I Belong to Jesus Christ: Recognizing the Shepherd’s Voice

Good morning, Sunday school students. Did you like having Deacon Nishan with you today? Did he do a good job? Okay, good. Glad. That’s going to go on your permanent record, Deacon Nishan, wherever you’ve gone.

So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been lost before? What does it mean when you get lost? You can’t find your way back to where your parents are, where the car is, or where you’re supposed to be? You’re not sure how to get back to where you’re supposed to be?

Well, I was lost once at Disneyland. I was probably Zora’s age, about five or six. I grew up in Southern California, as you know, and I went to Disneyland with my family. We were on Main Street, and then the parade happened. I think I got distracted by something—I saw Mickey Mouse or something like that—and I walked away from my family. I wasn’t paying attention to where they were, and my family suddenly noticed that I was gone in a sea of people.

You’re right, Sidon. That is something that really traumatized my parents. It didn’t traumatize me because I wasn’t aware of what was going on. But my parents were so upset because they couldn’t find me. How do you think it would make your parents feel if they couldn’t find you?

Mad? Well, I’m sure part of them would be annoyed, frustrated, or upset. But the bigger part of them would be really scared because they wouldn’t know where you were. For your parents, the most important thing in the world is to know that you’re okay, no matter what’s going on. Even when they’re not with you at school, they know where you are. They know how to get to you and be with you if you need them. And you know how to reach your parents too. If you’re at school and you’re not feeling well, you can talk to a teacher. The teacher can take you to the office and, if necessary, call your parents. It is always important to be able to get hold of one another.

When I was lost at Disneyland as a little boy, how do you think my parents found me? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe I was found by a nice Armenian couple when I was six years old and raised by them! No, they found me eventually.

Back in ancient days, I didn’t have an iPhone, and neither did they. They couldn’t call me, I couldn’t call them, and there was no GPS or tracking device. Technology did not play a role in this. How do you think my parents found me?

What would you do if you couldn’t find somebody? Ask somebody? I’ll tell you what happened at first and what didn’t work. A policeman—or one of the security guards—noticed that I was alone. He pulled me aside and said, “Where are your parents?” I said, “I don’t know.” Well, how was the policeman going to find my parents? “Who are your parents?” My mom and dad. “What are their names?” I was five; I couldn’t even remember their names. They were Mom and Dad. “What do they look like?” They were a man and a woman. They couldn’t find my parents based on what I could tell them.

I knew that my parents were where I belonged. By the way, this is very important: you need to memorize your parents’ phone numbers. It can be hard to memorize things, but that is very important. Memorize their phone numbers or write them down somewhere, such as in your backpack—something you have with you all the time.

The security guard wasn’t too worried because he knew my parents were looking for me. But I wondered, “How are we going to find my parents?” What other options did we have besides looking for somebody named Mom and Dad who were a man and a woman?

I think you were onto it, Sidon. You’re a very clever person. Don’t sell yourself short. Walk around and look—and do what? You said it. You call their name. Or rather, you could listen, because they’re looking for you. They’re probably calling your name.

That is exactly what was happening. The security guard looked around for people who were looking for a child. Then, of course, here came my parents, wandering around with tears in their eyes and saying, “Der Mesrop, where are you?” As soon as I listened, I could hear my parents calling my name. As soon as I heard them say my name, I knew where they were and that I could come to them.

If you lost something—imagine that you had a pet dog and were looking for it—what would you do? You would call its name so that, if it heard you and knew who you were and what its name was, it would come to you. That makes sense.

So we get lost, and someone calls our name. My parents said, “Der Mesrop,” and I heard them calling me. I was so happy. I hadn’t even been scared, but as soon as I heard my parents calling my name, I became very emotional because I realized that I wasn’t with them and that I was supposed to be with them. It was a very tearful reunion. Again, it was something that traumatized us a long time ago, but we’re doing okay now.

Today, that is what Jesus is talking about concerning you. He says that the relationship Jesus has with us is such that, whenever we get lost, he can call our name. We can recognize him calling and come back to him—just as if he were a parent. Or, as the Bible describes it, we are like sheep and Jesus is the shepherd. He is supposed to take care of his sheep. If a sheep gets lost and he calls to it, the sheep knows, “I’m supposed to be with him,” and runs back to him.

The relationship we are supposed to have with Jesus Christ is that sometimes we may get lost without even knowing it, but if we listen, we can hear him calling out to us. We can come back to him because we know that we belong to him.

But what if they don’t know their name? The animals? Well, what the Bible tells us—and this is the same for animals, for people, and for Der Mesrop when he was lost at Disneyland—is that you can recognize their voice. You know what your mom sounds like better than anything in the world because she sings to you, yells at you, teaches you, loves you, and does all the most important things in your life with her voice. We know the voices of our mom and dad better than we know anybody else’s voice. Even if we don’t understand what they are saying, we can recognize their voice.

Jesus says that the people who belong to him are the ones who can recognize his voice and come to him when he calls them. What we do in Sunday school and in church is learn how to recognize Jesus’ voice in our lives. We are learning to recognize when he is trying to speak to us so that we can hear him and come to him. I’m still trying to learn how to do that. I’m a Der Hayr in my forties, and I’m learning how to do that every day. You are doing that right now in Sunday school and when you come into church on Sunday.

The most important lesson we can take from today’s passage in the Gospel of John is that we belong to Jesus. We belong to Jesus Christ. Can you say that? “I belong to Jesus Christ.” I want to hear you say it: “I belong to Jesus Christ.”

You do belong to Jesus Christ. So do I, and so do all of us gathered here today. My prayer is that you never become lost, but whenever you might be lost in your life, may you hear Jesus calling your name and return to him. God bless you.

It was prophetic. My parents were like St. Simeon: they knew I would be Der Mesrop, and they called my name!

One of the great ways we can remind ourselves—and tell other people—that we belong to Jesus Christ is by making the sign of the cross. Do you know how to make the sign of the cross? You put your three fingers together like this and say, “Amen.” You have done that hundreds of times in your life. The grown-ups in this room have done it thousands of times, and they will do it many more times still.