Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday: April 18, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
Sheep are prone to scatter, and our gracious Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is in the business of gathering them back together again. We did not have an ideal Easter season last year, to be sure. The Shepherd’s flock was scattered each to their respective homes, and if they were lucky, they could catch a mere glimpse on their screens and phones of the sheep pen that they were forced to abandon for the sake of their health. It was a trade off nobody ever wanted to face, and the fallout is still hurting us, if we are going to be perfectly honest.
It is easy to think that we’ve never had it this bad, and if you stay glued to 24 hour news, you might become fully convinced of that. But our Good Shepherd has had a lot more perspective on this sort of thing than any of us have, and He’s really good at His work of gathering His scattered Church, pandemic or not. It would have been hard to imagine the days of the prophet Ezekiel. At that time, God’s sheep were forced away from their promised land into exile. The Babylonian Empire removed the great majority of the population, and once they destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, many people thought that God had lost His ability to protect them or even listen to them. Some devout young people, though, like Daniel, made sure that they looked out toward Jerusalem whenever they prayed, because that was the place where they heard, in a manner of speaking, the voice of the Good Shepherd as He remained firm in His promises of rescue and return to the home He had prepared for them. The distance and the separation could not quiet that voice as He called out to His scattered sheep with sounds of assurance and forgiveness. I myself will seek out my flock from among the nations and gather them, and feed them with good pasture. They will lie down with peaceful contentment, for I will provide for their every need, says the Lord.
In about six hundred years’ time, Ezekiel’s prediction would come true. God Himself would enter the world He had made in order to be the Shepherd who would lay down His life for the sheep. He put on a human body not only so He would teach and guide us in the right way, but His human flesh soaked up all our wrongdoings, hurts, diseases and fears, then hanged them with Him on the staff of the cross. That would be how He fulfilled His promise to gather the scattered and make for Himself a flock that would become known as the Christian Church. He is the overseer of our souls because He wanted for us not to receive what we deserved, but He preferred to trade His glory and greatness for our disgrace and dejection.
We would not have been saved if we had a God who wasn’t a Good Shepherd. That is to say, if it was only to teach us more rules for living or to give us a hint on how we could save ourselves, we sheep would still have been scattered and lost. But as it happened, our Good Shepherd laid down His life for us. And what He laid down freely, of His own accord, He had the power to take up again. And take it up, He did in glorious victory on the third day following His death.
It is fitting for us each year to celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday during the season of Easter. When Jesus rose from the dead, He triumphantly fulfilled His promise to shepherd His people. He did it for the people who were scattered away from Israel in the days of Ezekiel, He did it for those who witnessed His teaching, His miracles, death and resurrection, and He did it for you, who were as yet not of His fold, but now you have been brought together into one flock, one shepherd. Last Sunday we heard about forgiveness that streams forth from the wounds of the crucified, yet also risen Jesus. This Sunday we hear what power that resurrection-fueled forgiveness has for the Church, what benefit it brings to us for what we’re going through today, for what our friends and loved ones are going through.
We were scattered. We were strayed like sheep, following whatever we convinced ourselves was better for us. But our Good Shepherd never lost sight of us. His voice never was quieted, even among the dizzying din of pandemic and rumor. Jesus keeps calling us to Himself, to recall what is most important for us as members of His flock. Saint Peter comforted his suffering parishioners that their suffering was not in vain. They were participating in something Jesus Himself went through for our sake. When we suffer as Christians, we walk in Christ’s steps. You don’t have to make believe you’re carrying the cross, feeling your Savior’s pain. What matters is that He feels your pain and He endured it with boundless love for you, with an undying desire for you to be part of Him forever.
Shout for joy in the Lord Jesus your Good Shepherd, for He has gathered you back together to Himself. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord, and that steadfast love is your rescue from the sins and the hurts that weigh you down today. Whoever has hurt you, whomever you have hurt—all hurt and wrong has been paid in the suffering bloodshed of Christ the crucified, and canceled in His rising from the dead. He prepared a place for you with that cross and empty tomb. Someday He will come and take you to your true home in heaven, then after your resurrection you will enjoy the new and perfect creation. This is how you know that your Shepherd Jesus cares for you, and is not at all like a hired hand who flees from the wolf. Now you have that same love and care for your fellow sheep, members of the united flock of the Christian Church, as well as your neighbors who do not yet know the love of their Shepherd for themselves. You can love them with Jesus’ love, forgive them with His forgiveness, and call to them with His voice of reconciliation.
Our time of separation may have been hard on us in many new ways. Lord only knows if we have learned anything valuable from the ordeal. What we should always have impressed upon our hearts and minds is that our merciful Lord came to us Himself to shepherd us and lay down His life for us. And we should never forget that He lives for us and has assured us that we shall live also. He has remained firm in His promises to us, just has He has for His sheep of every time and place. Nothing can get in the way of our Shepherd’s voice of forgiveness and peace. Yea though we walk through the very valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil. We won’t always have it as easy as we’d like in this life, yet we can still be confident that surely goodness and mercy will follow us every day, for we now dwell in our Good Shepherd’s house, and we will dwell therein forever.
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Readings:
Ezek. 34:11–16 I Myself will search for My sheep
Psalm 23 The LORD is my Shepherd
1 Peter 2:21–25 you were like sheep going astray
John 10:11–16 I am the good shepherd
