They Listen to My Voice; They Follow Me

John 21:15-19; 10:22-30

About 70 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, the Gospel of John was written. The writer did not to try to write down and preserve all the stories of Jesus and the disciples or Jesus’ teachings. The goal of the writer of the Gospel of John was “that you might believe.” The stories aren’t told in chronological order, they are told to reveal that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Word made flesh who is “for” humanity and not “against” us, born because of God’s great love and desire for us to know the life of abundance that is only available when we live without fear or shame.

So, John has put the stories together with intention, beginning with the poetic, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and Tabernacled among us.” The choice of describing Jesus’s intention as to “tabernacle” among us is intentional. When God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, the tabernacle was the tent that they set up to be God’s earthly dwelling as they were nomadic people for 40 years in the wilderness.

John goes on to tell of Jesus’s miracles and the growing concern of the Jewish authorities about them, culminating in the raising of Lazarus, after which Jesus retreats until he enters Jerusalem at the Passover. The second half of John is focused on the plot to eliminate Jesus, his last night with this disciples, arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection appearances. That’s where we have been since Easter – Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden, to the disciples in the locked room in Jerusalem, and a week later at the same place when Thomas was with them, and then on the shore by the Sea of Galilee after they had fished all night, Jesus fixes breakfast and commissions Peter, after he had denied Jesus three times, three times Jesus asks him if he loves him, and three times Jesus tells him to “Feed his sheep” and concludes “Follow me.”

The exchange would have reminded Peter of an encounter that took place between Jesus and a group of people in Jerusalem at the Temple during Chanukah, the one John tells us about in Chapter 10, John means for us to hear the echo, too. The significance of the encounter is entwined with the history and meaning of Chanukah. Chanukah is Hebrew for Dedication, and it is a celebration of the rededication of the Temple in 164 BC. What had happened to the Temple?

In 332 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Judea, and the city of Jerusalem in Judea. He continued to let the Jews worship and keep their culture. But, he died just 11 years later and 160 years of great conflict began as Antiochus IV took control and began to oppress and massacre the Jews. He put a Greek priest in charge of the Temple, who sacrificed pigs, unclean animals, on the altar. The Jewish people revolted and finally in 164 BC, they took back control, cleansed, and rededicated the Temple. They only had enough oil that was pure enough for use in the Temple to light the candelabrum in the Temple for a day, but it burned miraculously for 8 days, revealing that God was present there in the Temple.
The crowd around Jesus wants to know if God’s presence will once again be revealed in a new way here at the Chanukah celebration. They ask Jesus, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

The Westminster Bible Companion observes that “This story makes the point that Jesus’ entire ministry has revealed God’s presence in the world. God’s presence, which resides in the temple, has been shown to reside in Jesus. The location and timing of this story evoke the ‘rededication’ of God’s presence in Jesus.”

As Rome bears down on them, Jesus does not give them the answer they want. They want to hear that he is the Messiah and will lead a revolt like the one they are celebrating on Chanukah.
Instead, Jesus offers this cryptic and critical response:
“I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name – all the miracles – testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.

The prophets, Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the psalms have described God as shepherd and God’s people as sheep. Surely the Jews questioning Jesus are offended to be told that they are not the ones Jesus is there to care for and protect! Surely their faces read, “What do you mean we aren’t your sheep?”

Here’s how you will know who my sheep are: My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

If he’s a shepherd, Jesus is grabbing them around the neck with the hook of his staff to nudge them into the fold.
And they picked up stones to stone him – not because of the works he had done, but because he claimed to be God.

What would we do today? When Jesus speaks plainly about who he is and why he came to us, what offends us?
The miracles we would likely explain away, believing that there is some explanation for them, even if we don’t understand the science.
Claiming to be God might get him a psych eval, but it wouldn’t get him executed.
Seems like the central claim – “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” and the implication that those who do not listen to Jesus, who do not follow Jesus, who listen to other voices are NOT Jesus’s sheep is what the real agitator was. The religious authorities did not appreciate him claiming a higher authority than their own, or insinuating that they were somehow not God’s sheep.

There were lots of voices in Jesus’s day: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, Samaritans, Romans…all trying to influence society to believe the way they believed, all trying to motivate with fear that their politics, their values, their mores, their way of life was the only acceptable way – that their sect’s collective voice should be heard loudest.
It hasn’t changed much. We live in a world with a lot of voices trying to get our attention, too. And there are a lot of ways to raise our voices: SnapChat, Insta, Facebook…podcasts, substacks, 24/7 news entertainment channels, talk shows, personalities, influencers,… I don’t know about you, but my social media feed is full of “sponsored” and “suggested” voices. What voices are we listening to? Whose voice are we following?

When they asked him if he was the Messiah, the promised Anointed One of God, Jesus responded, “I told you, I showed you, but you didn’t believe because you don’t listen to my voice. You don’t follow me.”

You want to be Jesus’s sheep? Listen to Jesus’s voice.

How can we hear Jesus’s voice today?
1. Read the Gospels and pay particular attention to what Jesus says. Start with the Gospel of Matthew, not just because it is the first one you come to when you open to the New Testament, but because the writer of Matthew is concerned about discipleship. The whole Gospel was written as a guide to what it means to follow Jesus. It’s only 28 chapters. If you read 2 chapters a day, you’ll be done in 2 weeks. Even if you have read Matthew before, for the next 2 weeks – from now to Memorial Day – read 2 chapters of Matthew a day, not to understand everything or remember everything, just paying attention to what Jesus says and how you follow it.
2. Pray. It doesn’t have to be long and flowery. You don’t have to kneel or fold your hands or close your eyes. It doesn’t have to be out loud. As you are taking your shower or driving or doing housework or yardwork, over and over again, just talk to God. Something like this: Lord, there are so many things trying to get my attention. Silence in me any voice but your own. I want to follow Jesus. Amen.
3. Settle down. Take a walk, or go sit outside, and notice creation. Practice deep breathing and releasing tension. Let your body relax and your mind wander. Give the still, small whisper of God quiet space to speak.
4. And do what you are doing this morning. Be engaged in a community of people who are seeking to listen to Jesus and follow him.

Tell us plainly, they asked Jesus, are you the Messiah?
And he answered:
Listen. Follow. And you will believe.