Indianapolis Central Circuit Winkel
1 Peter 2:21-25
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
For you were straying like sheep. As it is for the flock of sheep, so does it also apply to the gathering of undershepherds. We have, every one of us, pastors and people, strayed. Often have we wandered from the good, green pastures of our Lord’s Word and wholesome Sacraments, been unfaithful to the blessed doctrine of the Small Catechism and our Lutheran Confessions. We have sought our sustenance elsewhere; in seemingly greener pastures.
We have committed sin, some we fear to name, even to our father confessors. Deceit has been found in our mouths. Either by the soft peddling of the Law, as mirror or as guide, in the guarded statements spoken in fear of rejection or in the full out denial of the whole counsel of God as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word.
When we are reviled, beaten down, or abused, often our first reaction is retort, complaint, and retaliation. When we suffer, for certain we threaten. Threaten to leave, threaten to get even, threaten to break the seal.
Return to the Shepherd and Bishop of your soul; that is to say, Repent. Your Good Shepherd, in laying down His life for you has left you an example; more than that, Your Chief Shepherd, in laying down His life for you has taken your place under the Law. 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 your sins in His body on the Tree. By His wounds you have been healed.
Brothers, lambs of our Good Shepherd, die then to sin and live to righteousness. For there is but one flock and one Shepherd; pastors and people, gathered together by and around the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and is Himself your Good Shepherd. Heed, therefore, the living voice of His Word. For by it He not only forgives your sins and cleanses you from all unrighteousness, but He also comforts you in your weaknesses that you may be able to comfort and strengthen your brothers, and so fulfill the Law of Christ and serve one another in love.
For He who has healed you all by His stripes has so constituted and ordained the blessed Office of the Holy Ministry and the priesthood of all believers, that you may live together as members of one Body, with Jesus Christ as your Head.
Therefore He has appointed some to be a bishops and pastors in His Church. And He knows how unfit you are for the Office. But because He has called you and the people need the Word, preach. Feed His lambs. Tend His sheep. Feed His sheep. To this you have been called.
Beloved lambs of Jesus, obey your rulers and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy and not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you (Heb 13:17).
For you, pastors and people, are brought together within the selfsame pasture of the Word; to be feed with the same Body and Blood of the Good Shepherd, the very Lamb of God who has ransomed you and called you, placing you within your particular vocations. Some as bishops and pastors, others as hearers and of the Word. It is as Clement of Rome wrote, “Where the Bishop is there is the Church,” that is, where lambs and sheep hear the voice of their Good Shepherd, there is the flock, gathered around their under shepherd in Christ Jesus, overseer of both Sacraments and sheep.
This is the orderliness of both the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. Consider the Augsburg Confession: “So that we may obtain justifying faith, the ministry of the Word and Sacraments was instituted. Through the Word and Sacrament, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, where and when it pleases God in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.”
In an ordination address given December 28, 1961, Swedish Lutheran Bishop Bo Giertz said,
"Paul says that he holds his ministry high. He knows that he has been given it from God. He knows that God has given this commission specifically to him. This forms and shapes his entire life. He is not only a Christian like all others. He also has this special commission, this ministry. And the pastor should be aware of this. The world already knows it. It feels it, maybe with a certain uneasiness. Perhaps it ridicules, even despises, the ministry. It looks upon the [Lutheran] pastor as something pompous and strange, before which one feels a little unsure or artificial. All this the pastor shall take with great composure. He shall not try to convince people that he “is just an ordinary person.” He is not. He has this ministry." (Hammer for God, p282)
Your Pastor, your father confessor, your overseer and under shepherd in Christ, has this ministry, beloved, not for His own sake, but for yours. For the sake of your timid conscience. For the sake of your weak heart. For the sake of your wavering faith. For the sake that you may hear and know the voice of your Good Shepherd, who has, in love, suffered for your sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous. He has laid down His life for you, His sheep, and Has taken it up again. He calls you, pastor and people, in and to and around Himself, by and through the goodly ordering of His Church.
As Dr Luther’s sacristy prayer, prays, “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Thou Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, send Thy Holy Spirit that He may work with us, yea, that He may work in us to will and to do through Thy divine strength according to Thy good pleasure” (Luther’s Sacristy Prayer), for Thou liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, to whom be glory, honor, and might both now and forever. Amen.
1 Peter 2:21-25
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
For you were straying like sheep. As it is for the flock of sheep, so does it also apply to the gathering of undershepherds. We have, every one of us, pastors and people, strayed. Often have we wandered from the good, green pastures of our Lord’s Word and wholesome Sacraments, been unfaithful to the blessed doctrine of the Small Catechism and our Lutheran Confessions. We have sought our sustenance elsewhere; in seemingly greener pastures.
We have committed sin, some we fear to name, even to our father confessors. Deceit has been found in our mouths. Either by the soft peddling of the Law, as mirror or as guide, in the guarded statements spoken in fear of rejection or in the full out denial of the whole counsel of God as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word.
When we are reviled, beaten down, or abused, often our first reaction is retort, complaint, and retaliation. When we suffer, for certain we threaten. Threaten to leave, threaten to get even, threaten to break the seal.
Return to the Shepherd and Bishop of your soul; that is to say, Repent. Your Good Shepherd, in laying down His life for you has left you an example; more than that, Your Chief Shepherd, in laying down His life for you has taken your place under the Law. 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 your sins in His body on the Tree. By His wounds you have been healed.
Brothers, lambs of our Good Shepherd, die then to sin and live to righteousness. For there is but one flock and one Shepherd; pastors and people, gathered together by and around the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and is Himself your Good Shepherd. Heed, therefore, the living voice of His Word. For by it He not only forgives your sins and cleanses you from all unrighteousness, but He also comforts you in your weaknesses that you may be able to comfort and strengthen your brothers, and so fulfill the Law of Christ and serve one another in love.
For He who has healed you all by His stripes has so constituted and ordained the blessed Office of the Holy Ministry and the priesthood of all believers, that you may live together as members of one Body, with Jesus Christ as your Head.
Therefore He has appointed some to be a bishops and pastors in His Church. And He knows how unfit you are for the Office. But because He has called you and the people need the Word, preach. Feed His lambs. Tend His sheep. Feed His sheep. To this you have been called.
Beloved lambs of Jesus, obey your rulers and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy and not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you (Heb 13:17).
For you, pastors and people, are brought together within the selfsame pasture of the Word; to be feed with the same Body and Blood of the Good Shepherd, the very Lamb of God who has ransomed you and called you, placing you within your particular vocations. Some as bishops and pastors, others as hearers and of the Word. It is as Clement of Rome wrote, “Where the Bishop is there is the Church,” that is, where lambs and sheep hear the voice of their Good Shepherd, there is the flock, gathered around their under shepherd in Christ Jesus, overseer of both Sacraments and sheep.
This is the orderliness of both the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. Consider the Augsburg Confession: “So that we may obtain justifying faith, the ministry of the Word and Sacraments was instituted. Through the Word and Sacrament, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, where and when it pleases God in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.”
In an ordination address given December 28, 1961, Swedish Lutheran Bishop Bo Giertz said,
"Paul says that he holds his ministry high. He knows that he has been given it from God. He knows that God has given this commission specifically to him. This forms and shapes his entire life. He is not only a Christian like all others. He also has this special commission, this ministry. And the pastor should be aware of this. The world already knows it. It feels it, maybe with a certain uneasiness. Perhaps it ridicules, even despises, the ministry. It looks upon the [Lutheran] pastor as something pompous and strange, before which one feels a little unsure or artificial. All this the pastor shall take with great composure. He shall not try to convince people that he “is just an ordinary person.” He is not. He has this ministry." (Hammer for God, p282)
Your Pastor, your father confessor, your overseer and under shepherd in Christ, has this ministry, beloved, not for His own sake, but for yours. For the sake of your timid conscience. For the sake of your weak heart. For the sake of your wavering faith. For the sake that you may hear and know the voice of your Good Shepherd, who has, in love, suffered for your sins, the Righteous for the unrighteous. He has laid down His life for you, His sheep, and Has taken it up again. He calls you, pastor and people, in and to and around Himself, by and through the goodly ordering of His Church.
As Dr Luther’s sacristy prayer, prays, “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Thou Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, send Thy Holy Spirit that He may work with us, yea, that He may work in us to will and to do through Thy divine strength according to Thy good pleasure” (Luther’s Sacristy Prayer), for Thou liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, to whom be glory, honor, and might both now and forever. Amen.
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