Numbers. Our lives are filled with numbers. Each year we file our income taxes. Now that's an exercise in numbers to end all numbers games. Pages upon pages of numbers: earned numbers, spent numbers, invested numbers, and saved numbers. When it is finally prepared, we send it off to the Internal Revenue Service with our Social Security number on it. And the IRS takes all those numbers and puts them into a computer, along with the numbers of thousands and thousands of other people. And to them, we become a number.

The government knows us by our tax number. The state knows us by our driver's license number. The bank knows us by our account number. And when we retire, we'll be remembered by our Social Security number. And it goes on and on. In fact, sometimes I wonder if anybody knows us at all without a number!

And that's why this morning's Gospel reading is so significant, because it tells us that God knows us. He knows us intimately, in fact, better than we know ourselves. And that's important to remember. In spite of the fact that the image of sheep and shepherd is foreign to our experience, the words of the Gospel this morning hearken for us a truth that our human hearts long to hear. The Old Testament writer put it even more clearly when he wrote, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Jesus says it this morning, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me, and I give them eternal life."

A new kind of plane was on its first flight. It was full of reporters and journalists. A little while after takeoff, the captain's voice was heard over the speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to be your pilot for this plane's historic first flight. I can tell you the flight is going well. Nevertheless, I have to tell you about a minor inconvenience that has occurred. The passengers on the right side can, if they look out their window, see that the closest engine is slightly vibrating. That shouldn't worry you, because this plane is equipped with four engines and we are flying along smoothly at an acceptable altitude. As long as you are looking out the right side, you might as well look at the other engine on that side. You will notice that it is glowing, or more precisely one should say, burning. That shouldn't worry you either, since this plane is designed to fly with just two engines if necessary, and we are maintaining an acceptable altitude and speed. As long as we are looking out the plane, those of you on the left side shouldn't worry if you look out your side of the plane and notice that one engine that is supposed to be there is missing. It fell off about ten minutes ago. Let me tell you that we are amazed that the plane is doing so well without it. However, I will call your attention to something a little more serious. Along the center aisle all the way down the plane a crack has appeared. Some of you are, I suppose, able to look through the crack and may even notice the waves of the Atlantic Ocean below. In fact, those of you with very good eyesight may be able to notice a small lifeboat that was thrown from the plane. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you will be happy to know that your captain is keeping an eye on the progress of the plane from that lifeboat below."

Now, I realize that there are some situations that we ought not joke about, and a plane crash is perhaps one of them. But that little story about the plane and its pilot seemed so descriptive of our lives and the world today that I couldn't help but tell it. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations very similar to that plane flight. Everything around us seems to be falling apart and the person in charge seems to be as remote as the captain in the raft on the ocean far below.

But the good news this morning is that we are known by God and loved by God. And when God knows us and loves us, God will not abandon us. In spite of the senseless violence that seems so much a part of our world today, the innocent suffering and death that occur, our failures and our encounters with suffering, God wants us to know that God cares about us. God want us to know that God loves us with an everlasting love that calls us by name.

That's precisely the promise that God made with us from the beginning of time and that Jesus makes with us today. "I know my own and my own know me." We are more than just a number. In the midst of an uncertain world, faced with unknown dangers and threatened by unpredictable events of evil and violence around us, we are known by God and loved by God. "Even the hairs of your head are numbered," Jesus once said. For God is greater than anything that can threaten us in life. The death and resurrection of Jesus assure us of that, and the words of Jesus remind us of that once again today.

We need that reminder for there are all kinds of things in life that can threaten us. Accidents happen. Disasters come our way. Sickness strikes and disease often stalks us. No one knows when or where the next terrorist bomb may go off. We know that danger and death are part of our lives.

But the good news for us this morning is that whatever happens to us is not nearly as important as what happens in us. For God is greater than any danger. That's why these words of Jesus mean so much to us when he says, "I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life."

Many years ago the great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick told of a teenage girl stricken with polio. As he visited with her, she told him about a conversation she'd had with one of her friends, who told her, "Affliction does so color life." To which this courageous young girl agreed, but said that she would choose which color. At her young age she had already discovered one of life's great secrets: It's not what happens to you that matters as much as what happens in you. For faith in God does not so much shield us from danger and death as it gives us the power to overcome it.

The great Christian devotional writer Corrie ten Boom nearly died during World War II in a Nazi prison camp. In one of her writings she recounts a conversation that she had. One day another prisoner asked her why God would let them suffer so much if God truly were a loving and caring God. Corrie replied, "There are many things I do not understand and cannot explain to you, but if you knew the Lord the way I know him, you wouldn't ask why. You'd be satisfied to know that God is good and that God loves us." Corrie knew that God was greater even than the evil that surrounded them in that concentration camp, and because God was greater, somehow God would see them through.

One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is the time when Jesus and the disciples were caught in a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee when a storm came up. Do you remember how the disciples reacted when the waves and wind threatened their boat? The boat was rocking and it was slowly filling with water. It was beginning to sink and would soon dump them all into the sea. Through all this Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. Finally the disciples woke the Master and hit him with a harsh question. "Master," they said, "Do you not care that we are about to perish?"

You and I have been with those disciples. We have seen the storm clouds rise and we have felt the wind howl and had the waves beat down upon us. It may be the death of a loved one. It may be a battle with disease or a fight with cancer. It could be a broken relationship or a time when your child didn't come home on time and worries overcame you. We have all been there and we have all shared the disciples' question, "Master, don't you care?"

And that's why the Gospel reading this morning is so precious to us. For Jesus' own words remind us that he does indeed care. "I know my own and my own know me." Of course the Master cares. That's the secret in handling life's storms. Life can be tough at times. Disease, danger, and death are all part of life. But God is greater and God's love is infinitely more secure.

"My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me." Hearing is believing and believing is following. Hearing the voice of Jesus means trusting that God is greater. It means listening to Jesus and following him.

Missionary Herb Schaefer tells about a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl who continued with her family to worship God secretly in their home during the Cultural Revolution in China, that time when religion was forbidden and worship was banned by the Chinese rulers. One evening the Red Guards burst into their small home and threatened them for worshiping Jesus. A small altar with a crude cross stood in one corner of the room. Determined to put a stop to their worship and command complete allegiance to the Communist state, the Red Guard lieutenant demanded they spit on the cross. They refused. The lieutenant became indignant and shouted at them that unless they spat on the cross they would be killed.

Finally the elder in the group came forward, spat on the cross and left. One by one they followed, doing the same disgusting thing until only the thirteen-year-old remained. She refused to do what the others had done. "I cannot and I will not," she replied. Then she told the lieutenant the depth of her faith and said that she was willing to die for it. Remarkably the Lieutenant seemed pleased. "This is the kind of devotion we want for the new China: people who will commit themselves so totally that they are willing to die for what they believe." But he wanted that devotion directed toward Chairman Mao. "We will change you," he promised and left. She was spared, but she never saw the rest of her family again.

The story doesn't end there, however. For shortly thereafter, that little girl fled to Hong Kong and was taken in there. Later she entered the Lutheran seminary there and today she is a pastor of the Hong Kong Lutheran Church, serving the needs of countless souls. She prays for the day when she will be allowed to return to her village and minister to her people there and perhaps even to that Red Guard lieutenant who spared her but murdered her family.

She was able to endure, to overcome that tragedy in her life, because she knew the Good Shepherd. She had heard God's voice and she knew that God is greater. God is greater and our devotion to God can give us strength to endure as well. We may not be able to still the storms of life that rage around outside us. But with a strong Captain at the helm of our ship, with a Shepherd to lead us, his voice to heed and follow, we can calm the storms within us. For it is not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us. That's why Jesus says to us today, "I know my own and my own know me. The sheep hear my voice and follow me." In the midst of the storms of life, let us listen to the gentle voice of Jesus saying, "Peace. Be still." For God is greater. In Jesus' name. Amen.