The Good Shepherd is My Lord and Savior

Acts 4:5-12
John 10:11-18

              As we journey together as a community of faith you will find that I am a bit of an academic. As I have said to you before, I love to pick apart the gospel stories word by word to figure out what they were saying back in the day.  The joke in my household is that there are biblical scholars who write fifty page articles on one word in the bible, I’m the person who reads them, what I like to call beach reading.

This week my research was all about the Greek word soteria translated as salvation and soter which means savior.  This morning we read from the book of Acts Peter telling the Jewish rulers, elders, scribes and high priests (some of whom were involved in Jesus’ trial before his execution) that salvation can only be found in Jesus.  Peter states, “This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;   it has become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’” (Acts 4:11-12)  In order to understand this passage we have to look at the previous stories in the Book of Acts.  In chapter three Peter and John are going to the temple to pray.  A lame man is carried in and laid at the gate of the temple so that he could beg for money from the people coming in.  When Peter and John are about to go into the temple, the lame man asks them for money.  Peter tells the man that he has no money to give him but he has something better.  Peter then cures him saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” (3:6) Peter takes the man’s right hand and pulls him up.  Immediately the beggar’s ankles and feet were made strong.  Jumping up the man began to walk and he entered the temple leaping and praising God. 

            The crowds in the temple surrounded Peter, John and the formerly lame man because they were amazed by the healing.  Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and begins to preach about Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was crucified and now risen from the dead. His message is so powerful that he converts 5000 people into claiming the risen Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Now the Sadducees who were part of the priestly aristocratic Jewish sect were annoyed because of what Peter was teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there was resurrection from the dead.  And so the Sadducees had Peter and John arrested.  This morning we hear their testimony in front of the Jewish Church Council.  Religious historians note that Christianity began as a sect within Judaism.  Jesus and his followers were part of the Jewish religion, attended services in the Jewish temple and followed the Mosiac laws.  The only difference was that Jesus’ followers understood the risen Jesus to be the Messiah.[i]  Thus Christianity began as Jews telling other Jews that Jesus was the Savior sent by God.  In this morning’s reading we hear Peter is defending himself within his own family of faith. 

            Now in the book of Acts it says that Peter and John were arrested for their preaching and teaching, but they are interrogated about the healing of the lame man, The Religious Council asks “By what power or by what name did you do this?”  Peter tells them that the lame man was healed by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they crucified, whom God raised from the dead.  Now the question that begs to be asked is this, why are the authorities more concerned about the preaching than the cure and why are they asking about power?  Perhaps because the religious authorities knew they were losing their hold on their power over the Jewish people, which was quite a dangerous predicament for them to be in.  At the time of Jesus life on earth and when this text was written Israel was occupied by the Roman Empire that ruled with domination and violence.  Anytime there was a hint of rebellion it was squashed under the boot of the empire.  Religious historians note that the crucifixion of Christ was one of those instances.  While he was on earth, Jesus was stirred the passions of the poor and pious Jews of Palestine with his messages of “God’s love, God’s acceptance of all, and the coming of a new world order under God’s rule, [what Jesus called] ‘The Kingdom of God.’”[ii]  Jesus “aroused the anger of both the Roman and Jewish authorities.  The Romans accused Jesus of [treason] for the claim that he was ‘King of the Jews’ and the Jewish leaders accused him of blasphemy for claiming to be the Messiah.”  The Romans ordered the Jewish religious authorities to stop Jesus from his rabble rousing.  The Jewish religious authorities tried to stop Jesus in order to keep the peace with the empire but they were unable to.  So they complied with the Romans who in turn executed Jesus like a common criminal by hanging him on a cross and leaving him to die.

            Another way the Roman’s wielded their power over the people was by forcing those living in the empire to give sacrifices to the Roman gods which included the emperors of Rome.  They were given the title “Son of God.”  Statutes were erected in their likeness and people were expected worshiped them just like they worshiped the statutes of the legendary Greek and Roman gods.  It is important to note that during the time of Jesus the Roman Empire was beginning to fall and the people were anxious.  The people were longing for salvation which meant to them “a release from the barriers of finitude, the misery and failure of human life.”[iii]  They wanted a personal savior who would deliver them from the difficulties of this life, protect them from all ills, heal them or guide them.  This title was given to all individuals, divine or human, male or female who “improved a situation or had prevented a perilous one, either personal, political, social or intellectual.  These saviors included the classical Greek gods, Roman gods… Roman emperors and even philosophers.[iv]   To claim someone as Lord and Savior at that time was not a theological implication, rather it was a political one.  The empire required worship of the Emperors as gods to maintain sound order and cohesion across their vast domain.  To refuse to give sacrifices to the Roman gods was perceived as a disruption of the bonds of society and be disastrous to the empire.[v]

            Now the Jews and all the sects within their tradition were not required to make sacrifices to the Roman gods because the Empire respected the Jewish thousands of years’ tradition of not worshiping anything other than their God Yahweh.  But when the Christian sect split from the Jewish religion, the Romans believed them to be a new religion and thus forced them to the point of persecution to make sacrifices to Roman emperor gods.  The Christians refused, stating just as Peter did, that they cannot find salvation in something that is human or made of human hands.  Their salvation is found in risen Jesus Christ who was sent by God to share the good news of God’s love to the world.  It is this good shepherd who willingly laid down his life for his sheep who was their Lord and Savior.  And in the same way these early Christians lost their lives by the persecution of the Roman Empire that persecuted Jesus.

            So looking at things historically it is clear to see that claiming Jesus as our Lord and Savior is not about religious exclusivism.  We know that God is a great and unknowable entity.  As hard as we might try, we cannot put God in a box.  Just as God has many paths of reaching us, God has provided many paths to reach God.  Our path is through Jesus.  It is possible to respect other religious traditions while claiming Jesus as our Lord and Savior.   You see when we state that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, we are stating that we find our salvation through a man whom we know as a son of God, whom we know as the good shepherd, whose ministry was about love and justice.  And emboldened by the promise of new life that Jesus gives through rising again on Easter morning, we find that he is our hope in this world and the world to come.  May it be so.  Amen.

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[i] Tripolitis, Antonia. Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age. (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002.), 92

[ii] Ibid., 91

[iii] Ibid., 2

[iv] Ibid., 16

[v] Ibid., 101