This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter. Just before our gospel reading, in v.8, Jesus says: “All who came are thieves and robbers.” There cannot be a sweeping rejection of all OT figures – especially given that Jesus has already made references to Abraham and Moses as positive witnesses to him (5:45-46; 8:56).  Jesus is referring to the kings of Israel condemned in Ezekiel 34, but also current day leaders of Israel, who treated the man born blind so badly. Of such leaders, Jesus says, the sheep did not listen to them. The man born blind certainly did not listen to them, but he listened to Jesus. Those who belong to Jesus, the true shepherd, hear his voice and not those of the false shepherds

At v.11, the focus shifts to Jesus’ self-revelation as the good shepherd: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The identification of Jesus as the shepherd was implicit in the figure of speech in vv.1-5, but it is made explicit for the first time here. As before, the positive image of the good shepherd (vv.11, 14-16) is contrasted with a negative image, that of the hired hand (vv.12-13).

The “I am” saying of v.11 is explained exclusively in metaphorical language in vv.11b-13. That is, after the initial use of a first-person singular pronoun, Jesus never refers to himself directly again. Instead, he draws on images derived from the OT to explain what he means by “good shepherd.” The adjective “good” (kalos) also has the meaning “model” or “true,” and the reference point for what constitutes a model shepherd is set by the image of God as the good shepherd in Ezekiel 34. According to Ezek 34:11-16, God the good shepherd cares for the sheep, rescuing them from the places to which they have been scattered, feeding them, and tending to the weak, the injured, and the lost. By identifying himself as the good shepherd of Ezekiel 34, Jesus thus identifies himself as fulfilling God’s promises and doing God’s work (cf. 4:34; 17:4). And Jesus is holding up that he is the fulfillment of the promises of Ezekiel 34: 11 – “For thus says the Lord GOD: Look! I myself will search for my sheep” and all the other promise in the verses that follow:

As a shepherd examines his flock while he himself is among his scattered sheep, so will I examine my sheep. I will deliver them from every place where they were scattered on the day of dark clouds. I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and every inhabited place in the land. In good pastures I will pasture them; on the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down on good grazing ground; in rich pastures they will be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest—oracle of the Lord GOD. The lost I will search out, the strays I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, and the sick I will heal; but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd them in judgment. (Ez 34:12-16)

God Himself will come to do those things – and Jesus announced that “I am,” the divine name, God present among us to fulfill the promises of God.

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