Essence of hope
John 10:19-31
Before we focus on the main theme of today’s gospel,
there is one aspect within it that I want to speak on.
And that is the line: about sheep and the sheep being Jesus‘.
He expands on this later in chapters 17.
There is a theme of stewardship that follows through the teaching of Jesus as recorded by John.
And that theme is that Jesus cares for those entrusted to him.
He does not cast off people,
but rather he cares for them.
He is trying to say that what God has given me,
I have cared for them.
Jesus is trying to say:
“I care for people,
and nothing you do can stop this,
and nothing you do can harm those I care for,
because God the Father also cares for them.”
So there is a theme of care.
The world around us
As we think about those we care for,
we look to the news and what has happened in the world this week.
Much has happened and as we read or watch the news,
one question that has rolled around in my head is what is the most important?
We hear of things,
and we think that is great,
or that is terrible.
We had a family friend over in Boston running the Marathon,
he was okay,
he finished about 10 minutes before the bomb went off.
Then on the same day,
there was the violence in many other countries,
that killed many others;
in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Central African Republic, Pakistan and Somalia.
In Baghdad, Iraq, an Internet cafe owner Hassan Sabeeh said:
“The Iraqi people can feel, more than anybody else in the world, the misery of the Boston victims and their families, we sympathise and feel their suffering.”
Sometimes,
unless we are personally impacted by something,
we can forget that it exists.
When life is going well,
it is easy to forget about the hope we have in Christ,
or for the significance of this hope to be minimised,
as we can be quite self-sufficient.
Sometimes it is only when things aren’t going well that we realise the hope we have.
When I first read today’s reading from the Gospel,
I thought it was something of an orphaned reading,
that really didn’t fit in with anything.
I really had to think: “What is the point of this?”
In the sense of why just after Easter have the lectionary writers chosen this passage?
I realised that while it is packed with quite a bit,
it is trying to testify to the fact that our Christian hope is based on Jesus’ relationship
to the Father.
Because Jesus and God are related,
Father and Son,
we have hope that God cares for us.
This relationship though,
caused controversy in Jesus’ day,
and continues to cause controversy today.
When Jesus said that he and God are one,
the people took up stones,
to stone him.
Mind coping
Sometimes when God offers us hope,
it can be more than our mind can cope with.
Often because God’s hope shows us a completely different way,
one that we were not expecting,
and one that we are not used to.
But then,
the unexpected is probably the essence of hope;
that is: being shown another way.
The source of our hope is Jesus.
Or let me re-phrase that as John 10 puts it today:
the source of our hope is Jesus and his relationship with God.
There would be no hope,
if Jesus was just another human,
our hope comes then from the special relationship between Jesus and God,
and the fact that Jesus is God’s son,
he is not just another son,
he is God the Creator and Father’s Son.
Loss of vision
When we lose hope,
we have also lost vision,
and the vision of a better or different tomorrow.
The people in our Gospel today had lost hope and vision.
Jesus had just told them that he was the good shepherd,
John then tells us that they take sides,
those who believed him and those who didn’t.
The side that had lost hope then organised themselves.
And John tells us that their next step was to take up stones.
They have moved from saying he is evil,
to purging evil!
And this happens because they see evil around them,
not hope,
but evil.
Now I’m not saying we should completely ignore things around us;
but in any situation we have a choice as to how we will focus,
as to whether we wish to see the good in something or someone,
or whether we will simply focus on what we see as the bad or evil.
When we choose to see only the negative in something,
and not look for the positive,
then at best, we end up missing what God is doing,
at worst we end up working against God.
Our perspective of whether we are willing to see good,
of whether we are willing to see hope,
determines what options we have open to us.
May you always be open to the hope of God in your life.
May God’s solutions start to feel lighter,
and may you live in the way of Christ.
Revd Dion J. Blundell 2012 (Distributed under Creative Commons agreement CC [BY-SA])
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nz/
Let us pray: God of grace, hope, faith and love,
help us to be open to your work in our lives/
Help us to be open to your work in the world,
that we may join in with your mission. Amen.
(cc) by: Revd Dion J. Blundell 2012
John 10:19-33
19 The people took sides because of what Jesus had told them. 20 Many of them said, “He has a demon in him! He is crazy! Why listen to him?”
21 But others said, “How could anyone with a demon in him say these things? No one like that could give sight to a blind person!”
22 That winter, Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Temple Festival. 23 One day he was walking in that part of the temple known as Solomon’s Porch,[a] 24 and the people gathered all around him. They said, “How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly!”
I have told you, and you refused to believe me. The things I do by my Father’s authority show who I am. 26 But since you are not my sheep, you don’t believe me. 27 My sheep know my voice, and I know them. They follow me, 28 and I give them eternal life, so that they will never be lost. No one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father gave them to me, and he is greater than all others.[b] No one can snatch them from his hands, 30 and I am one with the Father.
31 Once again the Jewish leaders picked up stones in order to kill Jesus. 32 But he said, “I have shown you many good things that my Father sent me to do. Which one are you going to stone me for?”
33 They answered, “We are not stoning you because of any good thing you did. We are stoning you because you did a terrible thing. You are just a man, and here you are claiming to be God!”