Fourth Sunday of Easter

Fourth Sunday of Easter (C)

Good Shepherd Sunday

May 12, 2019

Text: John 10:22-30

            He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

            It is an astonishing claim: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30; ESV).  What our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is saying about Himself, is that He is God.  He is not another God than the Father… Though the Persons of Father and Son are distinct, they are, with the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  In fact, this language of unity, “I and the Father are one,” echoes the Shema, the great Creed of the Old Testament, “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4).  So while the Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son, Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one God.  Jesus is taking us into the wondrous mystery of the Holy Trinity.  This flesh and blood Son of Mary, born in time, is the everlasting Son of the everlasting Father.  He is God.  And if you don’t believe it, look at His works.  That is what He says to the Jews who do not believe in Him (John 10:25).  The works He does in the Name of His Father bear witness to this truth.  He does what only God can do.  He heals the sick.  Gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf.  He casts out demons.  He raises the dead.  He is YHWH.  He is the LORD.

            And He is the Shepherd.  The good One.  And when His sheep hear His voice, they know it is the voice of the living God.  And they follow Him.

            Here we have the mystery of faith vs. unbelief.  The Jews do not believe in Him.  They surround Him as He is walking in the Colonnade of Solomon, the great pillared porch on the eastern side of the Temple’s outer courtyard.  It is winter.  Jesus is celebrating Hanukkah with His disciples.  That is the Feast of Dedication commemorating the cleansing and rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus and his brothers and the priests after Antiochus had profaned and plundered the Temple, set up an altar to Zeus in the Most Holy Place, and sacrificed swine on the altar of burnt offering. 

            Now this is the true cleansing and rededication of the Temple.  Jesus has come to it.  The LORD is in it, YHWH, in the flesh.  In fact, His flesh is the true Temple, the place, the location, of God’s dwelling with His people.  And the great irony is that, in their unbelief, these Jews will commit the abomination of Antiochus.  They will plunder the Temple that is our Lord’s Body.  They will offer His Body on the altar of the cross to their false god.  For any god who is not the Father of Jesus is no God!  It is important for you to understand that it is not the case that the Jews worship the Father even though they deny Jesus.  You can’t have the Father without the Son.  If you have the Son, you have the Father.  There is no other God than the One who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And the Son became flesh to be the sacrifice for our sins.

            The Jews don’t believe because they are not part of Jesus’ flock.  They are not of Jesus’ flock because they do not hear His voice.  Because they do not hear His voice, they do not follow Him.  What is it that makes the difference between faith and unbelief?  It is the voice of Jesus.  Which is to say, His Word.  Jesus calls us by the Gospel.  He calls us to follow Him.  The Gospel gives us sheep, ears to hear and the will to follow. 

            It is an amazing thing that sheep know the voice of their shepherd.  At night, shepherds often pen their sheep in a common sheep-fold with the flocks of other shepherds.  The sheep intermix.  The flocks are not kept distinct.  But in the morning, when it is time to lead the flock back out to pasture, each shepherd will call.  And those sheep, as dumb as they may be otherwise, know exactly which voice to follow.  They don’t follow the voice of a stranger.  They don’t follow the voice of any other shepherd.  They know their shepherd’s voice.  They follow their shepherd and go where he calls them. 

            Jesus is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep.  And here we are in His sheep-fold that is the holy Christian Church, and on earth, we’re in the world and all mixed together with unbelievers, those who follow other shepherds and other voices.  But we know the voice of our Shepherd.  He calls us to follow Him.  He calls us together, congregates us to his side, so He can do the 23^rd Psalm for us.  He makes us to lie down here in the green pastures of His Word.  Here we are immersed in the lush pastures of the Holy Scriptures and the preaching.  He leads us beside the quiet waters of our Baptism into Him.  Our thirst for righteousness is quenched by His own righteousness given to us as a gift, applied in the Absolution, which is always a return to the water.  He restores our souls and leads us in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.  Now it happens sometimes that we wander a little too far from the rest of the flock.  What does He do?  He calls us back.  He preaches His Word.  The rod of His Law may have to give us a rap on the behind or hook us around the neck and drag us back to the safety of the flock and the protection of the Shepherd.  But His staff, the Gospel, also comforts us and gives us to believe that He is good, that all He does is for our good and for our salvation (even the things that are painful to us or contrary to our will), that we are safe with Him. 

            Sometimes we stray far away.  Our Good Shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to find and rescue His lost sheep.  He frees us from the snare or from the jaws of the wolf, to His own hurt and injury.  No one can snatch you out of His hand.  He hoists us onto His shoulders and brings us back to the fold.  Sometimes we kick and bite along the way, but He does not put us down.  He applies the medicine of His Word and the salve of the Holy Gospel.  He binds our wounds.  He heals us and makes us whole.

            And how can He do that?  Or to phrase the question the way the unbelieving Jews often phrased it, who gives Him this authority to do these things?  To bind up wounds?  To take away hurts?  To discipline with His rod?  To forgive sins and restore sheep to the Father?  He is God.  “I and the Father are one.”  He is God who is a Man who straps on His sandals, picks up His staff, and plods out to the field to tend and feed us, His sheep.  Who gives Him this authority?  His Father.  Who does He think He is?  He doesn’t just think it, He is… God.  He is… the Good Shepherd.

            And if, after all the works He does in His Father’s Name, the works that testify that He is who He says He is, you still do not believe, behold now the greatest of the works.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  The Jews killed Him for who He claimed to be: one with the Father, God.  The Romans killed Him for treason, claiming to be a King.  You killed Him by your sins.  I killed Him by my sins.  But the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.  He goes to the cross willingly, and for you.  He pursues you, and me, and the Romans, and the Jews, all the way through the valley of the shadow of death, deep down into it.  He dies.  He is buried.  Three days of the most terrible and wonderful event in history.  And on the Third Day, He blows a hole through the tomb so big and wide a flock of sheep can stampede through it to life again.

            Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and now you don’t have to fear death.  You need fear no evil.  He leads you through the valley of the shadow and out the other side, alive.  Risen.  Forever.  He gives you eternal life, and you will never perish.  Only God could do that.  And He does.  For you.  He is your Good Shepherd.  He does not leave you or forsake you.  Not even in death. 

            In fact, what He does is prepare a Table before you, right here in the presence of your enemies.  His crucified and risen Body.  The very Blood poured out for you on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins.  You don’t have die and go to heaven to taste the Feast He lays out for you.  You don’t have to wait for the resurrection on the Last Day.  Right here and now, in the world, in the sheep-fold of your congregation, there is the Table.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  He anoints your head with oil.  Before the whole world He attests that you are His royal priest, sons and daughters of His Father, the King.  Your cup runneth over.  His goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life, and there is no doubt.  You will dwell in the House of the LORD forever. 

            Because He calls you.  He calls you to be His own.  You hear His voice, and you know it.  That is faith.  Jesus and the Father are one.  Safe in Jesus’ hands, you are safely in the hands of the Father.  Having Jesus, you have the Father.  Hearing Jesus, you hear the Father.  You hear Jesus in the preaching of the Gospel and the eating of it at His Table.  Listen.  Your Good Shepherd is calling.  You know you can follow Him.  You know you can trust Him.  You know you can believe every Word He says.  For you have objective proof of it, and the proof of it is this: He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.