Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Good Shepherd Is the One Who Lays Down His Life

Third Sunday of Easter
Misericordias Domini
April 14, 2013
The thing about Jesus is that He is the shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. This is how we learn what it means that we preach Christ crucified. Preaching Christ crucified is not a denial of the resurrection of Christ but an affirmation of it. Extending to the world the Gospel of Jesus laying down His life for the sins of the world is not to the exclusion of Him rising from the grave but a declaration of the thing that must occur in order for Christ to rise from the grave.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Think about it. Jesus is the risen one. He is the one who rose from the grave. He is the one who conquered death. But the risen Lord is the one who lays down His life for the sheep. The risen Lord is, always, the one who laid down His life for the sheep. He is the Lord who passes through walls even as He carries the scars of the crucifixion in His hands and His feet and His side. He is, always, Christ crucified for sinners. He is, always, the Great Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.

On the cross Jesus died for every single person. The whole world. Everyone who has ever been born. But listen to the way Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd for the sheep. The hired hand, He says, does not own the sheep, so when trouble comes, he flees. When the wolf comes to snatch and scatter, the hired hand is outta there. The hired hand, He says, does not care for the sheep. He has been hired out, he has no personal stake in the sheep. They are, simply, sheep to him. He flees.

But not Jesus. Not the Good Shepherd. He has a personal stake in the sheep. He cares individually for the sheep. He takes particular concern for each one of the sheep. They are His, He cares for them. This puts a whole new perspective on Jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross. When He laid down His life for the sheep, it was for each person. His care for every person brought Him to lay down His life for each person. There was no fleeing the cross. There was His giving His life for His sheep.

I know My own, and My own know Me, He says. He is not a hired hand. He has a personal and deep investment in each lamb. He knows each one. They know Him. They are His. They do not need to worry or wonder if He will skip out on them. He is there for them. He has committed to them and will love them to the point of laying down His life for them.

What is the impetus for this kind of love? “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.” [ESV] The Father knows Him, and He knows the Father. The Father’s love for Him is the impetus for Jesus’ love for the sheep. His love for the Father is love that is carried out in laying down His life for the sheep. He is the Good Shepherd.

He has “other other sheep that are not of this fold. [He] must bring them also, and they will listen to [His] voice.” [ESV] He is always reaching out, always searching, always seeking out those who have strayed. He is always getting out there, where they are, to rescue them and bring them to safety. He feeds them and strengthens them. He brings them from the despair of their sin and lifts them up to the comfort of peace and salvation.

It’s really a shame when the sheep stray. They have everything they need in the Shepherd providing for them. They hear and receive the Gospel as it is proclaimed to them. They daily in repentance and forgiveness live out their Baptism. They are fed by Him at His holy Table with His very own body and blood. They are loved and cared for and saved by their Lord, their Good Shepherd who lays down His life for them.

But they stray. They take the Gospel for granted. They don’t hunger for it and desire it as the very lifeblood for their sin and struggles against temptation and the flesh. They don’t see that the Lord who laid down His life for them desires to give Himself to them often in His Holy Supper and that in this Meal they are fed and strengthened in body and soul. They don’t see that the Ten Commandments their Lord has declared to them aren’t just a bunch of rules to restrict their enjoyment in life but the very path He has laid out for them which actually enables them to live life in abundance.

They stray. They take for granted. They openly go against their Lord and His commandments.

He? He lays down His life for them. He is the Good Shepherd. The one who is living and reigns forever is the one who lays down His life for the sheep. How does Peter say it in the Epistle reading? “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” [ESV] He is the Good Shepherd. This is what He does. We must never move beyond the cross and what Christ accomplished there, thinking that there is somehow not enough there for us to have the full and abundant life our Lord would have us have. He lays down His life for the sheep. He is the Good Shepherd. That’s what that means.

Of course, His laying down His life goes hand in hand with His rising from the grave. His rising from the grave is the confirmation of what He accomplished in His suffering and death. We need not pit the two against each other—they are two things that go together and are both essential in our having new and eternal and abundant life.

In the Introit we gave praise to God with these words: “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” The steadfast love of the Lord is love that never ceases. It never tires. It never does not care. That’s why our Lord is the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep. His love is steadfast love. His care and His provision is that which never ends. Think about this. You can never come to a point where you are so weak, or so struggling, or so apathetic, that He gives up on you. He is the Good Shepherd. He lays down His life for you. He feeds you with Himself. The body He laid down His life with is the very body He gives you to eat for your strength and your consolation and your forgiveness. The blood He shed when He laid down His life is what He gives you to drink for your refreshment in body and soul. Even when you stray, He will go after you, always reaching out to you, calling you, granting you His peace and forgiveness.

What about those outside the Church? What about those who do not know His voice and who do not believe in Him as their Savior? Jesus says, “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.” [ESV] He brings them also. He lays down His life for them also. He calls out to them also. He reaches out to them and seeks them out also. We must never forget that the love He loves us with in laying down His life for us is love He loves everyone with and in which He lays down His life for them as well.

That’s why we love others. As Christians we love others in this self-sacrificing way. While we cannot lay down our lives for them in order to accomplish salvation for them, we can draw them to the voice of the Good Shepherd. We can show them the one who has in fact laid down His life for them and desires they be part of His flock so they may receive rest in their weariness and forgiveness in their guilt. There’s no greater or more powerful Lord we can make known to them than the one who is the Good Shepherd; the one who lays down His life for the sheep.

As every Sunday, not just Easter Sunday, is a celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord, every Sunday is also always a proclamation of Christ and Him crucified. We revel in and receive the Lord who lays down His life for us when we hear the Gospel and feed on Him in the Sacrament. He is lowly to come to us in our lowliness. In laying down His life He became weak so that we may know that in our weakness, in our lowliness, we have a Lord who doesn’t come to us with the announcement that He is our Master so we’d better straighten up, but our Lord who is the good Shepherd; the one who lays down His life for the sheep. Amen.

SDG

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