One of the most well-known passages in Scripture would have to be today’s Psalm—Psalm 23. It is a text I would imagine would be well known by many of us, and at least recognisable by all of us. In today’s hymnic version we sang: “The King of love my Shepherd is/his goodness fails me never/my needs are met if I am his/and he is mine forever”, but the scripture more readily known is: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”.
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”—words which would have certainly been familiar with the Jews with whom Jesus spoke as he walked along Solomon’s Portico at the Temple. The setting is the Festival of the Dedication—a celebration of the purification and rededication of the Temple to God. Around 168 years before Jesus’ birth, the Greek ruler Antiochus IV had desecrated Israel’s Temple by erecting in it an altar to Zeus, ruler of the Greek gods. Antiochus was a powerful and often ruthless and volatile ruler, who increased the spread of Greek culture throughout the empire, persecuting anyone who opposed his aims. Antiochus idolised Zeus, and saw himself as a manifestation of him, taking the name Antiochus Epiphanes—which means “God manifest”. In a clever play on words, the Jews nicknamed him Antiochus Epimanes which means ‘crazy one’.
In 165 BC, Judas Maccabaeus led a revolt and reclaimed the Temple, relighting the Menorah candle to symbolise the presence of the holiness of God. The commemoration of this is what John mentions in our text. In the week-long celebrations, thoughts of victory, freedom, and the return of Jewish leadership would have permeated the imaginations of the people, who now faced a different adversary—the Romans. Although the Temple had been re-dedicated to God, the nation had been overtaken by Roman rule under the Governor, Pilate.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Those at the Feast of Dedication did want. They wanted freedom from the invader; freedom to live without fear, freedom from foreign domination, freedom from the hated tax collectors who sought to extract every penny they could from the vulnerable. They wanted a great liberator from this political oppression. The Jews said to Jesus: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, then tell us plainly!”
Jesus had told them plainly. God had given them Jesus, so they would not be in want. He came to seek and save the lost, beginning with the house of Israel, to eat with sinners and tax collectors, and be lifted up that all who look to him might live. Whoever would trust in him would not perish but have eternal life. The works he had done in his Father’s name testify that he is the Son of God, with the same divine nature as his Father from all eternity—what Jesus meant when he said “I and the Father are one.”
But they refuse to believe it. To the Jews, this was madness! Jesus seemed to be another Antiochus Epimanes—‘crazy one’. He wasn’t the Christ they wanted. The freedom they sought was from their political enemies. They were doing just fine with God, thank you very much. They wanted to preserve their religious rituals and traditions, their external performance of piety and good works. They wanted to maintain reverence for their laws rather than Gods law, and rather than reverence for God himself. They saw this as their righteousness. They were good! These ‘holier-than-thou’s’ weren’t needing mercy like the sinners, tax collectors and immoral people Jesus should have shunned rather than welcome.
So Jesus uses profound imagery from the Old Testament which pictures God as shepherd, and applies it to himself. In ancient times, shepherds gathered their sheep by calling them, as the sheep recognised the voice of their own shepherd. Jesus explained that he is like a shepherd who calls his sheep by name to follow him, so that he can lead us safely through this life and into the life to come.
If the Jews in Solomon’s Colonnade were the sheep of the Good Shepherd, they would have understood. To follow Jesus as their Good shepherd would require letting go of all their efforts at earning God’s righteousness and favour. All their human rituals and painstaking observance of the law would be for nothing.
But all their efforts could only ever be for nothing. Only Jesus can do it for us: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Even though they knew these words of Psalm 23 which rolled off their tongues so easily, they did want. They didn’t recognise the voice of Jesus their Saviour, and therefore they did not know the Father who sent him. They did not actually know God at all, although they professed to. They were the false shepherds of Ezekiel 34, upon whom God pronounced judgment for their failure to search for God’s flock, and caring for themselves rather than God’s sheep.
There in Solomon’s Colonnade, the fullness of God stood before them in the person of Jesus: “I and the Father are one” Jesus declared. This truth was seen by the Jews as blasphemy, punishable by death. Rather than leading God’s people to their Saviour, they crucified him and persecuted his disciples. This new Temple—Jesus—would be desecrated on the Cross where he bore upon himself the sin of the world, something fresh in our minds still from Good Friday.
Jesus said: “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me, and I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Is this not what the Psalmist means when he says “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want?”
What is it that you want? We live in a society that plays deeply on wants, and teaches us always to want, more and more and more, from the age of infancy. Last week while in the supermarket queue I heard in the next aisle the exchange between mother and toddler. The lollies that the supermarket had strategically placed at the checkout was causing a meltdown! Mum was patiently trying to reason, and with each passing moment tension was rising until those piercing screams of desperation: “But I want it!” His mum decided it would be better to give her toddler what he wanted rather than enduring an embarrassing scene. I felt for that mum. Clever kid now knows how to get exactly what he wants.
The insistence that we get what we want is a part of the sinful human nature which we all share. We see it in infant meltdowns, schoolyard bullying, and adult tantrums too. We are taught by the world that we are always lacking; always in want, and we are taught that we should just go and get what we want.
This isn’t just a question about material things. What emotional wants do you have? The want for approval? The want to be loved? The want to feel secure? The want to shape your future? What spiritual wants to you have? What is it you want God to do for you? Is it the same as God’s will? What is it you want when you come to worship, or gather on your committees, or serve in the roles you have been called to in the congregation? What is it that God wants?
Where, or in whom, are all our wants met?
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Is this really so? Do these words, so well known, roll off our tongues easily, habitually, without a thought to what they mean? If we have Jesus, do we not have more than enough for this world and the life beyond? If Jesus is our Good Shepherd, does that not mean he will shepherd us though life each day? If God calls us to trust, will he not provide? Is God’s will not better than our will; our plans, our designs?
There are many different voices that compete for our attention and allegiance, many voices in the world that call us to follow. The voice of Satan tempts us to believe in an absent and inactive God, so that it is all up to us to take charge and control our lives, our families, our church, and provide for ourselves—even providing our own righteousness. He tempts us to live as though there is still more than the death and resurrection of our Saviour that is needed to make us right with God for our strayings and failings; more than Jesus’ precious blood by which he has redeemed us; more than trusting in his good work.
Easter means hearing the voice of the risen Good Shepherd, who did not remain dead and buried in a tomb. His resurrection means that the word he speaks is a living word, a life giving word, that puts to death our sinful hearts and makes them alive again—truly alive with his resurrection new life, that we might really know him as our Good Shepherd. He calls us to come apart from the hustle and bustle of our world that brings all kinds of problems, worries and fears, with all its alluring enticements and trinkets and treasures, to find the fulfilment of our deepest wants in him.
When you are confused and fearful, hear the voice of your Good Shepherd who says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me” (John 14:1). When you have felt let down and abandoned by those in whom you placed your trust, hear the voice of your Good Shepherd who says “I am with you always to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). In your deep and aching longings hear the voice of your Good Shepherd: “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). When troubled by guilt, hear the voice of your Good Shepherd who says: “Friend your sins are forgiven” (Luke 5:20). When we tire from trying to conceal our shame, hear the voice of your Good Shepherd who says: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). When you worry whether your children will remain in the faith, hear the voice of your Good Shepherd who says: “I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).
And when you fear whether Jesus really does want to be your Good Shepherd, hear him say: “This is my body given for you. This is my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” In his tender shepherding of his church, you will lack nothing on your journey with him to your heavenly home, where you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.
