| misericordiasdomini.mp3 |
Misericordias Domini (23 April 2023)
Ezekiel 34:11-16; 1 Peter 2:21-25; St John 10:11-18
LSB 481, 709, 66, 864, 737, 534, 735
+INJ+
The ancient understanding of goodness was much deeper and richer than what our post-modern minds allow. Good in our contemporary culture is a matter of opinion. It is assumed that what is frequent is normal. And what is normal is good. Thus it is argued that if something is prevalent is must be normal. And if a majority of people agree that it is good then it must be.
This tactic was employed by the proponents of so-called same-sex marriage. It is also the strategy of the advocates of transgenderism. The frequency with which moral degeneracy is displayed normalizes it. And if something is perceived as normal it will eventually be accepted as good.
This is not only true for society at large, but we do this individually. For our own consciences and lives. When we normalize sinful behavior we desensitize our consciences to God’s holy Law.
For the ancients this was a disastrous way of understanding good. Destructive not only to society but to the soul. Plato’s most famous allegory is that of the cave. A group of people who have lived chained up in cave all their lives facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them. These shadows are the prisoners’ reality. They give them names. But they are not true representations of the real world. They are not good.
Plato explains that the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not the substance. He returns to inform his fellow prisoners and help them break free of society’s assumptions of what is good and to grasp the ultimate good of God Himself. But they refuse to believe his words and kill him. They’d rather live in their delusion.
Our problem is that according to our sin-nature we are constantly fighting that notion of goodness. Our sin-nature thinks there is freedom in the cave. It wants to live in the delusion. For freedom Christ has set you free. Our delusion is that we often have a romantic notion of the Good Shepherd, thinking that His goodness resides in His affection for the sheep. That He is the strong, yet gentle lover of the sheep.
Fine. That notion is not completely out of place in the New Testament. But that is not what the ancients described as good. And that is not what Jesus is saying. He is not saying, “I am the gentle Lover of the sheep.” But neither is He saying He is the Good Shepherd in the way that our culture misunderstands that word.
Our Lord didn’t speak in English. He probably spoke in Aramaic or possibly Hebrew. There is even a chance He spoke this in Greek. In one sense it doesn’t matter what language He spoke. The Holy Spirit has given His Word to us in Greek. And what the Holy Spirit gives is authoritative. So you might as well learn a Greek word today. The word translated as “good” is kalos. Jesus said, I am the Kalos Shepherd.
That word has a tremendous amount of theological freight. Everything from when God saw all that He had made in the beginning and behold it was kalos. The kalos sacrifices of Abel, the shepherd. The appearance of the Son of God to the shepherd Moses in the Burning Bush. The Passover and Exodus. Psalm 23. Ezekiel 34. And a host of other passages.
Good, kalos, is understood as how perfectly a thing fulfills the purpose for which it was given. Kalos means good, right, fitting. It means true, beautiful and perfect. It means competent, good for you, noble.
What Jesus is saying is that He is the Perfect Shepherd, the True Shepherd, even the Noble Shepherd. Precisely because He lays down His Life for the sheep. He is the most fitting, uniquely qualified and best Shepherd for sinners. He is, in fact the only Shepherd who can actually bear this title. Not Abel or Moses. Not King David nor all his sons. They were only types, shadows on the cave wall of the gracious rule of our Kalos Shepherd. Even the most faithful, best Pastor is but a poor echo of the true Shepherd.
Our Lord’s primary purpose in this assertion is to deny the claims of all other shepherds. He denies the claim of the many shepherd gods and kings of the Greeks. He rejects all pagan claims to being good. At the same time He rejects the claims of the Pharisees, Priests, and Essenes. He is not the Good Shepherd how they mean or even expect. He is the Kalos Shepherd who alone is the Redeemer, Savior and Atoning Sacrifice for sinners.
The Lord alone can make this claim. Even all undershepherds, whether King David or Pastor Mierow, shepherd another’s sheep while himself being a sheep of the Kalos Shepherd. He alone is the Kalos Shepherd. He is Alone is the One who is morally and ontologically good. He is wholly perfect, without blemish or stain or sin.
But His claim does not come from being morally or even essentially good. Jesus’ claim that He is the Kalos Shepherd comes from His faithful obedience and perfect sacrifice. He is the true and only Shepherd because He gives His Life for the sheep. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in His Body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. He is the Good Shepherd.
And that which is good gives insight into that which is beautiful and that which is true. For Plato beauty was eternal and moved man to seek after harmony. St Augustine taught that God wove beauty into every part of creation. And that things were especially beautiful when they worked according to the goodness of their created purpose.
Is it any wonder that our culture, which has made goodness subjective, has effectively expelled the timeless standard of beauty from discussion also? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” they claim. If goodness is relative than so also beauty and likewise truth. And if these three virtues - goodness, beauty and truth - describe God, than He too must be subjective.
Thus does the Kalos Shepherd speak the truth, I am the Good Shepherd, I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My Life for the sheep. He is Truth Incarnate. He is the Kalos Shepherd. He is the Beautiful Savior.
Dear lambs, He has called you out of the dark cave of sin and death, bringing you into the beautiful Light of His Truth according to His Good Word. As you are loved by He who is Wisdom Incarnate so do you love the Wisdom of His Word. And as you share this beautiful Word of truth and goodness do not be surprised that the world hates you and may even seek to kill you. Resist the temptation to return to the cave.
Rather, listen to the call of your Good Shepherd. For He brings you here by the Voice of His true Word to the sheepfold of His Church. Psalm 50 exclaims, The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
Come, then, dear little lambs. Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. Your Kalos Shepherd is with you. His rod and staff, His Word and Spirit, they comfort you. Behold, He has prepared a Table before you. A Feast of rich food, given in the righteousness of Christ, His own Body and Blood, swallowed by death, alive from the grave, given to you hear as the Food of Immorality.
The wolf may howl, he may snarl and rage, but death cannot have you, its sting is lost, its power undone. The Lamb the sheep has ransomed. You belong to Christ, the Great Good Shepherd and Bishop of your body and your soul, who gathers you together as one flock. His truth and goodness follow you always. You shall dwell in His beautiful House forever.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
Ezekiel 34:11-16; 1 Peter 2:21-25; St John 10:11-18
LSB 481, 709, 66, 864, 737, 534, 735
+INJ+
The ancient understanding of goodness was much deeper and richer than what our post-modern minds allow. Good in our contemporary culture is a matter of opinion. It is assumed that what is frequent is normal. And what is normal is good. Thus it is argued that if something is prevalent is must be normal. And if a majority of people agree that it is good then it must be.
This tactic was employed by the proponents of so-called same-sex marriage. It is also the strategy of the advocates of transgenderism. The frequency with which moral degeneracy is displayed normalizes it. And if something is perceived as normal it will eventually be accepted as good.
This is not only true for society at large, but we do this individually. For our own consciences and lives. When we normalize sinful behavior we desensitize our consciences to God’s holy Law.
For the ancients this was a disastrous way of understanding good. Destructive not only to society but to the soul. Plato’s most famous allegory is that of the cave. A group of people who have lived chained up in cave all their lives facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them. These shadows are the prisoners’ reality. They give them names. But they are not true representations of the real world. They are not good.
Plato explains that the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not the substance. He returns to inform his fellow prisoners and help them break free of society’s assumptions of what is good and to grasp the ultimate good of God Himself. But they refuse to believe his words and kill him. They’d rather live in their delusion.
Our problem is that according to our sin-nature we are constantly fighting that notion of goodness. Our sin-nature thinks there is freedom in the cave. It wants to live in the delusion. For freedom Christ has set you free. Our delusion is that we often have a romantic notion of the Good Shepherd, thinking that His goodness resides in His affection for the sheep. That He is the strong, yet gentle lover of the sheep.
Fine. That notion is not completely out of place in the New Testament. But that is not what the ancients described as good. And that is not what Jesus is saying. He is not saying, “I am the gentle Lover of the sheep.” But neither is He saying He is the Good Shepherd in the way that our culture misunderstands that word.
Our Lord didn’t speak in English. He probably spoke in Aramaic or possibly Hebrew. There is even a chance He spoke this in Greek. In one sense it doesn’t matter what language He spoke. The Holy Spirit has given His Word to us in Greek. And what the Holy Spirit gives is authoritative. So you might as well learn a Greek word today. The word translated as “good” is kalos. Jesus said, I am the Kalos Shepherd.
That word has a tremendous amount of theological freight. Everything from when God saw all that He had made in the beginning and behold it was kalos. The kalos sacrifices of Abel, the shepherd. The appearance of the Son of God to the shepherd Moses in the Burning Bush. The Passover and Exodus. Psalm 23. Ezekiel 34. And a host of other passages.
Good, kalos, is understood as how perfectly a thing fulfills the purpose for which it was given. Kalos means good, right, fitting. It means true, beautiful and perfect. It means competent, good for you, noble.
What Jesus is saying is that He is the Perfect Shepherd, the True Shepherd, even the Noble Shepherd. Precisely because He lays down His Life for the sheep. He is the most fitting, uniquely qualified and best Shepherd for sinners. He is, in fact the only Shepherd who can actually bear this title. Not Abel or Moses. Not King David nor all his sons. They were only types, shadows on the cave wall of the gracious rule of our Kalos Shepherd. Even the most faithful, best Pastor is but a poor echo of the true Shepherd.
Our Lord’s primary purpose in this assertion is to deny the claims of all other shepherds. He denies the claim of the many shepherd gods and kings of the Greeks. He rejects all pagan claims to being good. At the same time He rejects the claims of the Pharisees, Priests, and Essenes. He is not the Good Shepherd how they mean or even expect. He is the Kalos Shepherd who alone is the Redeemer, Savior and Atoning Sacrifice for sinners.
The Lord alone can make this claim. Even all undershepherds, whether King David or Pastor Mierow, shepherd another’s sheep while himself being a sheep of the Kalos Shepherd. He alone is the Kalos Shepherd. He is Alone is the One who is morally and ontologically good. He is wholly perfect, without blemish or stain or sin.
But His claim does not come from being morally or even essentially good. Jesus’ claim that He is the Kalos Shepherd comes from His faithful obedience and perfect sacrifice. He is the true and only Shepherd because He gives His Life for the sheep. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in His Body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. He is the Good Shepherd.
And that which is good gives insight into that which is beautiful and that which is true. For Plato beauty was eternal and moved man to seek after harmony. St Augustine taught that God wove beauty into every part of creation. And that things were especially beautiful when they worked according to the goodness of their created purpose.
Is it any wonder that our culture, which has made goodness subjective, has effectively expelled the timeless standard of beauty from discussion also? “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” they claim. If goodness is relative than so also beauty and likewise truth. And if these three virtues - goodness, beauty and truth - describe God, than He too must be subjective.
Thus does the Kalos Shepherd speak the truth, I am the Good Shepherd, I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My Life for the sheep. He is Truth Incarnate. He is the Kalos Shepherd. He is the Beautiful Savior.
Dear lambs, He has called you out of the dark cave of sin and death, bringing you into the beautiful Light of His Truth according to His Good Word. As you are loved by He who is Wisdom Incarnate so do you love the Wisdom of His Word. And as you share this beautiful Word of truth and goodness do not be surprised that the world hates you and may even seek to kill you. Resist the temptation to return to the cave.
Rather, listen to the call of your Good Shepherd. For He brings you here by the Voice of His true Word to the sheepfold of His Church. Psalm 50 exclaims, The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
Come, then, dear little lambs. Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. Your Kalos Shepherd is with you. His rod and staff, His Word and Spirit, they comfort you. Behold, He has prepared a Table before you. A Feast of rich food, given in the righteousness of Christ, His own Body and Blood, swallowed by death, alive from the grave, given to you hear as the Food of Immorality.
The wolf may howl, he may snarl and rage, but death cannot have you, its sting is lost, its power undone. The Lamb the sheep has ransomed. You belong to Christ, the Great Good Shepherd and Bishop of your body and your soul, who gathers you together as one flock. His truth and goodness follow you always. You shall dwell in His beautiful House forever.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
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