(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “What is a Christian?”, originally shared on May 2, 2022. It was the 211th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Does the behavior of that “other” kind of Christian embarrass you? Is
there a way to be a Christian that’s wrong? Delusional? Heretical? Today we’re
going to talk about what a Christian is.
There is a lot going on today among Christians in the United States.
There are Christians on the Left, Christians on the Right, and Christians
everywhere in between.
In one sense, that’s a sign of vitality.
Christians in countries where there is basically one, state-approved, Christian
Church have a choice: take it or leave it. And guess what? Many have left it.
In the United States we have a choice: take
it or go to another church. Or start your own church! And guess what? We have a
Christian vitality which, though struggling in some ways, is still broadly
influential and light years beyond the Christian communities in much of Europe,
for example.
There are lots of different Christian
churches, and it takes lots of different kinds of churches to reach lots of
different kinds of people. There are lots of ways to be a Christian, but what
is a Christian? What would you say if you were asked? As our culture becomes
more secular, it’s a question we are all more and more likely to be asked.
Some people ask, literally or in effect, why
God doesn’t perform miracles today. They say, literally or in effect, that if
they saw one of those miracles, then they would truly believe.
But would they? It didn’t happen in Jesus’
day, and human nature doesn’t change much over time.
Even disciples, who had seen Jesus turn
water into wine, heal the sick with a word, still the storm, even raise the
dead, and who had seen Jesus give his life and then take it back again, and
then appear to them multiple times, still had doubts.
Some people thought that he might be the
Messiah, the anointed one, the deliverer who had been prophesied for 1,000
years, but wanted to hear it from him in order to believe it. In today’s text
they ask him plainly, in John 10:22-26,
22 At that
time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was
winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in
the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered
around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are
the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus
answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my
Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not
believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.
When John says “the Jews”, he
us usually speaking of the Jewish leaders. Remember that nearly 100% of Jesus’
followers were Jewish, and all of his closest disciples.
But seeing is not always
believing when it comes to Christ. In fact, Jesus’ response to “doubting”
Thomas, when Thomas came to believe after he had put his finger in Jesus’ hand
wounds and his hand in Jesus’ side was, in John 20:29,
29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you
have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to
believe.”
Seeing is not always believing but believing
is a way of seeing. People may know Christians by our selfless love, but we are
Christians by our faith, the relationship with God for which we were created
from the beginning, that we rejected by disobeying God. We are now a new
creation by the unearned and undeserved grace of God.
Jesus continues in John 10:27-29
27 My sheep
hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I
give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out
of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is
greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.
Is there life after death? Yes,
because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that makes possible the life
that we know right here and now. It cannot be taken away from us.
RCA was a pioneer in audio
recording and home entertainment. They manufactured the gramophone, which had a
thick, surface destroying needle connected to a large trumpet shaped speaker
like an easter lily flower coming out of it. Its shape is what the Grammy award
trophy is modeled after. You would crank it up manually and it would spin,
first around cylinders and then around flat records, and sound would come out
of it. Its logo was a dog staring quizzically into the speaker, and its slogan
was “His master’s voice.”
The life of a shepherd was well
known to people in Jesus’ day, if a bit idealized, just as we who are now
separated from the farm life tend to idealize the time when our families worked
on a farm.
But shepherds are still at
work, even in our urban areas.
Several years ago, a truck full
of sheep overturned on Towne Avenue in Pomona. It was hauling sheep to the LA
County Fair. The sheep escaped and were running around all over the place.
When the police arrived, they
took immediate action. They got a copy of the Yellow Pages (that gives you an
idea of how long ago it was) and looked under “Shepherds”.
There they found “Basque
Shepherds” and they were called to come and restore order. The shepherds
rounded up the sheep, the truck was righted, and the sheep were loaded and sent
on their way to the County Fair.
Life on the farm and in the
fields has always been hard, but wherever we are, we are not alone. I read a
story told by one of my favorite preachers, King Duncan, recently about a
country preacher in the upper Mid-west who had a huge territory to cover during
the pioneer era. Some parts were so remote that he couldn’t get to them in the
winter. One day, he was making what he expected to be the last call at a
farmhouse before the big freeze. One of the couple’s sons, Timmy, had
diphtheria. He went in to speak with him. In the course of their conversation,
he asked Timmy if he knew the 23rd Psalm. “Yes”, he said. He had leaned
it in school, and he began to recite it quickly. The pastor stopped him and
asked him to start again, but more slowly, counting the words on his fingers,
and to think about what each one meant. He told him to stop when he got to the
4th word and to hold his fourth finger. He said, “When you get to
the 4th word, and you say, ‘The Lord is MY shepherd.’ I want you to
remember that God cares about you and is always with you. He is your shepherd.”
The next Spring, the pastor
came back to that farmhouse and saw a mound of dirt behind the house with a
cross planted in it, and he knew that Timmy had died.
He spoke with the parents and
Timmy’s mother said, “Timmy was such a good boy and, even in the end, he wasn’t
upset, and he had a certain peace about him. But”, his mother said, “after he
died, I noticed that he was holding his fourth finger.” She thought that was
strange and asked the pastor it he knew what it meant.
Seeing sheep following their
shepherd, hearing their shepherd calling them out of mixed flocks, and coming
to him because, in the many hours they spent going from pasture to pasture and
from stream to stream, has happened as long as there have been sheep and
shepherds. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice. It’s a reminder that God is OUR
shepherd.
We know our shepherd’s voice,
even when we can’t see him. And we follow him.
That’s what makes us
Christians.
We die and rise again in our
baptism. Our eternal life begins at baptism. It is a gift not just of quantity
of life but quality of life. It is the peace that cannot be taken away. The joy
that is our default position in life.
We don’t earn eternal life. We
don’t have to, and we can’t. We are separated from God by our sin. Instead,
Jesus gives it to us, his sheep. We follow Jesus not because we have made a
choice, but we follow Jesus because we know his voice, because it is now in our
nature.
Most people think of “sheep” in
a negative sense. During the pandemic we heard from people who refused to take
steps to care for others deride those who did as “sheeple”.
But that’s not the message of
the Good Shepherd.
I heard a story once about a
tourist who went to Israel and saw a flock of sheep being driven along from
behind.
He got excited and told his
tour guide that that was one of the things he came to see: a shepherd and his
sheep just like in the time of Jesus and David, and all the rest!
The tour guide said, “That’s not the shepherd. The shepherd leads from
the front.”
“Well, then who’s that behind
the sheep?” the tourist asked.
The tour guide replied, “That’s
the butcher.”
We belong to Christ, the Good
Shepherd, our lives are now hidden in him, and nothing can take us away from
him, because our relationship is not dependent on our human frailties, but on
the solid rock that is God.
Paul writes of the gift of
faith we receive from God that makes us Christians in Romans 10:5-13,
5 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes
from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But
the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who
will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or
‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the
dead). 8 But what does it say?
“The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart”
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because if
you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For
one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the
mouth and so is saved. 11 The scripture says, “No
one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For
there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and
is generous to all who call on him. 13 For,
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
This is the Christian life, it
is lived in response to what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ. We
are born again. Jesus is our Lord and our Savior! And so, we are saved and made
a new creation! We live in the Lord and so we follow Him when we hear his
voice.
This is what the Christian life
is. Next time, we’ll hear about why it works in people’s lives.
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