Sermon for April 29 on the Web
Right-click here to download the mp3
Contains the now-famous “give me the damn Jesus fish†story.
“This whole thing about the Good Shepherd, I think, needs some explanation. We tend to think of it as Jesus being kind to us, and being nurturing to us. And that’s really not totally what it’s about.
“Part of the great prophetic tradition in Judaism about the future, and in the prophet Isaiah, and in the prophet Jeremiah, and in the prophet Ezekiel in particular, there is a statement that the shepherds of Israel – namely the religio-political institutions – have failed the sheep. And so God Himself will shepherd his sheep. God will come to provide them the religious and spiritual insight that they need to deal with the reality of human life. And Jesus is the one, of course, who does that. So he is the Good Shepherd.
“The vision of the Good Shepherd, especially when you read the theologians in the early centuries of the church, is about gathering in, bringing together, drawing together, so that eventually everything will be united in God. That’s what our purpose is, the mission of the church: to restore all things to unity with God and each other in Christ. This collecting, this gathering together, this reuniting, this reconciling, this making whole…that’s what we are about.â€
John 10:22-30