Fourth Sunday in Easter (Good Shepherd): Gospel, John 10:22-30   

John 10:22-30

I wonder if you have thought of the gospels as a tale of suspense. Is the narrative of Jesus rightly to be encountered as a mystery? At first we need to distinguish how our culture uses the term versus how the ancients would have used it. We think of mystery and it’s Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie or Sherlock and Watson. And we should think of it that way because of how it has come down to us. But the ancients thought of mysteries as those things beyond their knowledge. The very word from which comes the word “sacrament” points to that: mystery. In fact Paul refers to himself and the early heralds of the gospel as stewards of the mysteries of God, (cf. 1Cor 4:1). And by mysteries was primarily meant the sacraments which bring the gospel into visual, tangible range for us.

That being said, we look at today’s gospel where there may indeed be a “game afoot” according to our way of thinking. Jesus is in the temple during the Feast of Dedication, commemorating the rededication of the temple following the defiling brought by Antiochus Epiphanes IV centuries earlier. Verse 24 reads, “Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, ‘How long do You keep us in doubt (alt. “suspense”)? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.’” 

I love the question. Even if it was offered up in a less than sincere manner, and it may have been, there were surely others within earshot for whom the question perhaps got them thinking, too. And it’s always good to think about Jesus. But I love it for another reason. Jesus had given them chance after chance by this point to take from His teaching and works that He was indeed Israel’s promised Messiah. Perhaps there had been room for suspense at the outset of Jesus’ ministry. But even from His baptism by John in the river Jordan, those in attendance heard the Heavenly declaration of Jesus’ divine sonship and the promise that He is the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

So the mystery isn’t really well spoken of by them. The real mystery is how they could have missed it. Missed Him. This points us yet to another mystery. Earlier in John’s gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus that the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation is like the blowing of the wind. Who will feel its effects next? It’s a mystery. The mysteries of Scripture are not so much to be solved as to be embraced, with faith that the One who “writes” them already has all the answers.