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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. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
I appreciate our member Don Gibson’s talking about the sheep that he raises, how his greater experiences with his sheep reinforce for him the Bible’s using sheep as a figure of speech for people. Most of the rest of us probably have lesser experience with sheep: maybe you have watched an annual sheep-shearing demonstration at school, as I did a for number of years; or, maybe you have touched sheep at a petting zoo; or maybe you have eaten sheep, as I do in the gyro available down the street at Taste of Chicago. You really do not have to know much about sheep or the shepherds who care for them in order to get the gist of what Jesus says in the Gospel Reading for today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also often called “Good Shepherd Sunday”, for Jesus’s calling Himself “the Good Shepherd” in two verses that follow today’s Gospel Reading (John 10:11, 14). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus contrásts Himself, Who came to give life, with others—strangers, thieves and robbers—who came to steal, kill, and destroy. And, Jesus contrásts the sheep’s reaction to Him—their knowing His voice, listening to His call, and following where He leads—with the sheep’s reaction to others—the sheep’s not knowing the others’ voice, not listening to them, and not following but fleeing them. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “The Good Shepherd calls and leads out His sheep”.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus seems to describe the sheep as being in a “sheepfold”, which could be an enclosed pen in front of a house, or an enclosed courtyard in a community, surrounded by a stone wall topped with briars. Used at night, the walls would protect the shepherds and the sheep from predators, and the walls would keep the sheep from wandering, which they apparently love to do. In today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 2:19-25), the Divinely‑inspired St. Peter tells his original hearers and us that we were straying like sheep by our sins, an apparent reference to prophecy that God spoke through Isaiah, which said that all we like sheep have gone astray, that we have turned, every one, to his or her own way (Isaiah 53:6; confer Psalm 119:176). Through Ezekiel, God said His sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill, with none to search or seek for them (Ezekiel 34:6). But, St. Luke’s Gospel account records Jesus’s teaching a parable about a man, arguably corresponding to Jesus (Luke 19:10), who has one‑hundred sheep but goes after even one that is lost until he finds it, and, when he has found it, lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing with friends and neighbors, though, Jesus says, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:3-7).
In today’s Gospel Reading, the sheep may be in the sheepfold, but, by nature and in our everyday lives, we all are not. We all are sinful and, on account of our sin, we deserve nothing but both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. But, out of His great love, mercy, and grace, the Good Shepherd calls His own sheep: to know His voice, to listen to His call, and to follow where He leads. Those who are not His own sheep do not know His voice, listen to His call, and follow where He leads. They may refuse to accept His Word as God’s Word and regard it as oppressive external authority and so rebel against it (Pieper, I:137). When we hear our Good Shepherd’s enabling call and thereby repent, then God forgives us our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of our Good Shepherd.
In today’s Gospel Reading, arguably using one of God’s Old Testament Names, Jesus identifies Himself as the Door of the sheep, and, since Jesus also seems to describe Himself as the One Who enters by the door, so He also seems to identify Himself as the Shepherd of the sheep. In the verses after today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus—Who was born of a line of shepherds such as David (1 Samuel 17:15, 34) and Whose birth was announced to shepherds (Luke 2:8‑14)—explicitly says that He is the Good Shepherd Who lays down His life for the sheep and takes it back up again (John 10:11, 15, 17‑18). This is the Easter Season after all! On the cross, Jesus died for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins. Jesus died the death that we deserved for us, in our place. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his or her own way, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). And, His resurrection in part shows that the Lord accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. Because of His sacrifice, He can give us life (Preisker/Schulz, TDNT 6:691). Everything starts with Him: He calls, and we listen; He leads, and we follow. As we heard in today’s First Reading (Acts 2:42‑47), the Lord adds to the number of the Church, day by day, those who are being saved. And, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, those who enter by Jesus will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
Whatever else might be being said in today’s Gospel Reading about authority and the Jewish leaders and possibly others as thieves and robbers who steal and kill and destroy, clearly Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and those with Him, His under-shepherds, we call them (confer 1 Peter 5:4; Hebrews 13:20), are the ones who give life. They give life through His Word in all of its forms, including Holy Baptism, water and the Word, where He both generally first calls us by our names and puts His Triune Name upon us; Holy Absolution, touch and the Word, where those who privately confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts are forgiven in that same Triune Name; and in the Sacrament of the Altar, bread and wine and the Word, where we eat the Body and drink the Blood of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world and so have forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Whatever else might be being said in today’s Gospel Reading about where our Good Shepherd and His under-shepherds lead, clearly we as their sheep should not know the stranger’s voice, listen to them, and follow them, but we should instead flee them. We should renounce and abandon false teachings and false teachers (Marquart, CLD IX:59). As St. Paul warned the pastors of Ephesus, even among the pastors of churches arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them (Acts 20:30). As St. Paul exhorted the Corinthians and us, using words that God first spoke through Isaiah, go out from their midst and be separate from them (2 Corinthians 6:17, citing Isaiah 52:11). And, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, if we do good and suffer for it and endure, it is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
Without a great deal of experience with or knowledge of actual sheep, this morning we have considered how “The Good Shepherd calls and leads out His sheep”, that is, us. We by nature stray in sin, and God enables us to repent and then freely forgives us for our Good Shepherd’s sake, so that we follow Him. Psalm 95, from which was drawn today’s Introit (Psalm 95:1-3, 6-7a; antiphon John 10:14, 15b), is part of the rich Old Testament background for Jesus in the New Testament’s identifying Himself as the Good Shepherd, and Psalm 95 perhaps is somewhat familiar to you from the psalm’s use as the Venite in Matins. As we sang earlier in general, I again exhort you now in particular regarding the Sacrament of the Altar: Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His Hand.
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 + + +