NOTES for Joh 10:1-21

Jesus usually did not speak directly about His messiahship. But He hinted at it often. His words about Himself as the good shepherd are also a hint. In those days there were many claimants to the role of Messiah. As early as the time of the Maccabees, roughly a century and a half before the Savior's coming, a new wave of messianism begins. Political messianism. The Messiah is awaited as a liberator, first from the power of a secular dynasty, and then from the power of the Romans. He is awaited as a great earthly King.

And traditional Jewish ideas about the Messiah did not require at all that one had to be born the Messiah. One could become the Messiah in the same way that those whom God calls to prophetic ministry become prophets. That is why false messiahs appeared in the same way as false prophets. Everything ended, at best, in nothing, and at worst, in tragedy. The Roman authorities did not encourage political messianism at all, and they suppressed any mass movement quickly and mercilessly. It often happened that the newly appeared "messiah" disappeared while the reprisals fell on the ordinary participants in the movement. Yet this did not stop zealots and adventurers of messianism. It is no accident that Jesus calls them "thieves and robbers": they certainly were not true shepherds of their flock.

And that is no surprise, since these people did not consider these flocks their own. The issue is not only that they were impostors. The issue is also the very character of political messianism. It lies in the idea of the Kingdom, which to the supporters of such messianism appeared to be a purely political reality, and therefore an entirely earthly one. Such an earthly kingdom could not be built without victims. The inevitable war and the following upheavals, political and social, were impossible without victims. Of course, everything was justified by the greatness of the goal. But that did not make things easier for those who died.

Only Jesus brought into the world a Kingdom that did not have to be established by force. A Kingdom for which one did not have to wage war against the authorities of this world. It also required a sacrifice, but the Savior Himself became that sacrifice. Therefore He had the right to speak of Himself as the true shepherd of His flock, for He became the door into the Kingdom for everyone who seeks it and did not destroy any one of them.