Have you ever played on a sports team before? If so, you’ve been exposed to “coaches.” There are coaches who believe their job is to “take command” of the players, shout out orders, and jump on kids when they make a mistake. An effective coach, however, is one who plans, teaches, encourages, and leads the players. When a coach takes time to build supportive relationships with players and helps them develop into better ball players and persons, the team inevitably begins to win games. Everyone, at some time in their lives, needs to have an effective coach.
The lost sheep of Israel needed a coach to lead them back into a close relationship with God. They thought, however, that they needed a “Messiah.” A Messiah would be a superstar leader who would restore the dignity of Israel and set them free from foreign political control. He would be another Moses who would lead the people from bondage to a new Promised Land. Their big interest in Jesus, therefore, was whether he was the superstar Messiah that they longed for (John 10:22-30).
“The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area of the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’”
This was a fitting time to bring up the Messiah question. The Dedication was a celebration of the restoration of Israel under the leadership of the “warrior” family, the Maccabees. It reminded them of the great day in which the courageous Maccabee brothers seized the Temple from the hands of the Seleucid empire. They needed another Judas Maccabeus. Besides this, the portico of Solomon reminded them of the glory days of Israel when Solomon built the most beautiful temple in the world and nations flocked to Jerusalem to see it. Oh, that another Solomon would show up to make the temple look like it did in the “old days.” Was Jesus the one who would make their dreams come true?
“Jesus answered them, ‘I told you and you do not believe…But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.”
What! Sheep? Jesus was describing himself not as a great Messiah but as a lowly shepherd who looked after a flock of sheep. Shepherds were among the lowest ranks in society. They definitely did not fit a Maccabees or Solomon image. Even if Jesus was a “shepherd-type” Messiah, his listeners were not part of his flock. It was not all of Israel that he was ruling but only the sheep who followed him.
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”
Though Jesus spoke openly in the temple area, only a handful really heard his voice; they were the ones who had given up everything to follow him. The others heard his words and ideas, but not his voice. Jesus indeed was a shepherd-Messiah who was leading his small flock through the wilderness of the age into the new Promised Land of union with the Father.
Jesus is more a “coach” than a “ruler.” Those who give their lives to him and receive the eternal life of the Holy Spirit become his sheep who are able to discern his voice. He builds up his sheep, heals them, unites them as one flock, and leads them back to the “Eden” that Adam and Eve lost. We ask, “Do I want to be a member of Jesus’ flock?”
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
