✠ Psalmody: Psalm 33:5b–6a; 1; Liturgical Text; 1 Corinthians 5:7b, 5:8a, c; Psalm 63:1a, 4b; John 10:14
✠ Lection: Ezekiel 34:11–16; 1 Peter 2:21b–25; John 10:11–16
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
For thousands of years, since very near the beginning of all human history, man has shepherded flocks of animals, an image that the Lord Himself has used in how He desires the sheep of His hand to be tended to, as well as how from among the flock comes reconciling sacrifice through the shedding of blood, through the laying down of life. Shepherd and sheep imagery is replete throughout the Holy Scriptures so that we may lay hold of the Lord’s tender care for us who like sheep have gone astray. That heavenly care culminated in the Good Shepherd doing what the Good Shepherd does: He gives His life for the sheep. May that glorious word never grow into a dusty layer on stagnant faith, but ever be Good News that is rejoiced over at every expression of it, for the redeemed hearts of once-lost sheep never fail to leap and bound for joy at what this means. Any inhibition or reluctance to exult in the Good Shepherd laying down His life for the sheep only comes from the flesh that neither loves nor values the Good News of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Behold the deep-rooted need we have for a true and good shepherd. It is the Lord Who has made us, formed us in our mothers’ womb. Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. (Ps. 100:3) He made us all to be His very own; His own dear possession into which He breathed the breath of life. In the beginning, God created us, took us, and kept us within the protections of His divine command where there were purity, righteousness, bliss, and food to satisfy. Yet, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way. In our sin, we have leapt what we deemed as the confines of His precious Law only to land into the jaws of a salivating, devilish wolf. Yet, oh so many of us understand not what it is that has its teeth sunk deeply into us. We see not the need for rescue nor for the Shepherd Who rescues.
Dear Christian people, plunge into the Word and drink deeply of its consolations as found in sheep and shepherd. By Adam’s fall, all mankind bounded beyond that divine goodness into the raging clutches of the hellish wolf, the devil. But, from the very first generation beyond Adam we see the Lord’s story of salvation being woven into our history by prototypical shepherds of old. By faith Abel, a shepherd, offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain when he brought the firstborn of his flock as an offering to the Lord. Jacob, a shepherd, Israel by God-given name, tended his flock by rolling away a stone so that the flock may drink from refreshing waters. Moses, a shepherd, tended the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro as the Lord visited him, bestowing upon him the charge of prophet, mediator, and deliverer of His people, after whom the Lord would raise one up a Prophet, a Shepherd, like him to be the fulfillment of all prophetic tasks seen in Moses and these others. David, a shepherd, ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking, was brought in from tending the flock so that Samuel may anoint him king; “for this is the one!” the LORD said, foretelling of the anointed Son of David Who would indeed Himself search for His sheep and seek them out in the wilderness into which we have strayed and are scattered.
King David was a serious shepherd, no mere hireling for his father, but one who treated all the sheep as his very own. He knew his sheep and was known by his own. Speaking of his zeal to protect and rescue those of his flock in danger, David once told Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear.” Your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. If it is an earthly good shepherd, like David, who strikes and kills the lion and the bear, and after whom comes the perfect, grand fulfilment of what is seen in him unto all eternal rescue, oh, how it is that Christ Jesus seeks out scattered sheep clinched in the jaws of the devil and death to strike and kill them both.
Throughout time, God has given men to do this through the proclamation of the pure Word so that death-bound sheep may hear and live. But far too often have men failed God and those given to them to protect through His strong Word. They have been given a shepherd’s task to tend to the souls of those in need, and in need are we all. There aren’t any bad shepherds. There are only shepherds and hirelings. Hirelings do not shepherd but think, act, and speak differently from what defines shepherd. But, just because there are those of us who fail you sheep, there is a Shepherd and Overseer of your souls Who never will. Return always to Him!
He is the Good Shepherd; truly good because He lays down His life for the sheep: good, never-old, news, this is. Typically, a shepherd dying is no rescue for the sheep. With Christ, things have a different outcome; He is poison to death and pestilence to the devil and hell. As St. John Chrysostom said, “Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.” Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” When the devil sank his teeth into Christ, He bit into his own death and the death of death.
Our Good Shepherd is so good that He serves not only as Shepherd, but as pasture as well. It is upon the one Shepherd, Christ, that those brought back into His flock find verdant green pastures upon which to graze. Jesus’ flesh is true meat indeed that satisfies the hungry soul. There is nothing greener on the other side of the fence. By His doing, by His sacrifice, by His Holy Supper does He keep delivering you from the jaws of death and devil. “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” Beloved and redeemed sheep of the Good Shepherd, hear and believe this Good News that must be repeated into ears that always seek to stray. Taste and see that the Lord is the Good Shepherd Who lays down His life, to redeem you, that He may take up His life again, and yours also, that with the Good Shepherd you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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