Easter 3 Service

St. John 10:11-16

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Our Old Testament lesson from Ezekiel illustrates all peoples’ spiritual situation. On the surface it looks like the people in the text had gotten what their deeds deserved. God had allowed their enemies to overcome them in their own place, and take them to a far off land against their will. Certainly, He would wash His hands of them, now. That’s what you and I have wanted for people who’ve wronged us, isn’t it; that we turn the page and move on? 

We’re like that; is God? 

It seems like He might be if we read earlier in the book of Ezekiel. God was so angry with His people that He said this:

On account of your unclean lewdness, because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your uncleanness, you shall not be cleansed anymore till I have satisfied my fury upon you. 14 I am the Lord. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord God” (24:13, 14).

And that seems to make sense to us in a certain way. You do the crime, you do the time. It’s justice. The way God is, it makes sense. The way He made everything to be, it makes sense. We grow up in our parents’ houses with rules. If we break them, there’s a consequence (our parents’ authority is established by God too). We’re warned in Paul’s letter to the Romans, that the government doesn’t bear the sword for nothing. If we do wrong, we should be afraid of that authority (13:4). Sin has consequences. It has wages, the Bible says (Romans 6:23).

Even after that sternness, however, some time later God told His prophet Ezekiel to say to the people:

As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

I speak to a room full of sinners who have daily broken God’s Commandments (I see one in the mirror too). When we look in our texts for this morning (having come here to know God, and to number ourselves among His people), we want to see what kind of God He is. What we see is that He isn’t the kind who casually turns the page on sinners. What a comfort that is for us. No doubt, you have been troubled over your sins. I invite you to see this morning, the God Who presents Himself as the Good Shepherd.

He’d already been talking about Himself this way in Old Testament times, in the time—even—of the Babylonian Captivity (the 70-year exile of His people from Jerusalem, the time He drove them away by the hand of their enemies). Even as He was issuing the sternest of rebukes (as we read earlier), of condemnations for their waywardness, He was speaking tenderly to the terrified sinners in them, the poor in spirit, who would in some moment regret the evil and return to Him for His mercy. 

Through the prophet Ezekiel’s words, He presents a picture of Himself as the one whose job it is to care for the most helpless of creatures. Like sheep, His people are helpless without Him. They’ve already demonstrated their tendency to do the most self-destructive things. They have wandered away from His protection and His mercy to be counseled according to the wisdom of this world, and to take part in the wickedness that comes along with that counsel. 

And when God (through the prophet) talks about what they need now, He uses the word rescue. He talks about seeking them out, gathering them, bringing them back, binding up their wounds, strengthening them, feeding them, causing them to lie down (in comfort and safety like sheep in a meadow is what that means). And even with that harshness that we heard earlier, with God so angry about their sins that He seems almost to run out of ways to say how angry He is, He comes back around to talking like this, to talking like the shepherd who can’t bear to lose anyone from His flock.

And when Jesus—in our text—wants to demonstrate to His listeners just how much He cares about them, He brings up this same imagery, of Him as the shepherd who cares for His flock. 

The flock isn’t a perfect flock; He knows that. He speaks to a group of sinners who have daily broken God’s Commandments. They share the same sinful nature with those to whom God was speaking through the prophet in our Old Testament lesson. They have wandered away from His protection and His mercy to be counseled according to the wisdom of this world, and to take part in the wickedness that comes along with that counsel. As He speaks to them about laying down His life for the sheep, He isn’t trying to impress them by talking big about something he’ll never really have to carry out. He’s giving the details of a rescue plan fashioned in eternity. He will literally give His life for theirs. St. Peter talks about it in our epistle lesson with it having by that time happened: Christ also suffered for you….He Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. This Good Shepherd puts Himself in front of the wolf who attacks the flock so that He might be torn to pieces instead of them.

Is God the kind of God who casually turns the page on His people? No. He turns the page on Himself instead. He gives His own life instead. 

He spoke to sinners through the prophet Ezekiel in that prophet’s day, to the same sinners through Jesus in His office as prophet in His day. He speaks to the same sinners today, even this very morning in this sanctuary. He speaks to people who are as guilty as any sinners of any time. He speaks to people who must admit their own ears that strain toward the wisdom of this world’s counselors. The people of Ezekiel’s day weren’t some kind of monsters; they were just people. They knew the true God, but also liked a lot of the ideas they were hearing apart from Him. They liked the feeling of being accepted by others who weren’t interested in God. There were so many alternatives, after all. Our first mother Eve was being tempted by the serpent in the same way. 

The people of Ezekiel’s time might not have thought of themselves as being in need of being rescued by God, of being sought out, gathered, bound up, fed, brought back, strengthened (that’s how it often is). They’d been deceived, and were thinking of themselves as enlightened, in a new way of thinking. Meanwhile, from God’s perspective their situation was so dire that the only way to reach them was with the severest discipline aimed at driving at least some of them to the point of repentance.

When you are at that point in consideration of your sins, you are in a very good place. It’s painful. You would rather not have to endure it. But it’s by God’s grace that He has brought you to this humble state. It’s the point at which you rejoice when you hear the words of your Savior in our text: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He’s the One Who never wandered like you have, never sought any peace or satisfaction or goodness apart from the source of all it—never flirted around with this world’s wisdom and accompanying pursuits, so His perfect life is laid down for your spoiled one. And it suffices.

When you think of your sins that bother you, that make you even question whether God might be at the point of turning the page on you, think of how He presents Himself in these lessons. He is the Good Shepherd who pursues the sheep of His flock—not to harm them in some way, not to punish them—to restore them to His side. He seeks them out that they might be with Him in His eternal kingdom. He lays down His life to remove their guilt—to remove your guilt, to remove the punishment that it brings. He puts it on Himself instead. He forgives your sins. God be praised. Amen.