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Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Steve and all the baptized, the Lord Jesus has you as one of his sheep, which seems at first to be nice until we start to think more and more about what it means to be a sheep. I’m told by the people who know these kind of things that sheep don’t have a lot to commend themselves. They’re not fast, they’re not strong, they’re not that smart, they don’t have like an eagle, good eyes.
In fact, apparently, sheep don’t have good eyes at all or a good smell or… You know, sheep without a shepherd are really… they’re really scattered, they’re lost, they’re doomed. And the one thing that sheep can do is they can hear well; again, this is what I’m told. And really, in some ways, that’s the basis of what Jesus is talking about today.
And not… and they don’t hear well in this sense, like they can hear real quiet things far away. That’s not how they hear well. The way that sheep can hear is they can distinguish between one voice and another. So they know who their shepherd is and who’s not their shepherd.
Now, the picture that’s there when Jesus is talking about being the good shepherd and he calls his sheep and he knows them by name and he calls them by voice and they follow him. In fact, before that, Jesus says, “I am the gate of the sheepfold. The sheep come in and go out by me and find pasture.” The picture that it’s working with is the way that the shepherding would happen in the ancient world.
We have to do a little bit of work because one of the problems is that when we think about shepherding in the ancient world, we, at least I, always think of Christmas. That’s the shepherd story, right? The shepherds are out in the fields watching their flock at night. The problem is that is not how it normally happened. It’s a fluke. In fact, it’s probably a fluke because of the geography of Bethlehem, because in the hills all around Bethlehem, there’s all these caves. You can still see them now.
And so the shepherds could take the sheep out and they could at night stuff them into the cave and block the way so that they could be safe. But normally, you would never be out at night with sheep out in the loose because they’re doomed. I mean, they’ll wander off or they’ll get lost or a wolf will come and eat them or even bears. Remember bears and lions that King David had to protect the sheep from? If you’re out there at night, they’re cooked, they’re gone.
So what they would do is the shepherds would take their flock out during the day and take them out. The shepherds knew all the different spots where they could take them to the grass, and they could go and graze and find water and find the food to eat. Then, at night, they would haul all the way back into town with all the sheep and they’d put them all together in a pin.
So all the different flocks, all the different folds of all the different sheep would be in one big pin, and they’d hire a high school kid or something to watch it overnight, right, to keep them safe and keep them all there together. And then in the morning, the shepherds would all come to the pin and they would call out their sheep and separate them from all the others.
They didn’t do it by force. They didn’t get in there and drag them and hold… they would just stand by the edge of the flock and they would call their sheep by name. And the sheep would recognize the voice of their shepherd. In the midst of the cacophony of all of these different shepherds calling for them, the sheep would recognize their shepherd’s voice and come and follow him.
That’s the picture that Jesus has for us today when he says, “I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.” Now, we have to know that there’s a lot of other voices that are crying out for you, that are standing at the edge of the flock, that are crying, “Hey, follow me, follow me.” This is the temptations of the world, the suffering of the world, and the pleasures of the world, and all of these things that are tempting us away from Jesus.
And this is what it means to be a Christian. It’s the most Christian thing that you can do, is that you hear the voice of Jesus. Remember how Luther, in Small Called, defines the church? He says, “Because even a six-year-old child knows what the church is.” I wonder what six-year-old child he’s thinking of.
But it’s just this simple; this is the point, is that the church is holy believers in sheep who hear the voice of their Good Shepherd. Now this is so important because, like sheep, we, if we don’t have the right shepherd, are doomed. But if we have the right shepherd, we have everything that we need.
This is why I think that picture of the good shepherd is so profoundly comforting and has been so profoundly comforting to Christians all throughout the years. We had, yesterday in Buck’s funeral, we heard Psalm 23, and so many funerals have Psalm 23. In some ways, some people are, “Well, I want to pick a different psalm because everyone has Psalm 23,” but there’s not a better psalm than that.
And Psalm 23 is the best because it almost gives us everything that we need. It’s an amazing thing to me that all of us, you know, we come into church every Sunday with all sorts of different things going on. All of us have different problems. I sometimes have wondered if we should just do a checklist or survey, like, “What’s your big problem today?”
And we come here with all sorts of different things. Sometimes it’s that we’re suffering physically, we’re sick. Sometimes we’re dying. Sometimes we’re suffering spiritually; we’re in anguish. Sometimes we’re mourning, sometimes we’re angry, sometimes we’re fighting, sometimes we’re hungry and poor, sometimes we’re lonely, sometimes we’re confused or distressed or whatever.
We have all these different problems, but it seems like every single one of them is addressed by Psalm 23 and this preaching that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. If you’re lost, if you don’t know which way you’re going, if you’re confused, Jesus is… he’s the one who seeks and saves the lost. He leaves the 99 in the wilderness, and he comes and he grabs you.
If you’re confused, if you’re disoriented, if you don’t know what you’re doing, where life is taking you, he is the one who leads you in the paths of righteousness. If you’re poor, if you’re hungry, if you’re thirsty, he’s the one who feeds you. He makes you lie down in the green grass and leads you to the cool water.
If you’re sad, he’s the one who comforts you. If you’re angry, he’s the one who helps you. If you’re lonely, he’s the one who calls you by name. Can you imagine this? You are never, ever alone. The Lord is with you. If you’re dying, that’s what he says. If you’re dying, he’s the one who walks with you through the valley of the shadow of death.
It doesn’t matter whatever problem that you have. Now, the Lord, the Good Shepherd, has just exactly and precisely what you need. Some of you say, “Pastor, I’m all of those things.” Well, he’s all of those things for you too. He is your Good Shepherd.
And most especially, I think the thing that Jesus wants us to consider is that when we are threatened and when we are in danger, he is the one who guards and protects us. The dangers that threaten us are not wolves and bears and lions and things like that, although maybe, I don’t know, someday if you’re in Africa or something, you might have those threatening you. But the three dangers that threaten us are sin and death and the devil. Those are the enemies.
Here’s what Jesus wants to impress upon our hearts and our minds today. It’s almost too good to be true. And that is that when these enemies charge against us, he protects us. He defends us in such a way that he puts himself between you and all of your enemies, and he stays there and fights against your enemies, even to the death, so that he would rather die than you.
Can you imagine it? If you were, you know, in the wilderness and you are a sheep, and here comes a wolf licking his chops and wanting to devour you, and the wolf is running at you with his mouth gaping wide open, ready to bite you up, and Jesus steps in between you and the wolf so that he’s the one who’s bitten, he’s the one who’s wounded, he’s the one who gives up his life. “I am the Good Shepherd, I lay down my life for the sheep.” I give everything for the sheep.
Now, we can imagine it, I think, with death and the devil, but it’s a harder time, and this is where we kind of have to focus for a few minutes on sin. Because you can imagine the devil… Can you imagine the devil prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking who he can devour? And you imagine the devil trying to go and to devour you, and he’s coming at you, and Jesus says, “Nope,” and he puts himself between you and the devil, your mighty fortress, the one who holds the field forever.
He stands between you and all the demonic forces so that he gets the brunt of the devil’s anger instead of you getting it. You can imagine it’s beautiful. We can imagine a similar thing with death. Can you imagine death like the grave? Imagine a grave kind of comes to life, and it’s just a huge big devouring mouth, and it’s coming after you, and it just wants to eat you up. You can imagine Jesus, he sees the grave coming at you, and he steps in between you and the grave so that the grave devours him instead and swallows up him instead and then three days later spits him out and dies.
So that Jesus stands between you and the devil. He stands between you and the grave. But how does Jesus stand between us and sin? This is a little tricky to imagine because sin is not out there, like the grave, like the devil. Sin, is it not? Is in here. It’s in our own hearts. It’s in our own minds. We want the wrong stuff. We think the wrong things. We do the wrong things. We say wrong and wicked things. We are sinners.
So how does Jesus stand between us and this enemy, sin? This is where the scripture takes a most marvelous, surprising, and beautiful turn. It turns out that the shepherd is also a sheep. That the good shepherd, Jesus, is also the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Now look, you’re either one or the other, right? You’re either a shepherd or a sheep, unless you’re Jesus. Let me read you one verse that just captures this shock, this kind of, this beautiful mixing up of images. Revelation 7:17. John is looking at the throne, and there on the throne, he sees Jesus, the Lamb, and it says this, “For the Lamb who sits in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd.” Did you see it? He’ll lead them to the springs of the living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
In other words, the Good Shepherd is pleased to become a lamb so that as a lamb he can suffer the wrath of God. He can stand between you and what you deserve because of your sin. He can take all of that himself so that he can even stand between you and your sin, between you and your rebellion, between you and your breaking of God’s law, and he can stand and take the punishment that you deserve and forgive your sins.
This is what it means that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I remember I was telling the children this story one time. I don’t know if I… I might have told it to you again, but if you can imagine that you are a lamb that’s wandered off and you’ve wandered away from the flock, and you’re lost in the woods, and there you are, nervous and afraid, and then you hear some sort of rustling sound and here comes a wolf out of his den, you’ve wandered right there, and he says, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here because I am hungry, and I’m going to eat you right now.”
Well, it’s nice he gives you warning in the story, I suppose. And you’re like, “Oh great, here I am, ready to be devoured by this wolf,” and you hear rustling in the leaves behind you, and you think, “How much worse could this get?” But then out of the bushes steps the shepherd, your shepherd, and you have this little relief because you’ve seen what he’s done to this wolf before with his rod and his staff, knocking him on the nose, protecting him and keeping him.
And the shepherd says to the wolf who’s ready to devour you, he says, “Hey, you can’t devour that sheep. That sheep belongs to me.” And the wolf says, “Well, true enough, I’m not supposed to devour the sheep that belong to you, but you know the rules. When the sheep wander into my den, they belong to me now.” And you, the little sheep, remember learning that in catechism class, and now you’re really worried because you realize you’re right here in the den of the wolf, and what are you going to do?
And the shepherd says, “Well, okay, it’s true. It’s true that if the sheep wander into your cave, they belong to you, but I’d like to propose something. I would like to offer myself instead. Eat me, devour me, destroy me instead.” And with amazement and wonder, you watch as the wolf jumps onto your shepherd and devours him. This is Jesus, who is the shepherd who gives up his life for the sheep, who gives up his life for you so that he can have you in eternal life and forgive your sins and bring you to the resurrection and the new heaven and the new earth where the righteous dwell.
Whatever it is that troubles us, whatever it is that troubles you, this is good news. Christ Jesus is your Good Shepherd. He has died for you. He forgives you all your sins, and he will keep you through all the troubles of this life until he brings you to the joys of life eternal.
Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia. Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
