May 11 2025 Easter 4
Acts 9.36-43 Psalm 23 Revelation 7.9-17 John 10.22-30
Our gospel gives us a ‘sneak peak’ into a predicable yearly cycle in the life of a Jew. It is December, crowds are gathering in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Dedication (otherwise known as Hanukkah), a festival honouring the rededication of the Temple after it had been defiled by the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE.
And some of those gathering, have gathered around Jesus as he is walking in the portico of Solomon, an old and very revered part of the Temple. And some of them ‘throw out’ to Jesus a question which, at first look, sounds insulting, yet also genuinely inquisitive. “if you are the Messiah”, ‘stop playing with us’, ‘stop keeping us in suspense’, ‘tell us plainly’. And you may think it an odd passage to be exploring so soon after Easter. After all, haven’t we just had the most clear proof of Jesus’ Messiah-ship there is? But the timing of this reading in our lectionary cycle can also be seen as ‘spot on’. Because it tells the truth about how faith works, if we are honest enough to admit it. Most of us would agree that faith is not a clear cut move from confusion to clarity, from doubt to trust. It is a slow and constant turning from knowing to unknowing, from unbelief to belief, from ‘Christ is Risen’ to ‘if you are the Messiah, tell us plainly’.
And Jesus’ reply to the questioning was probably not what the crowd had hoped for or expected. And yes, the motives behind their questions were probably mixed. Some were hoping to provoke some ‘gossip-worthy’ scandal; some were baiting him; some were hoping Jesus would lead a revolution against Rome or that he would ‘wave a magic wand’ and rain down miracles from the sky; some may have simply been eager debaters hoping for a ‘hot argument’ with a famous rabbi.
And you could be forgiven for interpreting Jesus’ reply as suggesting that belonging to him depends on believing in him. Except it doesn’t and he is not suggesting it does. In fact he is saying just the opposite. He is telling those around him that the reason they struggle to believe is because they do not belong. In other words, belief does not come first, it can’t come first. You have to belong, before you can believe.
And it would be ‘easy’ for us to say that this answer ‘does not apply to me’. After all, I have been a believer all my life, I have grown up in the church, I attend liturgy regularly, I pray regularly, surely I believe and belong. Except when I don’t. I have to admit that I too have, at times, asked Jesus the same question as those in the crowd. If you are the Messiah, let me know, show me, sort out this life of mine, make things easier’. While we can only guess at the motivations of the people who approach Jesus with their questions, when I ask Jesus to stop keeping me in suspense, when I insist that he speak plainly, what I am really saying is, ‘I don’t trust you. I neither trust your willingness to speak to me, nor my capacity to hear your voice. You are supposed to be my Good Shepherd. I am supposed to know, to trust, and love your voice, but there are times when I don’t. So what now?’
Jesus is telling the crowd, and us, that whatever belief I arrive at in this life will not come from the ‘trials and tribulations’ of my emotional life, it will not come from a creed or a doctrine. But it will come, and it will come from the daily, hourly business of belonging to Jesus’ flock, of walking in the footsteps of the Shepherd, of living in the company of all the other sheep, and of listening, in real time, for the voice of the one whose classroom is rocky hills, hidden pastures, and deeply shadowed valleys. And if we are not willing to follow him into those layered places, places of both tranquillity and treachery, of trust and doubt, then we will never belong to him.
Jesus came to teach us about truth, and love, and eternal life. A person does not simply ‘profess belief’ in such weighty and mysterious things, you have to live into them, question into them, believe into them, grow into them. You have to ‘wrestle’ and in the wrestling, you ‘belong’. Jesus is telling us that the only ‘knowing’ on offer is incarnational knowing. A knowing that will only come ‘within’ and ‘among’ the fold. To ‘believe’ in the Gospel sense means to trust, to depend, to throw your lot in with. It requires an orientation of the heart and the gut. It takes a willingness to ‘stake everything I have’ on the person, the character, the life and death and resurrection of God’s Son. It is ‘learned and earned’ through relationship. Sheep know their shepherd because they are his, they walk, graze, feed and sleep in his shadow, beneath his rod and staff, within constant earshot of his voice. They believe because they have surrendered to his care, his authority, his leadership and his guidance. So we believe in the Christ as we belong to him – as we allow ourselves to become fully and deeply his. He walks ahead of us, and we will only learn his path by walking it. Belonging cannot be from the outside, Christianity is not a spectator sport, Jesus calls us to ‘belong’, ‘consent to belong and belief will follow’.