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.

Palm Sunday Matins

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Thus, Jesus speaks today, saying:

“So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.’”

This is the Church in exile: when the people are silent, the very stones cry out, as they do for Jesus during His Palm Sunday procession. Does this mean you are expendable? Far from it. Rather it means you are indispensable, because I, and I’m sure God, would rather hear the hymns of man than the hymns of rocks.

But what of these rocks beneath Jesus, this Palm Sunday? They are being trampled. They are being stepped upon just as the good soil in our Lord’s parable, which was broken and plowed in order that it be productive. So who wants to be the Lord’s rock? Who wants to be the one to tear up and break these living stones to pieces? Who wants to be tilled and furrowed?

Pontius Pilate, the man from our creeds, does not wish to have his life broken and torn up by this Jewish man from Nazareth, Who has been brought before him. It is immediately apparent to Pilate that he is gaining nothing, as Scripture says. Literally, he says that he is losing the advantage. He is losing his advantage as a Roman over the Jews.

In a similar way, the Jews plot to arrest Jesus in secret, in order to have the advantage, and Judas seeks the advantage of having 30 pieces of silver instead of his Rabbi. The consequences of Pilate’s loss of advantage begin to take the form of a riot, a hubbub, or a confused noise of war (Jer 49:2). The riot itself is confused, because it cannot tell if it is doing the work of God or of the devil.

The Jews emphasize this point in 26:5, when they say they wish to prevent this very thing from happening, which would happen were they to arrest Jesus publicly. Yet they are the ones who then begin this riot that Pilate tries to prevent. Which makes you wonder who is doing the Lord’s will.

So Pilate stands in front of the crowd, he stands in opposition to them, and does a very relevant thing: he washes his hands. Then, after singing “Happy Birthday” twice, he quotes the Jews from 27:4 saying, “See to it yourselves”. Exactly what the Jews said to Judas. These three players form the perfect, confused scene for our Lord’s coronation on His cross. 

Indeed, Daniel prophesys this very scene saying, “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; your kingdom is divided” (5:26-28). Not even the Apostles wanted in on this scene of betrayal, lies, and murder.

How well does the washing of hands work for Judas? He realizes his sin, but fails to comprehend his salvation much less believe it. In throwing the silver pieces at the priests, he attempts to clean his name, but instead, in deep despair, cleanses a field with his blood and death.

How well does washing work for the Jews? The evil they don’t want to do, they end up doing in false accusations against one of their own, stirring up a mob, and calling down the blood of God to cover them and their children. 

How well does the washing of hands work for Pilate? It may have worked in a legal and metaphorical sense, but he is forever enshrined in the creeds as the man who declared himself righteous, in direct opposition to the Man Who actually could have made him righteous.

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” [Jesus] answered them (Matt. 15:2-6), “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have [as an advantage] from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God”.

No where in Scripture is the Word that says, “God can not be a man”. But the tradition of the elders is that no man can be the Christ, the son of the living God, as they admit in Matthew 26:63, 65. For the sake of this tradition, they make void the Word of God that says, “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Ps. 82:6) which Jesus quotes in John 10:34.

What is it that the law does say? “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13) and “Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood” (Deut. 27:25) or for one’s own advantage! These laws, sin and the devil throw away, all in order to be able to wash one’s hands of God’s works, because they are too marvelous, too impossible, and too deadly.

Repent. Jesus uses His very life to demonstrate just how deadly the works of God are. If you come in the Name of God, doing the works of the Father, and proclaiming the forgiveness of sins you face death. This is what Judas, the Jews, Pilate, and Lady Macbeth are all trying to wash off their hands: death. What is the scare of our current epidemic?

Wash, wash, wash as we may, we will never remove death’s mark from our bodies. St. Peter inadvertently clues us in on this when he begs Jesus to wash, not just his feet, but his head and his hands! (Jn. 13:9) Jesus’ response to the Jews disdain over eating with unwashed hands is that it is not the virus that goes into a man that makes him unclean, but the vitriol that comes out of him.

It is not clean hands that Jesus has. From touching lepers, to touching the dead, to touching Roman occupied buildings (Jn. 18:28), Jesus was unclean. Everything He touched became clean, yet everything He touched infected Him to the core. Washing hands? In order for Jesus to become clean again, He will have to traverse the crucible of the Father’s smelting house.

Death is the only cure, just as death is the only cure for all of our ailments as well. But God’s Name is at stake. He did not create death, therefore He will not let death have the advantage, much less will He let death have any glory.

So the Father sends His Rock of Salvation, His Stone of the Corner, His Rejected Rock, His Living Stone (1 Pet. 2:4). This Stone is ploughed over, as Psalm 129:3 says “The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows”. This Stone is trampled, scourged, and hanged on a cross. This stone cries out when every single one of His creation is silent and does not seek His own glory, nor does He seek revenge, but says things like “Father forgive them!”

Jesus does not wash Himself, but is washed and washes in return. Jesus does not build Himself up, but builds upon Himself. He builds a clean and washed people, not with soap, not with Happy Birthdays, but with Blood. The Blood of the God-man that never washed His hands covers you completely. So completely, that you are cleansed by it and washed with a washing that will never get dirtied.

There is no righteousness in man that would allow the Jews, Judas, or Pilate to wash hands and end up clean. Pilate can not simply declare his innocence apart from the Righteous, Innocent Blood of Christ. Washing will not make sin, death, and the devil go away. Baptism will. 

Therefore, Almighty, All-knowing God has not given us holy ventilators, or holy vaccines, or holy soap. In His foreknowledge of every plague, He has given us Baptism: a washing of rebirth and regeneration that cleanses the blackest of the black and even drives away death.

A washing and a covering that places upon us the mark of eternity and fastens us to the Rock. Now, come what may, endure what we may, Christ has claimed us, so that even if we die, we live in Him. In this belief, we have confidence to stand in front of any trial with hope. Hope, that no matter what the loss, we will gain 100 times over in heaven. Hope, that no matter what the sickness, what the disease, that we are clean. And if the Son makes us clean, we shall be clean indeed.

Holy Absolution [Wednesday in Lent 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

This evening, we hear Jesus speak from Holy Absolution:

“When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

When speaking of our 5^th part of our catechism, Holy Absolution, we are speaking of the power to forgive sins, not multiplying punishments for sins. That is, the power to forgive sins given to men. Second of all, God is the only One Who can forgive sins, because He is the only one sinned against and He proclaims Himself as the forgiver of sins. Isa. 43:25 says, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

Forgiveness is not a weapon to be used to cause despair and yet that is exactly what some so-called evangelicals do. They tear at the conscience of a person, declaring them condemned to hell if they believe that forgiveness comes from a man, making the Gospel which is meant to bring comfort, a Law of death.

They shout, “Only God can forgive sins” in their most judgmental voice and only tell people that they are going to hell. They throw Bibles at your head, thinking this is what God wants them to do, but they take little responsibility for you afterwards, much less do they care about you nor do they care about what you will read in that head-splitting book. The Spirit will take care of it, they say!

Well, of course the Spirit will take care of it, but not by half-truths such as theirs or half-measures which these super-spiritualists would have us believe. However, they are closer to the truth than they know. They know God’s Word must be preached. They know that someone, a person, has to do it. And, they know that others must hear. They are thoroughly grounded in the human aspect of preaching and teaching.

What they miss is the other half of that puzzle of preaching and teaching that God has given us. In reality, the key to understanding Holy Absolution and the Office of the Keys is in the two natures of Christ. That He is both God and man, 100%, all the time, explains everything we need to know. Our third reading this evening, from Matthew 9, puts us on the right path. In it, Jesus is forgiving the paralytic’s sins without healing him. Though He eventually heals the man, Jesus puts the priority and emphasis upon forgiveness. Meaning, forgiveness is better than a whole and healthy body.

In order to cement this doctrine, Jesus says that God has given such authority to men. the phrase there is a little stronger in the Greek. It literally makes that last phrase one of God’s titles. Meaning, God is the Giver of Such Authority to Men. As in, part of Jesus’ mission is to reveal that men have the authority to forgive sins, in Christ.

Jesus caps off this gift in John 20:22-23 saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” coupling that with Jesus saying, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt. 18:18) and “The one who hears you hears me” (Lk. 10:16) and you get a pretty solid picture of some kind of position on earth, instituted by Christ, where God forgives sins through a man.

Unless you are looking in the Bible for something other than Jesus and forgiveness, you will miss this plain teaching and end up throwing Bibles yourself. For Jesus is God and man. The things He does, the offices and ceremonies He institutes and puts into practice in His Church comes from both natures. In His Church there will be spiritual and physical Absolution.

A Church that is full of the spiritual and the physical. A Church in which the physical affects the spiritual and the spiritual affects the physical. With all this, there is little left to the imagination. All the questions of “What must I do to inherit eternal life” and “what must we do to be doing the works of God” and the like that are asked of Jesus appear silly, because the answer lies in our own skin, which Jesus shares.

One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Luther comes from when he is asked what a person should do if they feel no need to run to the sacraments. He answers: “For those who are so minded that they do not realize their condition I know no better counsel than that they put their hand into their bosom to ascertain whether they also have flesh and blood. And if you find that to be the case, then go, for your good, to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and hear what sort of a fruit your flesh is: ‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and the like’ (Gal. 5:19-21).”

 Dr. Luther says the way to understanding your need for Holy Absolution, from His called and ordained man, is to simply see if you have a body that is fueled by blood. That’s it. He even goes on to say that if you don’t believe your senses, then at least believe the Holy Scriptures, which know your body better than you do. 

 Romans 7 says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (v.19).

If you are quite dead to all sensibility, still believe the Scriptures, which pronounce sentence upon you and your flesh. And, in short, the less you feel your sins and infirmities, the more reason have you to go to the Sacrament to seek help and a remedy. (LC V:75ff)

Such is the recipe for having and believing that a man can forgive your sins. Not on his own account, but as a called and ordained minister of Christ and by the authority of His words and actions to us, in Holy Absolution.