live. For John, though, it is in the Jesus way, not their way, that the fulness of life is to be found.