The Third Sunday of Easter - Misericordis Domini - May 8, 2011

The Church Season of Easter,
Easter 3, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (May 8, 2011)

Readings:  
        Psalm 23   
        Ezekiel 34:11-16   
        1 Peter 2:21-25
        John 10:11-16

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today’s message will be from the Gospel lesson as recorded in the 10th chapter of St. John, especially the following verses:

John 10:11-16 (ESV)

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The love of Jesus Christ for us, is not like a good shepherd, He is the good shepherd.  Jesus tells us of His love from the very first sentence of the reading, “I am”, with those very words God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, even as His people were still held captive in Egypt.  God called Moses from his vocation as a shepherd of sheep, to a shepherd of God’s people.  You’ll remember how that worked out for Moses, what could be called a rag-tag band of Israelites were led from captivity in Egypt to the promised land via a very winding path.  At times it was not the path they wanted nor they would have predicted. But the shepherd led them according to His way, not their way.  God would remind His people of His way through the words of the prophet Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”(Is. 55:8)

But just how far will this shepherd The Shepherd of God go to protect His flock?  As it turns out, more than humanly possible.  A lot has been said about shepherds, you’ve heard most of it before.  The good shepherd,  “knows His own, and His own know Him”(v. 14)  He knows that left to their own devices, His flock would wander according to their own desires.  Oh look over there, something better to eat, oh look over there something better to drink, oh look over there greener pastures, it looks like the shepherd has His head turned now I can cross over to the other field.  And all that leading by ones own thoughts invariably leads to, oh wait a minute I’m lost, confused, I’m being attacked, where is that shepherd when you need Him, oh please come get me out of this mess, how in the world did this all happen to me.  We are all that lone sheep, we are indeed all the ones who have strayed.  We are the ones who have cast ourselves headlong into the challenges that attack and tear our lives apart.  And we did inflict this wound upon ourselves in looking for something better, in looking beyond what the Good Shepherd would have for us.

It was indeed Adam and Eve that looked beyond the wisdom of God in the garden.  While God had given them all the best more than they could ever imagine, they still somehow imagined that they wanted more, something different from what God had given them.  So they wandered away from God’s Word, and willingly trudged along the path of their own desires.  A new and better fruit, yes that’s what the serpent offered, so what if I try the fruit?  What does anyone care what I do?  It’s not hurting anybody so why can’t I make up my own mind?  No matter what the thought process was, the result was not good, straying from God’s Word by the first couple has given the world the result of death.  And to this day, the straying from God’s Word results in death for every person in the world.  For everyone who dies, dies because of sin, whether young or old, whether pious or perverse, whether dainty or diabolical, whether loving or lascivious, there is only one way to receive payment for sin, and that is, “the wages of sin is death.”(Rom. 6:23)  So then, who is this they who are the sheep who wander from Gods flock?  It is everyone of those who receive their wages, and since all die, it means we all have sinned in what we have done, and by what we have left undone.  Each and every one of us is a sheep who has gone astray, who has stretched their neck through the fence for the wild oats on the other side.  Each and every one of us is the sheep who has gone astray who has looked to the left and to the right, to sneak through the hole in the fence just to get a taste of something that looks better than what we think is given us.

Don’t see any fence, enclosure, or sheep pen?  It is indeed there, and you do know that it is there too.  For that boundary was given to you, and actually it is given into your memory whether you would heed it or not.  For that boundary is given to you by God and it is the Ten Commandments.  God has given you a seamless barrier in the words, “You shall have no other gods”, yet you strain through that fence by making trying to make yourself a god, thinking you are cute, wise, and knowledgeable.  And invariably you start out by creating an elusion of a gap in that fence by saying, “did God really say” or “I don’t know what the Bible says, but I think”  or “God didn’t really mean that” or “A loving god wouldn’t be so judgmental, therefore I think.”  And if all that weren’t bad enough, there are those sheep, who have fake shepherds who would not only cast a blind eye to those kinds of thoughts and words, but they would jump right through that hoop right ahead of their sheep.

And who are these fake shepherds of whom Jesus Christ speaks, these hired hands?  Well come on, it must be those Pharisee’s or Sadducee’s that were always attacking Christ, those so called Israel’s leaders who were motivated more by their own self-interest than the care for the sheep.  But Jesus said, “He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.” (v. 12)  The hired hand does not guard flock, but rather in times of trouble instead flees from them to save himself.  These actions too become reality by various means.  The hired hand can abandon the flock by not defending God’s Words.  The shepherd flees his flock by allowing the ideas and whims of the world to form his ideas.  The hired hand shepherd leaves the flock when they allow those to criticize God’s Word by calling it doctrine, by giving in so that we can all just get along.  The hired hand does not, “Preach the Word; [and is not] prepared in season and out of season; [to] correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”(2 Timothy 4:2) The hired hand casts a blind eye to sin, by not calling that which is evil, evil, by not calling that which is sin, sin.  By snickering at that off color joke.  By the use and misuse of God’s Name in vain.  By evil thoughts about those who are deemed not like us or with us.  By not preaching the full council of God.  By saying homosexuality is okay because it hurts no one.  By saying abortion is a woman’s choice, not against God’s choice.  By allowing some to say the Bible is not inerrant.  By not defending a six day creation.  By allowing the idea of evolution to seep into the creation account.  By defending the action of the world based in the idea of democracy rather than from the very Word of God.  And all these are given away by the hired hand Shepherd, whether by saying nothing, or by nodding in silence, or whether by actively agreeing. The hired hand flees his flock by His activity and inactivity and in the end, everywhere that evil shepherd went the sheep were sure to go.

Repent, for we are those sheep who would go astray and who would rather be led by likes of life’s hired hand shepherds.  Our own way always seems to be the best way, our reason seeks to justify the path through the fence of God’s commandments.  And once we have rejected the capstone in the fence’s gate left to our own devices, we do not look back.  We do not gauge our actions against scripture, we do not seek the Good Shepherd, we seek the wide path, and we seek the easy path.  That way no one is offended especially us.  But that path leads to destruction, both for the hired hand and those lost sheep.

But do no despair.  “There will be one flock, one shepherd.”(v. 16)  This flock will know their shepherd by Name and by His voice.  And the sheep hear the Good Shepherd, each time the scriptures are read.  The sheep know the Good Shepherd because they feast on His true body and His true blood.  The sheep know the Shepherd because He is with them in their baptism.  The Good Shepherd does not change His banner, nor His mission statement, nor His ideas of right and wrong because a breeze has turned the weather sock.  Nor does the Good Shepherd follow the flock by leading them by the latest fad to make Himself more like His fellow men, or just because that is the easiest path with the least resistance.

Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd who feeds His flock not by opinion, but by His forgiveness.  Jesus lays down His life so that all who would wound you His sheep, may be healed by the promise of everlasting life.  Jesus Christ will never leave you.  Jesus Christ will not be shaken, lost, shattered, nor will He allow you to be scattered by the forces of this world.  This Good Shepherd did not take the easy path, nor the popular path.  The Good Shepherd took the path to the Cross, where He was brutally crucified, He died, and on the third day He rose again, for you so that you would not be led by the ways of the world to everlasting death.  Rather Jesus  Christ, the Good Shepherd, lays down His life so that you will not be of this world, but rather have the promise of living eternally with Him in His heavenly kingdom, forever and ever.  Amen.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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