Ezekiel 34:11-16; 1 Peter 2:21-25; St John 10:11-18
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord Himself is your Good Shepherd. In and with Him everything you need and all good things are yours. His goodness is not an abstraction. Not a quality of His character; an ability or potential. His goodness is faithfulness in action and the fulfillment of His Office and Vocation. That is, His goodness is precisely in His misericordias domini, translated, the steadfast love of the LORD, the name for this Sunday. The Lord is intrinsically good; He is absolute goodness. But He is good at what He does. What He does is noble and right and good. What He does meets every need.
The Lord is your true Shepherd. That is who and what He is and that is what He does for you.
He is not like the hirelings that you are prone to enlist and rely upon, whatever and whomever those hirelings might be. They run out on you. They have nothing more to give than what you give to them. They cannot save you. Hirelings do not care for you. They care for themselves and are just as needy, just as scared, as you.
A sheep without a real shepherd is in trouble, like a child without a Mom or Dad. You have so many needs, so many dangers, so many enemies. The wolf is on the prowl. The lion is too, as you know. The serpent lies in wait. But if the predators don’t get you and gobble you up, your own hunger will.
A sheep has to eat and needs water to live. If it isn't provided, or if you aren’t content with what you’re given, then you go searching and scavenging for food and drink. Which is liable to get you lost. Alone in the dark, in places you don’t belong. You're going to get hurt, or hurt another, or worse.
But your Shepherd, who is faithful, good and true, is not a hired hand who runs away from danger or lets you wander into it. You are His own sheep. He cares for you. He is not working to make a living off of you, but gives up His own life on your behalf in order to give you life and preserve you in safety and peace.
For your Shepherd saw the wolf coming and He ran - not away - but He raced to help you. He heard the lion’s roar, the serpent’s hiss, the big bear’s deep guttural growl, and He took His stand and set Himself between those predators and you. He didn’t holler at them or chase them off. But neither did He fight them, tooth and claw, as one might expect. He dealt them all a far more deadly and permanent defeat; leaving them unable to hurt you anymore.
The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the Sheep. That is what makes Him good. His goodness in action. But what could would that be, if the wolf simply waited until the Shepherd were dead and gone and then went about snatching the sheep and scattering them? Heroic sacrifice, great, but what’s the point if it only delays the inevitable? No, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, so that He may take it up again. And in His rising He obtains and bestows life for all His sheep forever. This is the great Mystery of His goodness; the special authority of His Father and His faithful obedience to Him and love for you.
So this Shepherd in sheep’s clothing defeats the wolf at His own game. He shut’s the lion’s mouth and crushes the serpent’s head by giving Himself as a tasty Lamb into their teeth. They cannot resist this prize. They cannot believe it’s so easy!
And yet, they are in for a surprise. For this Shepherd is the sacrifice that ruins their appetite once and for all. He is not a hunter who kills the wolf with knife or gun in order to open is up and bring Granny and Little Red back out. He allows Himself to be swallowed up in the first place, in order to burst the belly of the beast from the inside-out! That is what His dying and rising have done. His laying down His life and taking up again a life in the flesh has left your enemies undone.
Oh the predators still prowl for a little while now. They can still act all fierce and scary, but they are toothless and have terrible tummy troubles. They have no stomach for you. You belong to the Good Shepherd. Not only does He gather you close to Himself, stand over and guard you with His own never-to-die-again Life. But He also clothes you with Himself, in His blood drenched wool.
And He feeds you Himself, so that He abides in you and you also abide in Him. You are not only feed by Him, but with your Good Shepherd, with the Meat and Drink of His flesh and blood. And the wolf, the lion, and the snake, even the big bear ought to know better than to eat you. They still eye you hungrily and greedily. They salivate over your body and soul. But whoever they try to snatch you and swallow you down, they taste again the Shepherd who abides in you, and they become ill. They cannot hold His liquor. They cannot digest His food. They cannot have His little lamb.
Staying with your Good Shepherd and keeping close to Him is absolutely essential to abide and remain in His death-defying life. But this does not depend on your ability or faithfulness. If it did, you would be utterly lost and already defeated. For you wander and stray, get yourself hopelessly lost, caught in some thicket, fall into some deep dark hole or dangerous ravine. Often as not, the predators don’t even have to come looking for you, because you’re out their chasing after them. It ought not be so, but that is how it is.
Yet the Good Shepherd cares for His sheep. He who laid down His life for you and took it up again, He also cares for you in every way. He has defeated your enemies and still keeps you safe from them. He has called you by the Voice of the Gospel to become a sheep of His fold. He feeds you on the green grass of His Word and He refreshes you with the cool clear waters of His grace, mercy, and free forgiveness. He provides all that you need, even though He does not give you everything your appetite craves and desires, lest you make yourself sick with gluttony and drunkenness and lost.
He guards and keeps you under His protection so that you are able to freely graze in peace on the good food that He provides. With His rod and staff He guides and governs you in the good way that you should go, that is, the way of Life, from pasture unto pasture, along the streams that flow from His Cross, from His innermost being, through the font, into Paradise with Him.
He does all of this for you in order to give you life and preserve it. Not only because He knows and loves you as His own dear sheep, but precisely in His means of grace, by His Gospel, that He actually does know you and love you. His knowledge and love are not so much intellect or emotion, but activity and gift. He has known you by becoming like you in every way: true Man f flesh and blood, forevermore. Experiencing all your suffering and temptation, sin and death. He still knows you by giving Himself and His Life with His Word. This is the knowledge of intimacy.
This is the way the Father knows the Son in the perfect unity of the Holy Trinity. In the flawless harmony of divine and holy Love. There is nothing lacking in His knowledge and love for you. Do not ever suppose that He does not understand or care about you. Listen to His Voice. Learn to know Him in His Word to you, even as He knows the Father in Himself.
Do not be afraid. Even if you are given up as a sacrificial lamb, know that your Good Shepherd has already gone before you, and He also now goes with you, through the valley of the shadow of death, into the glorious Light of His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.
If you are commanded by God and called upon to lay down your life for your neighbor - to bear the cross fro your spouse, your child, your parent, a stranger, or even an enemy in forgiveness and love - know that your God and Father will also raise you again, as surely as He raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
His Resurrection is your resurrection. That is the authority of which your Good Shepherd speaks: the authority of His Gospel. He received both the Cross and the Resurrection from His Father, and in faith and love He took them on Himself for you. The Father loves you for His sake.
When the world would stare you down, to intimidate and scare you with accusation, guilt and shame, your Good Shepherd stares down the big bad wolf with His Atonement and Redemption, and the forgiveness of all your sins. Even if your heart quakes with fear, or own own conscience condemns you, the Lord loves and comforts and assures you with His Voice of the Gospel and strengthens you with His peace. He is your Shepherd. He is with you. You are safe.
You shall not be food for your foes, but here the Lord gives Himself as Food for you, so that you shall never go hungry. You shall want for nothing. Though you have been thirsty and dehydrated, His Cup runs over with abundant Life, which He pours out for you to drink, to be revived in body and soul forever. Though you have been unholy and unhappy, the Lord your Shepherd anoints you with the oil of gladness; He pours our His Spirit by His Word to sanctify you with His divine goodness and true joy.
Though you have been lost, alone and afraid, and sometimes you still feel that way, the truth is that your Good Shepherd has come for you. He has already found you, snatched you out of danger and brought you home rejoicing. In reclining at His Table you lie down in His green pasture. In drinking from His Cup you rest beside still waters. In living here and now, by the Word of your Good Shepherd, you already dwell in the House of the Lord and so shall you abide with Him forever.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord Himself is your Good Shepherd. In and with Him everything you need and all good things are yours. His goodness is not an abstraction. Not a quality of His character; an ability or potential. His goodness is faithfulness in action and the fulfillment of His Office and Vocation. That is, His goodness is precisely in His misericordias domini, translated, the steadfast love of the LORD, the name for this Sunday. The Lord is intrinsically good; He is absolute goodness. But He is good at what He does. What He does is noble and right and good. What He does meets every need.
The Lord is your true Shepherd. That is who and what He is and that is what He does for you.
He is not like the hirelings that you are prone to enlist and rely upon, whatever and whomever those hirelings might be. They run out on you. They have nothing more to give than what you give to them. They cannot save you. Hirelings do not care for you. They care for themselves and are just as needy, just as scared, as you.
A sheep without a real shepherd is in trouble, like a child without a Mom or Dad. You have so many needs, so many dangers, so many enemies. The wolf is on the prowl. The lion is too, as you know. The serpent lies in wait. But if the predators don’t get you and gobble you up, your own hunger will.
A sheep has to eat and needs water to live. If it isn't provided, or if you aren’t content with what you’re given, then you go searching and scavenging for food and drink. Which is liable to get you lost. Alone in the dark, in places you don’t belong. You're going to get hurt, or hurt another, or worse.
But your Shepherd, who is faithful, good and true, is not a hired hand who runs away from danger or lets you wander into it. You are His own sheep. He cares for you. He is not working to make a living off of you, but gives up His own life on your behalf in order to give you life and preserve you in safety and peace.
For your Shepherd saw the wolf coming and He ran - not away - but He raced to help you. He heard the lion’s roar, the serpent’s hiss, the big bear’s deep guttural growl, and He took His stand and set Himself between those predators and you. He didn’t holler at them or chase them off. But neither did He fight them, tooth and claw, as one might expect. He dealt them all a far more deadly and permanent defeat; leaving them unable to hurt you anymore.
The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the Sheep. That is what makes Him good. His goodness in action. But what could would that be, if the wolf simply waited until the Shepherd were dead and gone and then went about snatching the sheep and scattering them? Heroic sacrifice, great, but what’s the point if it only delays the inevitable? No, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, so that He may take it up again. And in His rising He obtains and bestows life for all His sheep forever. This is the great Mystery of His goodness; the special authority of His Father and His faithful obedience to Him and love for you.
So this Shepherd in sheep’s clothing defeats the wolf at His own game. He shut’s the lion’s mouth and crushes the serpent’s head by giving Himself as a tasty Lamb into their teeth. They cannot resist this prize. They cannot believe it’s so easy!
And yet, they are in for a surprise. For this Shepherd is the sacrifice that ruins their appetite once and for all. He is not a hunter who kills the wolf with knife or gun in order to open is up and bring Granny and Little Red back out. He allows Himself to be swallowed up in the first place, in order to burst the belly of the beast from the inside-out! That is what His dying and rising have done. His laying down His life and taking up again a life in the flesh has left your enemies undone.
Oh the predators still prowl for a little while now. They can still act all fierce and scary, but they are toothless and have terrible tummy troubles. They have no stomach for you. You belong to the Good Shepherd. Not only does He gather you close to Himself, stand over and guard you with His own never-to-die-again Life. But He also clothes you with Himself, in His blood drenched wool.
And He feeds you Himself, so that He abides in you and you also abide in Him. You are not only feed by Him, but with your Good Shepherd, with the Meat and Drink of His flesh and blood. And the wolf, the lion, and the snake, even the big bear ought to know better than to eat you. They still eye you hungrily and greedily. They salivate over your body and soul. But whoever they try to snatch you and swallow you down, they taste again the Shepherd who abides in you, and they become ill. They cannot hold His liquor. They cannot digest His food. They cannot have His little lamb.
Staying with your Good Shepherd and keeping close to Him is absolutely essential to abide and remain in His death-defying life. But this does not depend on your ability or faithfulness. If it did, you would be utterly lost and already defeated. For you wander and stray, get yourself hopelessly lost, caught in some thicket, fall into some deep dark hole or dangerous ravine. Often as not, the predators don’t even have to come looking for you, because you’re out their chasing after them. It ought not be so, but that is how it is.
Yet the Good Shepherd cares for His sheep. He who laid down His life for you and took it up again, He also cares for you in every way. He has defeated your enemies and still keeps you safe from them. He has called you by the Voice of the Gospel to become a sheep of His fold. He feeds you on the green grass of His Word and He refreshes you with the cool clear waters of His grace, mercy, and free forgiveness. He provides all that you need, even though He does not give you everything your appetite craves and desires, lest you make yourself sick with gluttony and drunkenness and lost.
He guards and keeps you under His protection so that you are able to freely graze in peace on the good food that He provides. With His rod and staff He guides and governs you in the good way that you should go, that is, the way of Life, from pasture unto pasture, along the streams that flow from His Cross, from His innermost being, through the font, into Paradise with Him.
He does all of this for you in order to give you life and preserve it. Not only because He knows and loves you as His own dear sheep, but precisely in His means of grace, by His Gospel, that He actually does know you and love you. His knowledge and love are not so much intellect or emotion, but activity and gift. He has known you by becoming like you in every way: true Man f flesh and blood, forevermore. Experiencing all your suffering and temptation, sin and death. He still knows you by giving Himself and His Life with His Word. This is the knowledge of intimacy.
This is the way the Father knows the Son in the perfect unity of the Holy Trinity. In the flawless harmony of divine and holy Love. There is nothing lacking in His knowledge and love for you. Do not ever suppose that He does not understand or care about you. Listen to His Voice. Learn to know Him in His Word to you, even as He knows the Father in Himself.
Do not be afraid. Even if you are given up as a sacrificial lamb, know that your Good Shepherd has already gone before you, and He also now goes with you, through the valley of the shadow of death, into the glorious Light of His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.
If you are commanded by God and called upon to lay down your life for your neighbor - to bear the cross fro your spouse, your child, your parent, a stranger, or even an enemy in forgiveness and love - know that your God and Father will also raise you again, as surely as He raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
His Resurrection is your resurrection. That is the authority of which your Good Shepherd speaks: the authority of His Gospel. He received both the Cross and the Resurrection from His Father, and in faith and love He took them on Himself for you. The Father loves you for His sake.
When the world would stare you down, to intimidate and scare you with accusation, guilt and shame, your Good Shepherd stares down the big bad wolf with His Atonement and Redemption, and the forgiveness of all your sins. Even if your heart quakes with fear, or own own conscience condemns you, the Lord loves and comforts and assures you with His Voice of the Gospel and strengthens you with His peace. He is your Shepherd. He is with you. You are safe.
You shall not be food for your foes, but here the Lord gives Himself as Food for you, so that you shall never go hungry. You shall want for nothing. Though you have been thirsty and dehydrated, His Cup runs over with abundant Life, which He pours out for you to drink, to be revived in body and soul forever. Though you have been unholy and unhappy, the Lord your Shepherd anoints you with the oil of gladness; He pours our His Spirit by His Word to sanctify you with His divine goodness and true joy.
Though you have been lost, alone and afraid, and sometimes you still feel that way, the truth is that your Good Shepherd has come for you. He has already found you, snatched you out of danger and brought you home rejoicing. In reclining at His Table you lie down in His green pasture. In drinking from His Cup you rest beside still waters. In living here and now, by the Word of your Good Shepherd, you already dwell in the House of the Lord and so shall you abide with Him forever.
In the Name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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