Called

John 10:1-10

Jesus tells us he is the shepherd at that gate and then emphasizes He is the gate, when the disciples did not understand.  Jesus tells us that only through the gate can you enter the sheepfold.  That thieves and bandits jump the fence and use violence.  In our contemporary language we see thieves and bandits as synonyms, but in the Greek thief does refer to someone who is stealing for their own benefit, while the word bandit would be better translated as insurgent,  someone doing crimes for political reasons.  Because some were waiting for a military messiah to save the people from the Roman occupation, it was a wonderful how Jesus combines both a petty thief and “bandit.”  Jesus goes on in the chapter to say He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life, completely in contrast to those calling for a military response to oppression.  

That does set the scene for what Jesus says in these verses, He is the gateway to the sheepfold.  That is not simply to heaven as it is sometimes stated, but to the church (thus eventually to heaven).  This is an important nuance, for the church is called out of the society by Jesus and only Jesus.  The sheepfold represents the church and we are to enter it by following Jesus’ call to us, just as the disciples did when He said to them at the sea of Galilee, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” (Mark 1:17) 

Jesus calls us to be the church.  The word “church” comes from a Middle English word referring to the “Lord’s House.”  Today we do use the word to mean the building in which we worship, but we understand that the church is not simply the building and/or what occurs in the building.  Rather it is the mission of the Body of Christ that defines church.  In our Bible the word “church” is used once by Jesus.  Jesus says in Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”  Now it sounds like Jesus is using the term church as a building, at least in a metaphor, as He will build it on a rock.  Of course when we use the word “rock” to refer to a person, it is a metaphor about their character, but more importantly the word we translate as church does not have the same root as the English word, it is not a word for a building at all.  The word is more closely related to the definition of church we have come to understand, the mission of the Body of Christ.

The word is Ecclesia and it was a word used to describe a group of people gathered or assembled.  Specifically gathered and assembled for a specific, generally political reason.  Not unlike how we assemble people for jury duty.  The word refers not to a physical building at all, but a group gathered for a specific purpose.  Called.  The church is inherently the group called and those assembled by Jesus. 

I believe that the prophet Isaiah understood this when he wrote,

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ (Isaiah 6:6-8)

Jesus the Good Shepherd, the gate, calls each of us, and has triumphed over death with the last needed sacrifice.  The altar has been appeased, so that our sins are blotted out and our guilt departed, so we can hear Jesus asking and calling.  We answer, “Hear am I; send me!”