The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Unity Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “There will be one flock, one shepherd.” Then Jesus explains that there is one flock and one shepherd for only one reason: Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Alleluia! “There will be one flock, one shepherd,” says the Lord. “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again.” Dear Christian friends, As you probably noticed from the churchyard, I am experimenting with raising sheep. While reading up on the topic, I learned that, if you take sheep from two different flocks and release them together into one pasture, they will not mix very well. Each flock will remain its own little corner, keeping as much distance from the other flock as possible. Perhaps they feel prejudiced toward one another on account of their breed. Perhaps they simply don’t feel comfortable with starting a conversation and would prefer to stare at their cell phones. You do that same distance-keeping thing, and so do I. Familiarity provides a certain level of comfort, and even if it is false comfort, and there is always some risk involved in exposing yourself to the unknown. We Christians are simply too sinful and too powerless to overcome our inborn barriers. Even if we do, there is a good chance the other guy will not. Besides, God’s apostle Paul almost made it sound as though division and disunity in the church are a blessing: “There must be factions among you,” said Paul, “in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Corinthians 11:19). If I were to ask all the genuine Christians to please raise their hand, I wonder how many people would not. Throughout His Scriptures, Jesus repeatedly describes His dear Christians as sheep. It was not intended to be a compliment. As one fellow pastor stated it, sheep specialize in finding ways to die. In comparison, everything about us eventually reduces to death, too. Solomon complained that it does not matter whether you are a wise person or a fool: either way, the road will still end in the same place (Ecclesiastes 2:14). Jesus says “There will be one flock, one shepherd” and if we Christians are really good at anything, it would be our undying commitment to proving Jesus wrong. The last thing we want is “one flock, one shepherd.” Refusal to admit it might simply hasten the slaughter. “One flock and one shepherd” is written in the Scriptures, but “many flocks and many shepherds” is acted out in the everyday life of the Christian church on earth. 1. We can blame false teaching, and that is as good a starting place as any. Some Christians simply refuse to believe the Words of Jesus. This section of the Scripture says things they do not want to here; that Bible verse does not seem to fit their way of thinking; another Bible verse there requires them to act differently than they want to act, and yet another Bible verse does not seem to be very relevant to today. When we refuse to believe the Words of Jesus, we are left with our own words instead. That is what false teaching is: replacing God’s Words with our own. False teaching creates false hope. False teaching calls God a liar and it does so with a smile. False teaching divides Christians, one from another. False teaching makes it impossible for us to see with our eyes what Jesus has said with His mouth: “There will be one flock, one shepherd.” False teaching also tends to be about the other guy. We Lutherans might have become so convinced that we have it right that maybe some of us have stopped thinking about it. We should change our minds about that. By no means is the work of our theology done. There are too many children to train and too many people across the back fence who need to hear “the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). 2. Even if we should leave the doctrinal problems to the professionals, disunity and division are equally evident the ways we each act. We Christians routinely do unloving things to one another, even in the name of service to God (John 16:2), and these unloving things motivate our division. Words form too quickly; selfish habits die too slowly; high school style cliques gather too naturally; and personal agendas grow too righteously. Sin for Christians is as natural as a sheep stepping off a cliff and into a ravine. When we teach the children to sing, “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb” (LSB 740), we are really just teaching them to keep their eyes focused upon Jesus, their Good Shepherd. That is the point of being called sheep: that we would look at the Shepherd. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says a lot of comforting things about being our Good Shepherd. Jesus says here, • “The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” These Words certainly speak about your Lord’s dying—and by His stripes you are healed. But your Good Shepherd does not serve you merely by His death. Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Alleluia! Your risen Lord Jesus now lays down His life for you, not in dying again, but in daily service and in full time commitment to you, for your forgiveness, for your protection, for your comfort and for your peace. In the Holy Communion, our Lord Jesus comes to us—our gentle Shepherd among us—and we are talking about the presence of the living Christ, knowing that death no longer holds mastery over Him! • “I know My own and My own know Me.” When Jesus says, “I know My own,” He means that He knows your devils and He knows your deeds. Yet even knowing these things, the Good Shepherd nevertheless came to you to stay with you, fully prepared to bleed. • “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold,” says the Lord. “I must bring them also.” These Words of Jesus mean life for you and life for me. The love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord is so great, so all-encompassing that our Good Shepherd was not content merely to save that tiny flock of believers who were first present when these Words were first spoken. Jesus claims to be the Shepherd of “other sheep,” too, beyond those of His first gathering and His first fold. You and I are Jesus’ other sheep, and our Good Shepherd lives now to gather us in and make us His own. The holy Christian Church is the one and only place upon the face of earth where these Words of Jesus come to fulfillment with joyous repetition: “I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice.” • “So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” With these Words, Jesus teaches us not to believe the things we see with our eyes. Everywhere we look on earth, the eye is filled with dissention, division, and decade. Yet the holy Church belongs to the Good Shepherd, and He claims full responsibility for gathering us together as one. Unity, indeed, has come at the price of the Good Shepherd’s blood: There will be one flock, one shepherd,” says the Lord. “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again.” Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Alleluia! Because Christ is risen, we Christians have reason to hope. WE DO NOT NEED TO HOPE FOR WHAT MIGHT BE. God in His Christ has given us hope in what is. Jesus the Good Shepherd died and rose again, in accordance with these Words, “I lay down My life that I may take it up again.” In this laying down and in this taking up again, everything is now radically different than it would seem: • Where there is only sin visible, Jesus has worked forgiveness and reconciliation; • Where we see only death, Jesus lives with His gift of life; • Where there is only disunity and division evident everywhere in the church, the Church is nevertheless holy; the Church is nevertheless unified; the Church is nevertheless fully incorporated into the living body of Christ. These things are so because Jesus our Good Shepherd says they are so. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
