Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California

† sdg †

John 1:1-10

John 10:1 KJV 1611

There’s a famous old painting of Jesus where he’s standing outside a door knocking, not banging like He’s in a rush or rage, but patiently, calmly, with a peaceful, yet intent gaze on His face. It was inspired from Revelation chapter 3 where Jesus says, Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him. But in the Gospel from John for today, Jesus says in this instance that He is the door. And this is Good Shepherd Sunday, so He is the door for the sheep. That’s why some Bibles translate the word “gate” instead of “door.” You may think it silly for me to point this out, but I must. Jesus is not like a door, as if there were something greater than He called a door and that He is patterned after it. No, He is the Door.

Thinking of Jesus as the Door is very important for Christians. After all, your Lord went through the door of His Father’s “house” of heaven in order to come to this earth and be born in a stable-manger and take on your frail human flesh. He came to live, suffer, die and rise again for your sake, in your place, and for your salvation. He came to us through that door which leads from heaven to earth, then He had that same door slammed in His face at the moment of His death on the cross. That is to say, God put His own Son there in place of those who rejected Him, He was counted as the one who rebelled against God, and so your sins required the Father to slam the door of heaven in His Son’s face – on top of all His agony and bloody suffering. Think instead of Jesus in that tranquil painting pounding on that door until His knuckles were bloody and raw, but there would be no answer – He would have to die, rejected at God the Father’s door. Christ was to be alone in the fire and the forsakenness of eternal punishment for you to have forgiveness. In the midst of torment, He would cry out from the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Our Savior would endure that torture so that you and I might be able to look forward with certainty to all the blessings of heaven.

After the door to heaven was slammed in His face, Christ then went through another door, the door of death as His torture came to an end late on Good Friday. He passed through that door to Hell and He proclaimed His victory there over Satan and his forces of darkness. Then, on Easter morning, He came back out through the door of death, with the stone rolled away from the door of the tomb, so that by going through and coming out again He would become the Door. Through Him sinners could now pass from the sheepfold of His Church out into the heavenly pastures of God’s kingdom of glory.

And here is where you see the connection between Jesus calling Himself both the Door for the Sheep, and the Good Shepherd at the same time. For He says that He who enters by the door is the Shepherd, and the sheep hear His voice. Using His voice, that is, the pastor preaching the Word of God to you and washing your sins away in the water of Baptism, that is how Christ calls you His sheep by name. Although most of the time these days you are treated as if you were nothing more than a number, but the way God sees it you are so much more than that. You are personally known to our Shepherd, and He calls you out of this desolate wasteland of sin into good, safe, grazing pasture – filled with the sweet, succulent nourishment of His Word of Life. He doesn’t just round you up and turn you loose to wander aimlessly around the countryside like sheep tend to do. He’s always there with you, calling out to you using the Voice of the called servant of the Word.

Even in the face of death, says the Psalm, your Shepherd will be there beside you. And you don’t have to fear anything because He has already gone on before you through that fearful valley of the shadow of death, when He paid for your salvation. He’s at your side no matter what you face, and He has His rod and staff to comfort and protect you – even when it would seem as if there could be no help at all. This is the promise of your Good Shepherd that cannot be taken back, and on this promise you can base all your trust and hope. You have a Good Shepherd who has come to you to give, not get. There are many thieves and robbers in this world, and their only motive is to get something from us – to milk us for all we’re worth. Not so the Good Shepherd. He hasn’t come to get, but only to give – to give His life as the purchase price for your pardon – and to give you every blessing in His name.

Jesus the Door is also Jesus the Good Shepherd because He lays down His own life for His sheep. Rather than beating you down with condemnation for your many straying ways, instead He takes the beating Himself by dying the death of the cross in your place. He’s the Good Shepherd because He takes up in resurrection the life that He laid down. In fact, the only reason you can call Him the Good Shepherd is because of Easter – for that was when He forever pulled Himself out from the mighty grip of death so that you would never have to experience what He had to go through. Now to you – His sheep – He says, “Because I live, you will live also.” No other Shepherd is out there that can match that promise. Only Christ, the Good Shepherd, can say: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

So, as sheep there are only two things that you must now do. First of all, you must hear and listen to the Shepherd’s voice. Whenever you come to the Divine Service – whenever you sing a hymn – whenever you hear a sermon – whenever you pick up and read God’s Word – you are hearing His Voice speaking. He’s saying: “I died for you” – “I rose from the dead for you” – “Because I died and rose, your sins are gone, and you will live forever.”

But it goes even farther than that. The Shepherd’s voice invites those of you who are communicants to this Altar and partake of the Holy Supper of Christ’s body and blood that is given and shed for sinners to eat and to drink. The Lord who stands at the door and knocks is He who wishes to come and eat with you in a miraculous way. Listen when He says to you: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” The more often you “remember” Jesus by partaking of this Holy Meal, the more your sins, and the sins of those who have offended you, are placed on Jesus and cast into the depths of the sea and forgotten. You are reconciled to God and to one another, because you both heard the Shepherd’s voice, and entered forgiveness and life through the Door.

Secondly, as sheep you then follow Him – which means you go where He’s gone and do what He’s done. It happens automatically, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t something you set out to do yourself. He went to a cross, and you will go to yours. As Luther loved to point out, in all believers there must be a daily crucifixion – a daily death, if you will – of the sinful nature inside you, which he called the Old Adam. And this is what happens every time you recall your Baptism, when you remember your sins and trust that Jesus has washed them away. In Baptism the old man of sin is already drowning under the water and the Word. And although it’s hard – even impossible at times – for you to hold that sinful nature down under that water, it’s something you must daily be prepared to do. The power of God in your Baptism is there for you every day. In that flood of forgiveness every day is like Good Friday for you as your Old Adam is put to death once more. Even though sin is an ever-present reality, you still daily put that sin to death in Baptism. Because you know that on the day when you pass through your door of death into the glory of God’s eternal heavenly kingdom – you’ll be completely and permanently dead to sin, but alive in Christ.

Finally, as Jesus came out of His grave, so shall you also come out of yours. Even as you daily crucify and put to death your sin in you, you also rise anew each day to live in righteousness and holiness forever. Hear what St. Peter had to say in the Epistle: “(Christ) himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness . . . for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” For you sheep who belong to Jesus the Good Shepherd, every day is Easter. For the present think of your Baptism as your first Easter resurrection, that is renewed each day as you rise again to forgiveness and new life. But the ultimate Easter will take place on the Last Day – the day of the Resurrection of All Flesh. On that day, dear friends, you will rise to eternal righteousness. In the meantime, you’ll continue as sheep following the voice of the Good Shepherd, who is also Christ the Door, and His voice speaks through the pastor He gave you. Also in your daily life and personal calling you submit yourself to Christ’s leading, living, dying, and rising as you sacrifice yourself for the good of your neighbor. For you know God will freely grant you all of this since Jesus already promised. In fact, all that goodness is in His hands ready to give you for housewarming, you could say, as He stands there and knocks on the door of your heart.

In the Name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit.