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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Our new Parish Hall with Sunday School Classrooms this past week was brought an important step closer to completion, as the long-awaited the fire door between the new and old buildings was permanently installed. Yes, there is still finish work to do around the door, including tiling the floor that connects the two buildings, but no doubt soon enough we will be going in and out of that door as if it had been there all along. A different kind of door (or “gate” [NIV]) is the focus of today’s appointed Gospel Reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is usually known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”, but, in this year of our three-year series of Readings, we almost could call it “Gate Sunday”, for, as we realize today when considering the Gospel Reading, “Jesus, the Gate, grants shepherds and sheep entrance and exit”.
In a sense, the Gospel Reading is out of sequence for us in this Easter Season, jumping back some ten chapters in St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, to what comes immediately after Jesus’s healing of a man blind from birth, which we heard more than one month ago on the Fourth Sunday of Lent (John 9:1-41). Today we heard the beginning of Jesus’s seventh and final public discourse that St. John recorded, which seems to be spoken to the same mixed group as at the end of chapter 9, including at least the man formerly blind from birth and some Pharisees near Jesus, who claimed to see but really did not.
At the beginning of this discourse, which eventually is about Jesus as the Good Shepherd (as we will hear in the section read next year on this day), Jesus first gives a general figure of speech contrasting the thief and robber who accesses the sheepfold by climbing in another way with the shepherd who accesses the sheepfold by the door (or “gate”); to the shepherd, the gatekeeper opens the gate, and the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out, and they follow him, for they know his voice. Since at least some of those to whom Jesus was speaking did not understand what He was saying to them, Jesus then explicitly interprets the figure of speech in terms of Himself as the Gate Who grants shepherds and sheep entrance and exit, as it were, mediating both the shepherds’ access to the sheep and so also the sheep’s access both to the saving protection of the fold and to the life-giving pasture beyond its walls.
Clearly, Jesus’s teaching was confronting then—and is confronting now—both all those who were or are thieves and robbers—who try to access the sheep by stealth and violence, by their false teaching and leading, for selfish motives—and all those who were or are false sheep—who do not follow their shepherd’s voice but, instead of fleeing the stranger, follow him, and so are at risk of being stolen, killed, and destroyed. This past week at the Texas District Theological Convocation that I attended in Austin, there was a lot of talk both about those who try to access the sheep without going through the Gate, Jesus, and about those who cannot distinguish between the voice of their shepherd and the voice of a stranger. Jesus’s teaching confronts both shepherds, pastors who are not always faithful to Jesus in their preaching and practice, and sheep, people who may not attend to God’s Word as they should but rather find print, radio, television, or other media “preachers” to follow. We all are guilty of these or at least other sins, for we are all sinful by nature and, apart from faith in Jesus Christ, on account of our sinful nature and sin deserve temporal and eternal punishment.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus says that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but that He came as the Gate so that all those who enter by Him may have life and have it abundantly. God in human flesh, Jesus was arrested as if He were a robber (Matthew 26:55; Mark 14:48l Luke 22:52); Jesus was considered by the Jews to be less‑desirable than the robber Barabbas (John 18:40); and, surrounded by those who were literal robbers (Matthew 27:38; Mark 15:27), Jesus was crucified on the cross, for you and for me. On the cross Jesus, the Gate, is the open way to the Father (John 14:6), and whoever, by repentance and faith in Jesus, enters His protective fold will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. Like the Jewish leaders, we cannot understand such things on our own; like helpless sheep, we in a sense have to be pushed through the gate. But, God calls and enables us to repent and believe, and, when we so repent and believe, then He forgives all our sin, for Jesus’s sake. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 2:19-25), Jesus Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, we have been healed. Christ crucified is the Gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it (Psalm 118:20). He alone can save us (confer Solid Declaration XI:67), and, when we are saved, we are His own.
Notably, with Jesus identifying Himself as the Door (or “Gate”) in the figure of speech, someone else is the “shepherd”. As Moses mediated the office of shepherd to Joshua, so that the congregation of Israel would not be as sheep without a shepherd (Numbers 27:17), so Jesus mediated the office of shepherd to Peter in order to feed and tend His lambs and sheep (John 21:15-17), and Jesus still mediates the office of shepherd today, so that His lambs and sheep in the fold of the Church hear the voice of their shepherd (Smalcald Articles III:xii:2). Through such shepherds, we are called by our name in Holy Baptism; through such shepherds, we are forgiven in the Triune Name in individual Holy Absolution; and, through such shepherds, we are pastured on bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. As we heard in today’s First Reading (Acts 2:42-47), through devotion to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, that is, the breaking of bread and the prayers of the Sacrament of the Altar, the Lord adds to His flock of the Church day by day the number of those being saved.
The man formerly blind from birth did not follow but fled from the voice of strangers, the thieving and robbing Jewish leaders, and followed the voice of his shepherd (Brown, 388). Likewise called and enabled by God, we also flee from the voice of strangers and follow the voice of our shepherd. We answer the call of today’s Introit (Psalm 95:1-3, 6-7a; antiphon John 10:14, 15b), worshiping and bowing down, kneeling before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. We answer the call of today’s Epistle Reading, doing good and suffering for it, following the example of Christ Who suffered for us, and also St. Paul, who, among other things, was in danger from robbers (2 Corinthians 11:26). Suffering in this earthly life and our material possessions here ultimately do not matter to us, for we have life, and we have it abundantly—more than enough, a surplus that allows us to give in order to supply both the needs of our Pilgrim congregation (and so also its shepherd) and also the needs of our neighbors.
In considering the Gospel Reading today, we have realized that “Jesus, the Gate, grants shepherds and sheep entrance and exit”. If only on the basis of the Gospel Reading this year, “Gate Sunday” might be a better name than “Good Shepherd Sunday”, but the “Good Shepherd” theme of the Sunday comes through from the Introit, Collect, Epistle, Verse (Romans 6:9; John 10:14), and hymns. Truly, the Lord is not only our “Gate” but also our Good Shepherd, Who leads us in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake; even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for He is with us; His rod and His staff they comfort us; His goodness and mercy follows us all the days of our lives, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23).
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +