Fourth Sunday of Easter

 

Fourth Sunday of Easter (C)

Good Shepherd Sunday

May 8, 2022

Text: John 10:22-30

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

            “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27; ESV).  That is the one thing needful, the critical characteristic of a sheep of Jesus Christ.  We listen for Him.  We hear what He says.  We follow Him.  He knows each one of us.  He calls us by Name.  We come to Him, and go where He leads.  Which is always to what is good, right, and salutary.  Green pastures.  Quiet waters.  Restoration for the soul.  Righteousness.  We can trust Him, even though He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death, because He is with us, guiding us with His rod and staff.  And He leads us through that valley and out the other side, to life, and to feasting, and to a cup that overflows (Ps. 23).

            Those who are not of Jesus’ flock listen to other voices.  They are shepherded by others, who lead them to places other than righteousness and life.  In truth, these other shepherds lead their unsuspecting sheep into the valley of the shadow of death, only to abandon them there, in the clutches of the powers of hell. 

            These voices tempt us to listen, as well.  Because they sound so good.  They appeal to our reason and to our passions.  They appeal to our vanity and to our compulsion for self-justification, self-righteousness.  They make us feel virtuous.  All the while, we are unaware they are leading us to slaughter.  We must stop our ears to these voices.

            We must not listen to the devil and his lies.  He’s a tricky one, that serpent.  He seduces us into reaching for the forbidden fruit.  “See, it is beautiful, it is good for food, it will make you wise.  You can be your own god.  You can chart your own course.  You can create and define your own identity.  Even if that isn’t how God made you.  What does He know, anyhow?  He’s just jealous.  He wants to keep you down, enslave you to His will.  You can’t take His Word so seriously, so literally.”  And, of course, once you have fallen, there is the accuser, now to condemn you and drive you to despair.  “Oh, you cannot be saved now.  Not after what you’ve done.  God is merciful and longsuffering, to be sure, but there is always a limit.  And you have passed it.  Jesus didn’t die for that.  It’s hopeless.  You may as well resign yourself to an eternity with me.” 

            Lies.  That’s what these are.  The murderous devil speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar, and the father of lies (John 8:44).  Repent of ever listening to him.  Your true Shepherd is calling you.  “Adam, where are you?”  Come out of your hiding.  Shed your fig leaves.  Confess your sins.  And be clothed with the skin God provides, which is the bloody atonement and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

            We must not listen to the world in all of its delusional madness.  The world proclaims that, for all practical purposes, “God does not exist.  Oh, there may be such a thing as deity, whether he, she, they, or it, or whatever may be the preferred pronoun.  These things are fluid, after all.  If there is a god… we’ll say he for the sake of old-fashioned convenience… he doesn’t have time for us.  Or interest.  He may swoop in in times of real crisis to save the day, or drop a miracle.  But then again, considering all the evil and suffering in the world, if he cares, he isn’t competent, or if he’s competent, he must not care.  Maybe he’s even capricious.  Maybe he inflicts suffering upon us just for kicks.  In any case, we can never know.  There is no way to know the truth.  As a matter of fact, truth is whatever you want it to be, and feel it to be, for you, just as truth is whatever I want it to be, and feel it to be, for me.  So what does it matter?  Do what makes you happy.  Follow your heart.  You are your own infallible guide.” 

            It sounds a lot like the devil, doesn’t it?  Because he is the father of lies, and liars speak what their father teaches them.  They are deceived!  And anyway, they don’t really mean it.  You are free, in the world’s estimation, to believe and do whatever you want, unless it transgresses the world’s prevailing and ever-changing opinion at the moment.  If you transgress that, if you don’t signal the right virtues at the right time, and unconditionally assent to the world’s dogma, you’ll be cancelled.  And there is no forgiveness.  Not with the world.  When you’re done, you’re done. 

            Repent of ever listening to the world.  Repent of bending your ear away from God and His Word, to the voices of the media and your preferred politicians, the voices of worldly power and celebrity, the voices of popular culture and wokeness.  Hear the voice of Jesus.  “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). 

            And we must not listen to our own, inner voice… the voice of our fallen and sinful flesh.  This is the voice that believes the lies of the devil and of the world, because they make sense, and they tickle the selfish fancy.  These shepherds, we think, will give us what we want, when we want it.  They will urge on us the works of the flesh.  They will scratch the itch.  They will spice the chili.  They will captivate our covetous, greedy, and lustful hearts.  And all the while, they will make us feel good, righteous, justified, and fulfilled. 

            Repent of that.  Repent of following your heart.  Believe what Jesus says of your heart, that from it proceed evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matt. 15:19).  When you follow your heart, you are bent in on yourself, gazing at your own navel, and listening to the base gurgling of your own gut.  Hear, now, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bids you drown old Adam once again in the baptismal waters, and arise, stand up straight before the face of your Father in heaven.  Lift up your head.  Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.  He has given you ears.  Hear Him.  Hear His Word of life.  And believe it.  And keep it.  His is the only voice that will never lie to you. 

            Our Holy Gospel this morning takes place in Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, which is to say, Hanukkah.  This extra-biblical (that is, outside of the Bible) feast commemorates the cleansing and re-dedication of the Jewish Temple during the Maccabean revolt, after Antiochus IV Epiphanes had desecrated it by offering swine on the altar and dedicating it to his god, Zeus.

            Jesus is the fulfillment of Hanukkah.  He comes into His Temple, which has been defiled, not by the Gentiles in this case, but by the idolatrous and deadly teaching of the unfaithful shepherds of Israel, who have fattened themselves and scattered the sheep (Ez. 34).  He comes, and He cleanses His Temple by His voice.  By His speaking.  By His Word.  That is, He teaches His disciples.  He calls His sheep away from the robbers and wolves (the false teachers), to Himself as their true Shepherd and High Priest.  And they hear His voice, and they know Him. 

            And then he offers the true Sacrifice of cleansing and consecration.  And He is Himself that Sacrifice.  For He is not only the Priest.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  By His blood, offered up on the altar of the cross, He atones for all our sin, and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.  And then He reconstitutes the Temple.  He is Himself the Temple, the dwelling place of God with man… “the Word became flesh and [tabernacled] among us” (John 1:14); “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).  This is what He does about evil and suffering in the world.  He comes into it and bears it, along with all sin and uncleanness.  And by His Sacrifice He now cleanses us to be the Temple of the living God… “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16); “For we are the temple of the living God; as God has said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’” (2 Cor. 6:16).  He cleanses us to be His own, and to offer up our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship (Rom. 12:1).  In this is true fulfillment.  In this is real life.  It is wisdom.  It is righteousness.  This is what is good, and true, and beautiful. 

            Christ, our Good Shepherd, delivers this by His voice, by His holy Word.  We must listen to Him, and not to the voices of other would-be shepherds.  He tells us plainly that He is the Christ, our Savior, God’s Messiah.  He reveals to us the Father, who Himself loves us and keeps us.  He does the works of the Father, His signs, His miracles of healing and release.  Even among us, His Baptism, and His Supper.  For any Good Shepherd must bathe and feed His sheep, and bind up their wounds. 

            The voices of the false shepherds lead only to death.  But the voice of this Shepherd leads to eternal life… “they will never perish,” He says.  And no one, and nothing, can snatch us out of His hands.  Not the devil.  Not the world.  Not our own sin and guilt.  As long as we hear His Word, and so abide in Him, we are safe.  For He is ever vigilant.  He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep (Ps. 121:4). 

            The voice of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, is the one thing needful.  Hearing Him, we belong to Him.  We follow Him.  We are with Him.  And He provides for all our needs of body and soul. 

            And in hearing Him, we hear the voice of our Father.  For He is the Word of our Father, and it is as He says to the Jews in our Gospel: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

            Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.