Mark the Good Shepherd [Easter 3]

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

To all of you, baptized into the death and resurrection of the Resurrected Son of God:  Grace, Mercy, and Peace are now yours from God our Father, through our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ of God!

Who truly speaks to you all today saying,

“I am the good shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”

Dear Christians, it is not enough to see paintings and icons of our Good Shepherd and thereby fool ourselves into thinking we then know what He looks like, because Jesus probably wasn’t a white man posing for His senior pictures with His long, luxurious curly locks. 

It is also not enough to hear things that sound like His words, because what are you going to hear? Only what you want to hear? Pleasing sounds? Words from the Bible? Satan does all these things and more.

What we need is a true and patient shepherd Who does more than just come to us in wonders and pleasing sounds, we need a shepherd Who knows our needs. Those needs being a very physical reality for us. Why shouldn’t they be? Our Good Shepherd is a man as well as God. If Easter teaches us anything, it is that Jesus does not abandon either His human nature or His godly nature at any time.

In looking at the book of Ezekiel, two main themes our Old Testament reading brings out, to describe the Lord God as a Shepherd, are “gathering” and “feeding”. Not only does He seek His sheep (v.11), but He rescues them (v.12), brings them into their own land (v.13) and brings them back from where they strayed (v.16). This gathering theme we elaborated on last week.

As far as the second theme in the Ezekiel pericope, the Lord makes note of it four times and each time He says the same thing: I will feed (v.13), I will feed (v.14), I will feed (v.15), I will feed (v.16).

Though the English has translated v. 15 as “be the shepherd”, the word in the Greek and Hebrew is feed. And the fact that v. 16 is a negative feeding, makes our Lord’s words that much stronger.

We can best understand this strength in terms of medicine. We may be fed medicine that is supposed to be for our benefit, but it may actually weaken us and eventually kill us. Cancer treatments are the best example. Our bodies are poisoned with cancer and the best way we have of fighting it is to send more poison after it.

Here is the “feeding in justice” that the Lord speaks of in Ezekiel: that the Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. This pricks our conscience because we want a reason why it must be this way. If the Good Shepherd knows His sheep and they know Him why must there be a laying down of life? The answer is, we have been scattered, we are lost, and we have strayed from God. In sin, we are not His Sheep.

It is not just that we follow after those who say things that please us and scratch our sin-itchy ears. It is that we are filled with sin in the first place. Our natural inclination is to scatter and run away from God, just as the disciples did in Gethsemane. Our first reaction is to get lost, though we first say to God “get lost” and since He doesn’t listen, we “get lost” ourselves.

The Good Shepherd desires to lay down His life and rescue you because you are a sinner and can not do so yourself. You do not rescue yourself through more intense Bible study, rather, through such study, you hear of Him Who rescues you. Through such study of God’s Word you find that you are a sinner who has become fat and strong in his sin (Ez. 34:16). So much so that, in God’s justice, you are fed guilt and condemnation to the full, because of your sin.

The food of God’s justice reveals our sinfulness and our sentence of death. The Food of Justice also reveals the Rescuer, the Gatherer, and the Feeder. For in God’s justice, it is the Good Shepherd Who is condemned in place of the straying and lost sheep.

Jesus feeds on the Father’s justice. He drinks the cup that will not pass from Him. The Father sets His table in the midst of His enemies, that is, His lost and rebellious, sinful sheep and Jesus must eat every last crumb. To get to this Table, the Good Shepherd must pass through sin, death, and the devil, for sin has cursed all the mountains of Israel, all the good pasture, and all resting places which He would use for His sheep.

In the crucifixion of Jesus; in the act of laying down His life for His sheep, all things are made new. In the acts of the Good Shepherd, a sheep pen is created with none of the curse of sin and death in it. The shedding of Blood atones for sins, because the life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11).

It is the blood of Jesus that seeks, rescues, and gathers. “…to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, [He made] peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col. 1:20).

And Heb. 9:14, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

Since it is blood that remakes all things, what are the true marks of our Good Shepherd that we may know His voice when He calls. Yes, it is His Word, but the marks that accompany that Word are the marks of spear, nail, and thorn. With those, the Good Shepherd is perfected. God and man, but one Christ. Word and marks, but one Sacrament. 

So it is that when we are looking for our “own land” that God has promised to gather us in; when we seek the one flock that the Good Shepherd has promised to congregate us in; when we search for the mountains and the good pasture He has promised to feed us in, we are looking for the Body and Blood of Jesus. The Body that is crucified and given and the Blood that is shed and poured out for you.

The Good Shepherd calls out to the whole world, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isa. 55:1). 

Our Land, our sheep pen is the Church of Christ. The Church that keeps the Word of God, Baptizes, feeds on the Lord's Supper, utilizes the Office of the Keys, ordains ministers, calls upon God in prayer and praise, and bears the cross. This is where we are called and gathered to, by Jesus Himself.

Our Great and Good Shepherd has passed through the heavens, through life and death, and through hell for us. He sympathizes with our weakness because He has suffered our exact weaknesses in His own Body. He has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:14-15).

On the day of clouds and thick darkness of the crucifixion, Jesus made a way and made His sheep. Before, there were no sheep and there was no way, no door, and no sheep-fold. Jesus comes to create these things. He comes to us who are not His sheep and makes us His sheep. He comes to a world corrupted and undone by sin, and makes it pure.

The Good News is that you have been inside this sheepfold from the beginning. You have been hearing the Good Shepherd’s voice and believing it. You have always been shepherded in flock. The strength of His Church on earth is this powerful and this humble.