4th Sunday of Easter
Texts: John 10:1-10;
Acts 2:42-47; 1 Pet 2:19-25
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Bxgwa0jry7w
Sermon Take-Home Notes
Excerpt Page from Craig Koester
‘WOLVES IN SHEPHERDS’ CLOTHING’: THE SIN OF AUTHORITARIANS
CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE ABOUT SIN
On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, we begin by going back five weeks to the Fourth Sunday of Lent. The Gospel Reading on that Sunday was from the chapter before our Gospel today. It’s the story about Jesus healing a man born blind. As amazing as that is, to heal a man born blind, the long story in John 9 is really about something else, which we talked about five weeks ago. Yes, it’s a story about physically healing a man born blind, but on a deeper level it’s the story about how Jesus came into the world to heal humanity’s blindness to the sin which causes so much misery in our world. It’s a blindness which seemingly goes back to the birth of our civilizations. Humanity was born blind. And it’s a blindness that we still suffer from today. But Jesus did come into our world to begin healing this blindness.
So the long story in John 9 is fundamentally about sin, Jesus healing our blindness to the sin which has plagued us since the beginning. Recall how John 9 begins. Jesus and his disciples come upon the man born blind, and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). They see a blind man, and the disciples want to make it about sin. Right from the start, this will be an occasion for teaching to teach us about the blindness we have when it comes to what sin is. Jesus responds to their question, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day” (9:3-4a).1 The one who sent is the Creator whose power can bring such healing.
You will also recall that the physical healing of the man then takes place in the span of two verses (vv. 6-7), while the story winds on for another 34 verses (John 9:8-41). Basically, a debate about sin. The Pharisees want to say that Jesus is actually a sinner because he healed the blind man by doing forbidden work on the Sabbath. Breaking those rules. The blind man himself argues that this is absurd. How could anyone do such great work as healing a person blind from birth unless God approved of it? The result of this debate is that the Pharisees throw out the formerly blind man for defending a sinner, Jesus. When the formerly blind man happens upon Jesus, with some of the Pharisees apparently trailing him, Jesus ends the story by saying to the Pharisees, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains” (John 9:41).
Now here’s the thing: that’s not really the end of the story. Which is why I began this Good Shepherd Sunday from John 10 be recalling John 9. Immediately after implying that the Pharisees’ sin remains — with absolutely no break whatsoever — Jesus goes on to say more about their sin. Still talking to the Pharisees: “Very truly, I tell you,” continues Jesus, “anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief2 and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.” In short, everything Jesus is about to say, about thieves and bandits versus the Good Shepherd, is a direct continuation from the debate about sin in John 9. We’re going to get some clarification.
So if John 9 and 10 combined are about Jesus coming to heal humanity’s blindness to sin since the beginning of our civilizations, then what we read this morning finally gives us the full shape of that sin. Jesus begins to put our sin more into focus. Mind you, he does so with metaphors, figures of speech, because he doesn’t really want to get lynched just yet. The Pharisees do begin to see his point more plainly and by the end they take up stones to hurl at him (John 10:31) with Jesus slipping away (John 10:39). But here in the first ten verses of John 10, Jesus is transitioning from the debate about Jesus’ sin in John 9 to the shape of the Pharisees sin in John 10. The two stories belong together. In John 9 we begin to see the transition from talking about whether the man born blind sinned; to Jesus’ supposed sin of working on the Sabbath; to finally Jesus flipping the talk about sin, by exposing the Pharisees’ sin of expelling the Man born blind because he follows Jesus. In John 10, we see the full shape of Pharisees’ sin — namely, failed leadership. They behave as thieves and bandits instead of the Good Shepherds they are called to be.
Siblings in Christ, this is the blindness which has plagued humankind since the beginnings of so-called civilization. For several millennia now of nations and empires, we have been blind to failed leadership. We may see it from time-to-time and rise against it, but then we go right back to a new round of it. We again put up with thieves and bandits who somehow convince us that they are Good Shepherds. Well, the “somehow” is not really a such mystery. What our leaders are able to do, over and over again, is to control the narrative about what is sin and who the sinners are. They get us to say, “Yea, those are the bad guys. Protect us. Help us. Cast them out.” And we keep falling for it. Eventually, they convince enough people so that prophets like Jesus end up on a cross, crucified by the Roman Empire. As Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill3 and destroy.”
Apparently, even two thousand years after God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead, we are still having trouble identifying good leaders. We keep falling for the strong man leader who steals our livelihood — hoarding from the abundance of what the nation holds in common — while controlling the narrative of the sinners, the evil-doers, we need to worry about.
I’d like to quote a paragraph from Ibram Kendi’s new book4 on how authoritarians trick us into letting them rule by getting us to worry about lesser folk — “sinners,” if you will — who seek to replace us. Kendi uses the recent language of those leaders themselves when they call it the Great Replacement Theory. These great replacement politicians get us all worked up about who’s going to replace us in the zero-sum game. It’s a book that details all the receipts from our recent history; I highly recommend it.
I take some risk in pulling out one paragraph from such a detailed and comprehensive argument about our recent misadventures with authoritarian leaders, but you’ll see why with the metaphors about sheep and shepherding featured in today’s Gospel. It’s from a section on the rise of racist authoritarianism in recent German politics. Not so long after the Nazi regime. Alice Weidel is the leader of a rather new political party called Alternative für Deutschland. (Is the word für intentionally close to the word Führer?) Thankfully, the Germans didn’t elect her to high office. But this paragraph from Kendi’s book (which is in your Sermon Notes) comments about the messaging from one of her opponents from a traditional party, Lars Klingbeil. Kendi writes,
Klingbeil dubs Weidel a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Not completely true. Great replacement politicians do operate, in policy, like wolves. But these politicians aren’t necessarily clothed as sheep. They clothe everyday White Christians as sheep. Great replacement politicians dress up, in rhetoric, as shepherds who protect the sheep. “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” began one Trump campaign video in January 2024. Trump is “a shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave nor forsake them.” The history of great replacement politicians is the history of political wolves in shepherds’ clothing herding sheep from privileged groups toward their own domination.5
The problem, in short — the sin being identified in John 9–10 — are human leaders who are ‘wolves in shepherds’ clothing.’ As I said, it’s risky pulling out a paragraph from a long, sustained argument, especially when it names our current President, Donald Trump. I invite you to hear our read his entire argument and judge for yourselves whether he is right. (I find him convincing, which is why I take the risk.)
Let’s wrap up here. What we’re talking about are two very different visions of what a good leader is. Last week, we began to identify this difference around our United States motto, e pluribus unum. Throughout human history we make the mistake of looking for the One. That One convinces us about who the sinners are that we need to worry about. And that One assures us he will cleanse our nation from that filth. But in Jesus we encounter a God who’s not the One to solve all our problems, but rather e pluribus unum, one from many. We see in our Second Reading today how Jesus is not just the Good Shepherd but also, citing Isaiah 53, is the sheep slaughtered on our behalf. By his wounds we are healed. The gate to eternal life is through suffering. And in following him, we may need to endure suffering, too, but the promise in the end is for justice and righteousness.
In John’s Gospel we read of Jesus the Good Shepherd but also at the beginning we read of John the Baptist proclaiming Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). He’s not going to be the One who’s actually a wolf in shepherd’s clothing, but he’s going to become one of us and suffer our common fate in nations led by wolves in shepherds’ clothing. From Isaiah 53 again, a lamb to the slaughter — but who finally takes away the sin of the world.
Also, in our Easter stories, we see disciples still trying to cling to Jesus as the One.6 On Easter morning, Jesus says to Mary, ‘No, wait. Don’t try to hold on. I’m ascending to my Father’ (John 20:17). Last week, we saw in Luke’s Gospel Jesus keeps disappearing, as soon as they recognize him. Why? Because he comes back to us through the pouring out through the Spirit on the many, so that we become the change and leadership we need. One from many.
When we live in a community as one from many; when we do things like helping to clothe our neighbors [through the church’s Thread-by-Thread Ministry]; when we do things like feeding them through the Community Meal; when we do things like visiting our own sick — caring for and supporting and praying for them; we are the One-from-the-Many. God’s power of love and grace and life poured out on us.
But this is not, especially in a democracy, something we keep to ourselves. This is the brand of community we are called to share with our friends and neighbors. We can stop falling for the empty promises of the One who will save us and instead become the change we need in the way of love, where — like in the First Reading today — we find an abundance to share, so that no one is in need. No one needs to continue to live alone in suffering and misery. Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, April 26, 2026
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Bxgwa0jry7w
Sermon Take-Home Notes
Excerpt Page from Craig Koester
Notes
1. The translation of this verse is from Craig Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Fortress Press, 2003), 105, arguing that popular translations of this verse (e.g., NRSV and NIV) mistranslate the Greek all’ hina, “but in order that,” implying that God caused the blindness to provide a moment of glory for Jesus.
2. Greek: kleptēs, from which we get the English word kleptocracy, “rule by thievery.” Sound familiar with the rise of billionaire oligarchs in today’s politics? Yahweh also warns about the rule of authoritarian kings featuring stealing from his people in 1 Samuel 8:10-18.
3. The Greek word for “kill,” is thyō, who main meaning is a specific form of killing, “to sacrifice.” The most common Greek word for “to kill” is apokteinō. When it involves the intentional killing of a human being, “to murder,” the most common Greek word is phoneuō. Thyō, sacrificial killing, is the systemic, sanctioned (“sacred”) violence that authoritarian leaders carry out as part of their violent ruling, where large portions of their populace are considered throw away people — like slaves, the poor, the sick, foreigners, and, yes, soldiers. Basically, anyone who isn’t them. Thyō thus signals a specific forming of killing, the sacrificial killing of the masses by those wolves in shepherds’ clothing who lead us and who care not a whit about our lives.
4. Ibram X. Kendi, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age (One World, 2026).
5. Ibid., 243-44.
6. Luke 24:21, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Jesus’ response, when they finally recognize him, is to disappear.
