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Shalom Aleikem.

 

My name is Shimon. Shimon is the Hebrew for the one who listens, who is attentive. I have been known as Shimon ha Qanan; ha Qanan is the word for the zealot: Shimon the Zealot.

 

I am a talmid of Yeshua, a disciple of the one that you call Jesus.

 

You have perhaps heard much of me, Shimon ha Qanan? You are probably have heard of the other Shimon, the one who is known as Kefa or Petros, the rock. Yes? Well, that’s the other one. That’s not me.

 

I am just getting ready to make my way to Egypt at the beckoning and the call of the one who is my Lord and my Good Shepherd. And I was just making a copy of a portion of the Tanakh. The Tanakh is the Old Testament. It is—the portion that I was copying—is from the Prophet Ezekiel and this prophet describes something that has changed my view of who is God forever: reading this passage and seeing the way that Yeshua fulfilled this passage.

 

Before I tell you, let me ask, “What is God like for you? Eh? Is He near? Is He far? Is He close?” And perhaps the more important question is this one: Who are you to God? Does He notice you? Does He care about you?

 

Well, let me tell you what happened.

 

It was the middle of Sukkot. Sukkot is the Feast of the Tabernacles and Yeshua came up from Galilee to Yerushalayim in the middle of the feast. Now, Yerushalayim is, of course, the biggest city in the area, but when we have one of our festivals—one of our three main festivals of the year—the city, people come from all over, and it grows four, five times perhaps, so there are millions of people in this one place, and Yeshua comes into the place of the temple courtyard, the grounds.

 

And in that place it is massive and it is filled with the people.

 

Let me tell you how big it is. If you were to start all the way at the north end and walk all the way over to the other end, it would be 500 paces; if you were to go from one side to the other side, 300 paces and 25.

 

Right in the middle of the temple court is the temple itself. It is housed in a sort of enclosed kind of building and it towers up 150 feet high. It is bright white and has the gold on the pillars and the gold on the door so when the sun rises from the east over the edge of the wall, it glows and you can see it for miles. It’s considered one of the great wonders of the whole entire world.

 

All around this massive courtyard is the Portico. You would say the colonnade, and it has the wall going around and then the columns that are as high as this to the roof here one after another after another all the way around the whole thing.

 

And one of the places that is a part of the Portico that is right opposite where the front of the temple is, it’s called the Portico Shlomo. Shlomo is the word for the King Solomon. At the Portico Shlomo that is where the Torah teachers and the rabbis, the rabbis, come and they gather together their talmidim and they teach to them the Scripture, and the people who are milling around in the courtyard, they can come and listen to what the teacher is saying; they can come and be attentive.

 

Over on the other side of the courtyard, behind the Temple, is where are set up the tables for the exchange of the coin that you have—the Roman coin for the temple coin—to pay the tax and also the place where you can get the animals for the sacrifice.

 

On the south end of this enclosure is the Royal Portico and this is even bigger than all of the others and it has a building inside and this is where the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the religious leaders, they meet inside this building. And just behind over the hill you can see where is Bethlehem where David was the shepherd and then became the king and write Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd. I want to make sure you are awake!

 

At the other end is Antonia, the fortress. That is where the Roman garrison is stationed and it is just as high as the Temple. No mistake: a statement. And looking down from the top of the garrison are the Roman soldiers, looking down into all of us here like sheep to be picked out for their taste.

 

Well, Yeshua came to where we were already gathered at the Portico, and he began to teach. Now, his reputation, as you might guess, has gone before him, so the people are saying, “Hey, it’s Yeshua. Yeshua. Yeshua is talking.” They began to whisper—you know, whisper, whisper—some of them saying, “I like him. He is a good teacher. He teach with smikhah [which is the word that means authority], with power. He has a strength to his teaching that is like no other.”

And then the others say, “I don’t like him. He is a false teacher. He is a deceiver.”

 

So Yeshua is teaching and while the people are talking and then, of course, the religious leaders begin to come into the crowds around listening and there are not very many of them who think very much of poor Yeshua. So what do they do? They begin to argue; they begin to interrupt. They begin to tell the people who are around Yeshua, “Go listen to some other rabbis. Don’t listen to this man. He is not a good one to listen to.” They try to trap him. There is a woman that they bring forward to Yeshua right in the middle of this teaching, and she is a woman who has been caught in unfaithfulness, and they shove her in front of him. Because they care for this woman? No. Because they are trying to trap Yeshua—to make him say teaching that is not in keeping with what the Scripture teach.

 

Earlier in this same day, Yeshua had found a man who was blind from when he was born, and he put a salve on his eyes and sent him off to wash and his sight was restored. The religious leaders, they bring this man into the Sanhedrin and they examine him. Why? Do they do this so they can say, “What is this thing that God has done? Let us give glory and honor to God.” No. They say, “Give glory to God.” which is a way of saying, “Tell the truth. This Yeshua he is of the Evil One, right? He is a sinner, right?” They were opposed to Yeshua and his teaching and his miracles.

 

So, finally on this day they sent the temple guards to arrest him, to seize him, to bring him away. So, out come the temple guards and they are part of the crowd and everybody back up and Yeshua he keep teaching and after a while nothing happened. They listen and then they leave. You can imagine how that was when they get back to the religious leaders. “Where? How come? Why have you not? Where is this? Where is this Yeshua?”

 

“We were listening to his words and, you know, there is no one ever who has teached like this man before.” And they left him.

 

So you can see all through this day in the middle of this feast with thousands of the people around there is this battle going on. Is Yeshua one to be trusted or not? Is he one to be followed or not?

 

Then the man whose sight was given back to him—Glory to God, it was not just his eyes of his body but the eyes of his heart that were opened. And he came to Yeshua and he tells Yeshua that he believe in him, and then he fall on his knees and he worship him.

 

Well, the religious leaders were in the crowd and they see this and they are very angry. They begin to shouting and Yeshua he come and he stand in front of them all and he silenced them and then he tell a story about the sheep.

 

Before I tell you about the sheep, there are some things you need to know about the sheep in our country. We don’t have the big farm. We have the, each shepherd has a little flock and the shepherd gives to each of the sheep a name and he can be with the whole flock and call to the name of one of the sheep and that sheep will pop his head up and look for the shepherd. And you put the sheep of, you know, three, four, five shepherds, they all come together at the well at the same time and they are done with the water. The one shepherd he walks to the side and he calls for his flock. Pop, they all stop drinking the water, they all walk out of the crowd and they follow the shepherd as he leaves the place. At the end of the day, the shepherd takes his flock of sheep to a place that is called the sheep fold. The sheep fold is a square or circle wall that has the thorn around the top of it to keep the intruder out from coming into the enclosure and then there is one entrance right in front that is called the gate. And at night the shepherd he lies at the gate to protect his sheep. So, these things you must know to understand this story.

 

So this is how the story begins. Yeshua says there is a, well let me tell you. Notice this. There are the sheep and there are four others in the story in the sheep fold: three who don’t belong, one who does. So, Yeshua says there is one who comes into the sheep fold not by the gate, but he climbs over the wall. And when he comes and climbs over the wall, he is there for one reason: he is there to steal and to kill and to destroy. That’s three reasons!

 

And when he climbs into the sheep fold, the sheep all know he is a stranger. He could even wear the clothing of the shepherd, but they would know immediately because he does not his voice of the one that they love, and so they run from this one. Yeshua says this is the one who is the thief, the robber, the brigand.

 

Then the story goes on. He tells about a different one who is in the sheep fold. He is the hired man and also there comes into the sheep fold the third, the wolf.

 

The hired man is the one who is there because he gets a wage. He’s earned his job. So, his concern is not for the sheep, it is for what he will get in return. So, in comes the wolf, out goes the hired man. He runs and leaves the sheep in the middle of the fold and they have to fend for themselves. What he says is that the wolf will come and grab onto the sheep and devour them and scatter the sheep. But because the hired man does not own the sheep—they don’t belong to him—then he doesn’t care for the sheep because they are not his. So, he lets them go.

 

And then Yeshua comes to the fourth one who comes into the sheep fold. There is one who comes into the sheep fold through the entrance and he has the approval of the watchman and these are his own sheep. And every one of the sheep know him and he knows every one of the sheep. And so when he goes out of the fold, every one of the sheep they follow in behind. And he leads them out into the good pasture to give them everything that they need. He provides for them everything that is their need.

 

And then Yeshua says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep.” I say it again, “I know my sheep. My sheep know me. I am the good shepherd and I will lay down my life for my sheep.” Then (these were his last words in the parable) he said, “The good shepherd lays down his life. No one takes it from him. He lays it down and he lifts it back up again. He has the authority to lay down his life and the good shepherd has the authority to lift up his life.”

 

So, here we are in the Portico Shlomo. The people are all sitting, Yeshua is standing there, I am leaning against the back wall listening, looking. All of a sudden it comes to me what is happening. Yeshua is telling of this place here right now before me, this temple grounds. This is the sheep fold and here are the sheep. There are the thieves and here are the hired men and there are the wolves. Let me tell you how each of these plays a part in the story.

 

First, the thief, the robber. If you were to look across at the Temple, you would see the priests who are working at the Temple. They are of a group that is called the Tz’dukim. You would say the Sadducees. The Tz’dukim is a group of people who are in a position of great power and wealth and they have been entrusted to the responsibility to take care of the Temple and to do all of the proceedings in the Temple. And this is for them a place of great privilege and when they first were appointed to this—the name Tz’dukim comes from the name of the first cohen hagadol, the first high priest, Zadok, and so they all carry his name with them and there is this picture of wanting to honor God with the way in which they live their life they say. But they have lost sight of this. At first they were given this place of great privilege where they had to trust God with every day to see is God going to provide through the thing that the people give to me, and will He take care of me, and will I be faithful? And when you would have a conversation with the Tz’dukim they would say, “Show me. Show me where it says in the Scripture what you are saying. If it says it in Scripture, it’s true.”

 

But this is what has happened. The Tz’dukim have gone from the place of privilege, of grace, to a place of entitlement. They think, “God has put me here because I am important—more important than the people.”

 

The Tz’dukim are the people of the wealthy class—the people who have the greatest power in all of Yerushalayim and all of the country, and they have the huge homes, they have the many slaves, they drink much wine, they have the fine clothes, and they are powerful and they are secular. The life in the front of the people is so different from the life outside, and their morals—they come, they go. They do what’s right, they do what’s wrong. They don’t care. It seems from their perspective that God doesn’t care either.

 

So think about what if you are one of these Tz’dukim as the shepherd and you are one of his sheep; what is this Tz’dukim is teaching you that is true about God? Is teaching you that God has favorites and you are not one of them? Is God has rules but they can be broken by them, not by you. God is caring for somebody else. You, he has forgotten.

 

So I went on then to realize that also in the story are the hired men and they are here on the Portico Shlomo. The is the place where the P’rushim do their teaching. The P’rushim are the ones that you call the Pharisees. The P’rushim names comes from the Hebrew word that means p’rush, to separate, to detach, to remove yourself. And the P’rushim are the ones who are many of the Torah teachers and many of the rabbis are the P’rushim.  And they also started in a place where their heart’s desire was to honor to God, to do that which was pleasing to God. And they believe that obedience is the thing that matters—obedience, strict obedience—that the right relationship with God is possible only when you are perfect in your obedience to Him. So they came up with a whole group of traditions like a barrier that they place around the law in the Torah. They add to this the other laws that they call the halakah and they think that if we keep all of these other rules, then that is like a fence that keeps us from falling in and breaking this one rule that is in the Scripture.

 

Well, it is a right thing to want to be obedient to God, but what are the things that they are most concerned to be obedient about? Do you know? Is it that we should love to God with all of the nephesh, with all of the lev, with all of the heart and soul? No. Is it that we are to care for each other, to do the things that Scripture calls to give and to serve? No. For them it is pay the tithe and keep the Shabbat and most important keep yourself p’rush, separate from all of the other that are the unrighteous ones. You see the Pharisees they think that they are the righteous ones, and everybody else he is not righteous. They are the unrighteous. The name that they use for the rest of us is am ha aretz, the people of the land. And they say it with scorn as if they were spitting. They are above us because they believe that they have earned the love of God.

 

So you are a sheep and the P’rushim are your shepherds. What do you think is true about the God that they present to you? Huh?

 

What you think about their God is that they have ripped out His heart and they have put a whip in His hand and He is a taskmaster. He is not a lover. He is not a father. He is a tyrant and you never know is it enough? Have I done what I need? Have I earned my wage? Have I got from Him the love? No.

 

I also think of the third part of this story: the Romans up in the garrison. They stand up there looking out over the crowd and they see us as something to eat, to dispose of. We are the source of their food, their land, their money, their women, their buildings, their life blood. They are like wolves. In fact, you may not know that the wolf is a symbol sometimes for Rome because of the legend of Romulus and Remus and they were raised by the wolf. Also it is the war god, the Mars, this is the symbol for him—the wolf. Did you know that one out of every four soldiers in the Roman legion marches under the standard with the wolf? So here are the wolves who care only to get their teeth into us.

 

So because of that there is one more group and that is the q’nanim. It’s the group that I was a part of—the q’nanim, the zealots: Shimon ha Qanan.

 

The q’nanim are the ones who believe that if the wolf jump into the sheep fold and suddenly the one who is supposed to be the shepherd he becomes a friend of the wolf and the two of them together begin to attack the sheep, or if the wolf jump into the sheep pen and the hired hand, into the pen come the wolf, out of the pen go the shepherd, then what the sheep do at that point is not to say okay it is the will of God; here is my neck. No. For the q’nanim they say I make the will of God. Here is my sword. See, the q’nanim their view is that God he is not involved. Heaven helps those who step to the right even if they have to use force to make it happen. So, God does not care because God is not involved; so in their view the way that you would think about God is if something needs to happen, you need to make it happen. There is no God to turn to.

 

So we have the amazing picture of the fold, the wolf, the thief, the hired hand. So, which is the view of God that you have? Do you see God as the one who plays favorites, who has a slippery moral and you keep it sometimes, don’t other times—doesn’t matter, He’s forgotten about you. He gives privilege to them. Is your view of God one that is God is the taskmaster and you never know where you stand with this God? Or do you have a sense that God is who knows where and if something is going to happen, it is up to me to make it happen? The sheep have to rise up against the wolf?

 

And then into this story comes Yeshua and he says, “I am the good shepherd. I love you. I know you. I want you to know me. I want to provide for you. I want to heal you. I want to take care of where you are broken. I want to tend to you and I have life for you, full life.”

 

Now three things happened after that that changed forever my view of God.

 

The first is this. I was reading in Yechezchial this portion of the prophet (you say Ezekiel) and this is the passage that I came across. Now listen. This passage was written five hundred years before Yeshua. The words of the Lord came to me:

 

Son of Man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Say to them: This is what the Lord says, Woe to the shepherds who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You drink their milk, you clothe yourselves with their wool, and you slaughter the choice animals for your meal, but you do not take care for the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was not shepherd….

 

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search [do you hear that? I myself. The Lord is speaking. I myself] for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness….

 

I will tend them in a good pasture. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring them back. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. I will shepherd the flock with justice. Then they will know that I, the Lord, their God, am with them, and that they are my people. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, you are my people.

 

Do you hear it, what they said? Do you hear of it? God cares for us like a shepherd his sheep—more than that. God will send a shepherd who will come and care for them—more than that. God himself will come as a shepherd to care for sheep, to tend, to lead them.

 

How do we explain the ministry, the life, of Yeshua if not in these words: the one who has come to care for those who are broken, to bind up those who are injured, to gather together those who have been scattered, to love?

 

But there is more. It was some time later that all of the talmidim of Yeshua gathered together in a large room on the second floor of a house. We shared together the Pesakh, the Passover. And we were all there: Mattityahu and Kefa and Yochanan and Yehudah, the others. And Yeshua brought us back to this moment in the temple grounds. Remember? And then he said, “Greater love has no man that this, that he lay down his life for those he loves.”

 

Just words? No. The next day his body was nailed to a cross at the gate of the city: the good shepherd laying down his life for the sheep.

 

What God says is fulfilled in what Yeshua did. What Yeshua promised is fulfilled in his death on the cross where he lays down his life—his life for our life—to purchase for us our forgiveness, to defeat the enemy who has a grip on us, to break us free from a life of sin, to pay the ransom and to redeem us—to bring us into relationship with God so that He could love us.

 

But there is yet one more thing. Yeshua, you remember he made two promises at the Temple. Remember? The good shepherd will lay down his life and the good shepherd will take up his life again. He has the authority to lay it down. He has the authority to lift it up again.

 

Yeshua died. I saw him. But after three days, Yeshua rose from the dead. I saw him! And not just me. He stepped into that same room with all of the other talmidim. He came and said, “Shalom Aleikem.”

 

He is alive: the good shepherd. He is not just a memory. He is a presence, shepherd, caring for us, leading us, providing for us, showing us the way to live, protecting us, saving us, rescuing us, binding us.

 

How is it that you view God? Is He one who plays favorites, cares for some, not for you? Is He a slave driver who has always more that you have to do to find a way into His love? Has He left, no interest, no care for you? Or is He the shepherd who loves His sheep and gathers them into His arms?

 

Have you found your way into His arms. Do you know this Yeshua as the shepherd?

 

Yeshua taught us these things and I was Shimon. I was listening. I was attentive. He taught them and then he proved them.

 

God loves you so much He would die for you. God loves you so much He would die for you.

 

God loves you so much. Are you listening? He did die for you and He rose again.