Jesus: Risen Lamb & Ruling Shepherd

[preacheral]

Our study of the shepherd image helps illustrate the deep irony of God’s work through Christ. Jesus is not just the Good Shepherd but as it turns out He is also the Lamb“who takes away the sin of the world”. (Jn.1.29) That’s a pretty dramatic plot twist! The theme of humiliation and exultation is repeated throughout the scriptures and one that our human nature continually resists. I am quick to say, “No Lord - I don’t want to have to suffer unjust treatment like Joseph in order to gain greater responsibility” or “I don’t want to wrestle with you all night like Jacob so that I can become Israel” . I want to be transformed and I want to help transform the world but I often don’t want to sacrifice anything to get to that point. Jesus’ example should serve as a constant reminder that whatever we sacrifice for God’s glory will always come back to us a hundred fold.

Jesus told Peter and the other disciples, “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:29-31) It’s no coincidence that right after Jesus says this he again predicts his humiliation and death. But once again the disciples fail to grasp what Jesus is talking about. It’s not until Jesus is actually crucified that they begin to comprehend the sacrifice that Jesus has been alluding to all along.

The disciples are just barely getting their heads around the idea of Jesus as the slain lamb when he reveals himself as the risen lamb and the ruling shepherd in the resurrection event. The disciples go from the despair of death and defeat to the head-spinning joy of the resurrection. In the Revelation the lamb still looks “as if it had been slain”. (Rev.5.6) This was not a victory without a cost. And the scars of that battle seem to be with Christ in some kind of permanent way.

Do I allow the people in the pews to see my more permanent scars? Or am I constantly covering them up and hiding them away?

There is a raw physicality to the resurrection with which we rarely wrestle. In our misguided attempts to be “spiritual” we’ve often adopted an almost gnostic view of life in which the material world and our physical bodies are of little consequence and so how we behave - what we do with our bodies is secondary to “how close to God we feel”. We’ve come to point in our development of this skewed belief system where I’ve actually had persons sit in my office and openly admit to blatantly immoral behavior that’s clearly condemned in scripture and say to me “I know the Bible says it’s wrong but I’ve never felt closer to God”! That my friends is narcissistic piety run amok! The standard is no longer the Word of God in any objective way - but rather whatever makes me FEEL close to God.

The bodily resurrection of Jesus is a powerful corrective to that kind of dis-embodied spirituality that tries to falsely disconnect what we do with our bodies from what we do with our souls. That isn’t biblical Christianity - that’s gnosticism based on Plato’s elevated view of the soul over the body! In the Hebrew world-view the body and soul are ONE. You cannot save one and reject the other - both are part of God’s good creation. This body of mine is a temple and though obviously flawed and weak - it is none the less something which the scriptures regard with certain reverence. First - because we are created in the image of God and second - because Jesus also came “in the flesh” and third - because just as Jesus’ body was transformed as it was raised from the dead - so too our bodies will be "made new" at the Second coming and we will live and reign with Jesus on the newly transformed earth.

Thus the reality of the risen and ruling shepherd should lead us into ministry which is “incarnational” and has physical consequences. If God the Father thinks enough of the body of Jesus to resurrect it and give Him an eternal “bodily existence” then surely our concern cannot be simply for the soul. We must care about what God cares about and that means caring for the soul AND the body of those we serve.