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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!)
Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter on the Church Calendar, is also affectionately known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”, as on this Sunday, in each year of our three-year series of Readings, we hear in the Gospel Reading a portion of Jesus’s teaching in John chapter 10 about Himself as the Good Shepherd, and the other Readings and such each year are also on that same theme. Today’s Second Reading is no exception, with the Elder’s statement to St. John that the Lamb in the midst of the throne will shepherd those coming out of the great tribulation. In a special Sunday-morning sermon-series titled, “Resurrection and Revelation”, Pastor Adler and I are focusing on our Second Readings drawn from Revelation this Easter Season, and so today our theme is “The Lamb shepherds the sheep”.
Found nowhere else in at least the New Testament, the idea that any lamb is shepherding sheep brings to my mind English novelist George Orwell’s satirical book Animal Farm, in which a group of animals rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy (Wikipedia). In the case of today’s Second Reading, the Lamb is said to be such an accepted predicate of the exalted Christ in the book of Revelation that there is no sense of incongruity in the book’s essentially calling the Lamb the Shepherd (Jeremias, TDNT 6:494 n.85). Indeed, in today’s Second Reading as whole, the Lamb is mentioned a total of three other times, in close connection with presumably God the Father on the throne and as the Redeemer. This passage from Revelation is at least part of the First Reading on All Saints’ Day every year (with the optional addition of Revelation 7:2-8), and rightly so, as it beautifully pictures the Church Triumphant either before or on the Last Day. The passage comes in Revelation as an interlude, or parenthesis, between the Lamb’s opening the sixth and seventh seals of the scroll that we heard about last week (Revelation 5:1-14), and so the passage promises, to us who are God’s repentant and believing people, security and deliverance amid His judgment on the unrepentant and unbelieving world.
Throughout the Bible, literal shepherds tending to literal sheep are an important part of the economy, moving flocks around the dry ground often far from home in search of green pastures and still waters (confer Psalm 23:1-2). So, gods, kings, and other rulers were often figuratively referred to as shepherds of their various subjects as figurative sheep. (See Jeremias, TDNT 6:486.) Often, God through His prophets criticized those shepherds, as we today might criticize our rulers. To be sure, we are more willing to criticize our elected leaders and others who have oversight over us, than we are willing to criticize ourselves. For example, we are more likely to say that our president should do such and such, than we are to say that we should, or much less actually, pray more for Him. We are more likely to say that our pastor should reach out more, than we are to say that we should, or much less actually, invite someone we know to church. As God says through Isaiah, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6 ESV). Our sinful nature leads us to commit countless, sometimes unspeakable, sins, for which sinful nature and sins we all deserve nothing but present and eternal punishment. But, out of His great love, mercy, and grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to be sorry for our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin. Like the Shepherd that He is, the Lord, as it were, whistles for and otherwise seeks us straying sheep, and, when He finds us, He carries us home rejoicing (Zechariah 10:8; Judges 5:16; Isaiah 56:8; Luke 15:4-6).
In today’s Second Reading, the innumerable multitude of saints standing, as if resurrected (confer Revelation 20:12), before the throne of God the Father and before the Lamb—and presumably also before the Holy Spirit, Who is closely associated with the throne and with the Lamb (Revelation 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6)—those saints ascribed to God the saints’ salvation, and the myriads of angels, twenty-four elders, and four living creatures affirmed with their “Amen” that ascription of the saints’ salvation to God. The Son of God in the human flesh of Jesus—Who descended from a line of shepherds, Whose birth was announced to shepherds, and Whose suffering and death as the Good Shepherd in order to change the sheep was long prophesied (Zechariah 13:1-9; confer Jeremias, TDNT 6:488, 492)—truly is the Lamb of God Who once was slain on the cross for the sin of the world but Who on the third day was resurrected and so stands again and is rightly praised for our redemption. As we will sing in the third Distribution Hymn, “For the sheep the Lamb has bled ... Sinless in the sinner’s stead” (Lutheran Service Book 463:2). God through Ezekiel promised that the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, would be a descendant of David Who would shepherd and feed His flock (Ezekiel 34:23), and, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus essentially told the Jewish leaders that the works that He did in His Father’s Name bore witness to His being the Christ but they did not believe (John 10:22-30). When we repent and believe, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us through the ministry of His Word and Sacraments.
For example, in today’s First Reading, St. Paul commands the pastors of Ephesus to continue paying careful attention to themselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit gave them oversight, shepherding the Church of God, which He obtained with His own blood (Acts 20:17-35). And, those pastors, which term comes from the Latin word for “shepherd”, so shepherd the church by doing such things as reading and preaching God’s Word and individually absolving those who privately confess their sins to them. In the Second Reading, those in that Church are seen clothed in white robes (confer Revelation 6:11), washed, as it were, in Holy Baptism (Titus 3:5; Acts 22:16), a spring of living water, and there at the Baptismal Font called by name. As we hear our Good Shepherd’s voice and follow Him, He feeds us, not in literal green pastures but on the figurative green pasture of bread that is His own Body given for us, and He gives us to drink not of literal still waters but of the figurative still waters of wine that is His own Blood. Shed for us And, so, in the Holy Supper, He gives us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
On this day that society observes as Mother’s Day, we thank God for all of those who have been a mother to us in various ways, and we are reminded by Holy Scripture that the sheep with young are singled out by the Good Shepherd for gentle leading (Isaiah 40:11). In this life we all have great tribulation, including such things as bad elected leaders, fierce wolves in the flock of the Church on Earth, and physical or mental illnesses. But, as we hear our Good Shepherd’s voice and follow Him, He brings us through our afflictions, whatever they might be. Ultimately, as we heard Jesus say in the Gospel Reading, no one will, or even is able to, snatch us out of our Good Shepherd’s hand, or arm. As we plead with the psalmist, He is our Shepherd and carries us (Psalm 28:9). We have eternal peace and joy already now! And, in the end, our Palm Sunday cries of “Hosanna”, or “Save us” (John 12:13), with the same victory palm branches, turn into cries of “Alleluia”, or “Praise the Lord”, or “Amen”. Whether or not we are buried with a palm branch in our hand, and whether or not we are even buried, we who repent and believe will stand resurrected before the Triune God, continuously worshipping Him for eternity, fully freed from every evil (confer Pieper, III:552).
In Animal Farm, the group of animals that rebelled against their human farmer hoped to create a better society, but, under the dictatorship of a pig named “Napoleon”, they ended up worse off than they were before. But, when “The Lamb shepherds the sheep”, we end up far better than we were before. God freely forgives us who repent and believe, for the sake of His Son, the Lamb Who was slain but Who stands again and shepherds His sheep. So, whether we consider today Mother’s Day, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, or Good Shepherd Sunday, as we sang in today’s Introit (Psalm 78:70-72, 79:13; antiphon John 10:14, 15b), we His people, the sheep of His pasture, give thanks to Him forever; from generation to generation, we recount His praise.
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 + + +