John 10:1-10 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fourth Sunday of Easter Sunday, April 26, 2026 “Know the Voice of Your Shepherd”
Is it ever good to be called a sheep? Every year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, our Church Year invites us to consider how Jesus is our Good Shepherd. And that implies, of course, that we are his sheep. It definitely is a good thing to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd. King David, centuries before Jesus walked this earth, wrote a beautiful poem, a Psalm inspired in him by the Holy Spirit. “The Lord is my Shepherd,” he gladly proclaimed. “I lack nothing. Green pastures…quiet waters…goodness and love chasing after me…the house of the Lord as my eternal dwelling.” There is nothing bad about being the Lord’s sheep and having him as a Good shepherd. But outside of the context of this Sunday of the Church Year, or our worship services in general, is it ever a good thing to be called a sheep? People refer to others as sheep when they feel like those people are blindly following some mistaken idea. I’m not sure I see or hear that claim made anywhere more frequently than in political discussions. One side says only sheep follow our current President. They don’t think for themselves. They don’t differentiate about right and wrong and good and bad. They just go along. That’s what makes them sheep. And those whose opinions line up on the other side of the political spectrum are just as convinced that the people who disagree with them politically are sheep, blindly following ideas without any real critical thought. None of this paints a very good picture of sheep, does it? When Jesus talks about sheep, his sheep, in John 10, his portrayal seems much more favorable. These sheep do discern certain things. These sheep are wary of danger and are relieved and comforted when they have the leadership of someone they trust. If you or I had been on the road with Jesus when he spoke these words, we would have had a much better understanding of sheep and shepherds. We would have had neighbors who were shepherds. We would have walked past herds of sheep on our way through the countryside. We would have seen sheep pens and maybe even seen some of the situations described by Jesus play out. In spite of our relative ignorance of these things a couple thousand years later, we can still appreciate the clear direction that Jesus gives us. He calls on you to know the voice of your shepherd. Jesus does so because he wants us to be able to recognize danger. When Jesus describe his hypothetical sheep pen to us, he also talks about the people who try to sneak in by ways other than the main entrance, climbing in by some way other than the door. Why would anyone do this? He’s a thief. He’s a robber. He has bad intentions as it regards the sheep and the flock. After all, thieves steal and kill and destroy. So when the shepherd comes, he not only goes in and out by the main door, the main gate, he is also recognized by his sheep. They know the sound of his voice. They listen to him and follow him. And that is different from anyone else. They recognize when someone is trying to fool or mislead them. When someone else is trying to behave as their shepherd, the sheep run away. They don’t know him. They don’t trust him. And all of this is to the benefit of the sheep. They should be running away from the one who wants to cause harm. They should be listening to their own shepherd and not to someone else. They should be avoiding danger. And that is right in line with the important point that Jesus is making here. He wants his sheep to understand that there are dangers around them. He wants them to understand that his sheep need to listen to his voice in order to avoid these dangers. That may not be obvious to everyone. Jesus speaks these words just after a disagreement with the Pharisees. Jesus had healed a blind man. The man could see again, but the Pharisees were concerned about what this meant. They argued with the formerly blind man about who Jesus was. They argued that Jesus was wrong to do what he had on the Sabbath day. They heard Jesus claim that he had come to give sight to the blind and to make blind those who see. They objected to this claim, because they rightly believed that Jesus was preaching against them, that he was calling them blind.