A Good Shepherd Story

Text: John 10:22-30

Dear saints in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

I want to tell you a story this morning. It’s a story that I have heard other pastors tell before and I want to tell it to you. This story is kind of like a fairy tale (it starts with “Once upon a time…”) but is very much a true story based on true, real life events. It goes something like this…

Once upon a time there was a wolf. This wolf, however, was no ordinary wolf. He was mean and nasty as most wolves are. He had deadly claws, a gapping mouth, and ferocious teeth like most wolves do. But this wolf was different. He was meaner and nastier than most wolves. His claws, mouth, and teeth were deadlier than those of other wolves. He was huge, larger than any other wolf the world had ever seen. He had been feasting on sheep for many, many years and had, in fact, grown fat on them. But even though he was fat he was still as powerful and quick as ever. He was also always, and I mean always, hungry. Other wolves would eat a sheep or two a day and be satisfied, but this wolf just kept on gobbling up sheep night and day.

This wolf lived in a cave and outside his cave was a beautiful valley with green grass as far as the eye could see and a wonderful little stream of water running right through the middle of it. This valley was home to a flock of sheep. Day after day the wolf would walk on out of his cave, take a look around the valley, and pick out a few sheep to devour. He would gobble up a few in the morning, a couple around noon, some more in the evening, and if he felt like it (which he always did!) he would take a few more during the night too.

The sheep feared the wolf more than anything else in the world. They did their best to avoid the entrance to his cave, but the reality was that nowhere in the valley was really, truly safe. Once the wolf had his eyes on them they were done for. They might run and escape him for a while, but he would always catch up. They were powerless to stop him.

They feared the wolf so much that even the thought of him would cause them to quake and tremble. Sometimes he would just sit at the entrance of his cave, howl, and watch with joy as the sheep and scattered and fled. His presence, his deadly stare, made all of them weak in the knees. If anyone dared mention his name the whole flock would shudder in unison and some would even pass out or faint in fear. His name, the name they dared not mention, was Death.

One day, however, when the wolf made his way out of his cave to pick out his next meal from among the flock something strange happened. He walked out the mouth of the cave, let out a howl, and watched as the sheep scattered, but one sheep, one lone sheep, did not move a muscle. This sheep’s head was down and he was munching away on a mouthful of green grass and the wolf’s howl did not bother him in the least. The wolf let out a second great howl thinking that maybe the sheep was just hard of hearing, but the sheep still did not move. Now the wolf noticed that this sheep looked particularly tasty, particularly satisfying. He loved devouring all the sheep of the flock, but all the other sheep had something about them that made them not quite perfect, not quite as satisfying as he would like. This sheep, however, looked different. He looked perfect, He looked delicious, and the wolf had every intention of gobbling him up, but first he wanted to investigate this strange situation. The wolf walked on up to the sheep and howled one more time right in the sheep’s face. The sheep’s nostril’s filled with the stench of death and decay on the wolf’s breathe. The sheep looked up this time, blinked a few times at the wolf, and then looked back down to the grass he was eating.

The wolf was baffled. Nothing like this had ever happened before. No sheep had stood before him so calmly, so fearlessly as this. The wolf looked at the sheep and said in his most sinister, evil, fearsome voice, “Do you know who I am?” and once again the air was filled with the stench of his breath.

“Yes,” the sheep replied, “I know who you are.”

“Do you know what I do to sheep like you?” the wolf asked.

“Yes,” the sheep replied, “I know what you do.”

“Don’t you fear me?” the wolf asked sounding as sinister as ever.

The sheep looked up again at the wolf and said, “You? No, I don’t fear you.”

“Well you should,” the wolf snapped back, He was angry now, offended, by this obstinate sheep who dared to stand so boldly before him. “I don’t think you understand,” he said to the sheep, “I am going to destroy you, devour you, eat you, and since you don’t fear me I am going to make sure that it is particularly slow, painful, and awful for you.” He really was a terrible creature.

The sheep paused for a minute and then looked up at the wolf again and said as calmly and plainly as ever, “I know.” And with that the wolf could take it no longer. He pounced on the sheep and began to slowly, gruesomely, devour him.

The other sheep had been watching all of this go on at a distance. They too were shocked to see one of their fellow sheep stand there in the presence of the wolf unafraid. None of them had ever imagined doing anything like that. As they watched their fellow sheep stand up to the wolf they held out hope that maybe, just maybe, the wolf would not get what he wanted for once, but as the wolf pounced, however, they all looked away. Their hopes were dashed and the sight was too awful, too terrible to watch. The wolf devoured that sheep, mouthful after mouthful, savoring every bite, until nothing was left.

That night as he lay on the floor in his cave the wolf felt a sensation that he had never felt before. For the first time in his life his hunger, his longing to fill his belly with more sheep, was satisfied. It was a strange feeling for him and it was somewhat unsettling. He remembered, however, how delicious that last sheep had been, the obstinate one who stood up to him. He remembered how tender and flavorful the meat had been, and he comforted himself thinking that he would be hungry again in the morning. He just needed more time to digest such a wonderful meal.

In the morning, however, things had not gotten any better. In fact they had gotten worse. Not only was the wolf not hungry, not only did he have no desire to eat more sheep, but now his belly ached. This too had never happened before.

By the afternoon the pain had only gotten worse. The wolf was rolling around now on the floor of his cave and howling and yelping in discomfort. The pain was becoming unbearable. The sheep out in the valley could hear the wolf’s howling and whimpering. Out of curiosity they gathered round the mouth of the cave and tried to see what was going on in there.

That night the wolf didn’t sleep a wink. He rolled around in pain all night. Then, in the early hours of the morning, the wolf came to a very startling, unnerving discover. There was something alive inside of him and that something, he had no idea what it might be, was pushing against his belly from the inside trying to break free. The pain as thing poked, prodded, punched, and pushed the walls of his belly was excruciating. Finally, as morning broke, the wolf let out a great howl of pain as the thing burst through his belly and out his side.

The wolf looked at his side in horror. There was a gaping hole in his belly. He looked then at the creature who had burst from his side. He had never seen anything like it before. It was not a sheep, not a four legged creature covered in wool, but a two legged creature holding a staff. He had never seen one of these creature before, but he had heard about them. This creature was a shepherd.

The shepherd walked around the wolf’s body as it lay there on the floor of the cave until he stood at the head of the wolf. He crouched down at the wolf’s head and said, “Remember me?”

The wolf was shocked. He recognized the voice immediately. The voice of the shepherd was the same as the voice of that obstinate sheep that he had devoured just three days earlier. “How can this be?” the wolf cried out.

Then the shepherd took the wolf’s snout in his hand, looked him straight in the eye, and said in a loud voice that the sheep outside the cave could hear loud and clear, “I am the Good Shepherd. I laid down my life for the sheep and I have taken my life up again. Those sheep out there are my sheep. They hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will NEVER perish, and NO ONE (not you not anyone!) will snatch them out of my hand.” Then he walked out of the cave.

When the shepherd stepped out of the darkness of the cave into the morning light the sheep all stood staring at him in awe. The shepherd looked at the flock of sheep and said, “That wolf in there, Death, the one you are so afraid of, the one you run in fear from, the one whose name you dare not mention, you don’t need to fear him anymore,” the shepherd explained, “Sure, he will still come out of that cave and gobble you up, but I have burst a hole in his belly. He cannot hold you or keep you. He has no power over you. You belong to me and I will give you eternal life, you will never perish, no one, not even death, can take you out of my hand.” You know what the sheep said to that? “Alleluia!”

Brothers and sister in Christ, You have a Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for You. Your Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, has suffered, died and rose again. He, the sheep, is also the shepherd. You hear His voice, He knows you, and You will follow Him from death to life. He will give you eternal life, You will never perish, and no one, not even death, will snatch you out of His hand. Rising from the dead He has burst a whole in the belly of death itself. Death has no power over you. It cannot hold you. You are His. Alleluia! In Jesus name, Amen.