Sheep of Our Good Shepherd's Flock (Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter: May 11, 2025)
- Rev. Martin Moehring
- May 13
- 7 min read
Texts: Psalm 23
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Alleluia, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
The text is the Holy Gospel for this day the Good Shepherd chapter from John chapter 10,
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Being called a lamb or a sheep is not meant to be a compliment. In fact, it's most degrading and humiliating. Lambs and sheep are self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-centered. Almost all they think about is tasty, green, luscious grass. They search constantly for it in wide open spaces. Then they greedily nibble away to satisfy their own hungry appetites. They rarely look up or look around to see where they are, where they're going, or what may be lurking nearby to attack and consume them. Left on their own, lambs and sheep are completely vulnerable to predators. In fact, they may stumble into a ravine or walk off a cliff while feverishly feeding their bellies, not paying attention to their surroundings. Because of all that, lambs and sheep need to be protected and provided for. They need that from someone who cares enough to watch over them, lead them, and guard them. Isaiah captured that clear picture about us and every sinner when he wrote by the Holy Spirit, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him, [Christ, the Good Shepherd], the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
But we can also be certain of eternal life. We learn of this from Luther's Large Catechism with this explanation. “Even as I now believe in Christ my Savior, I also know that I have been chosen to eternal life out of pure grace in Christ without any merit of my own and that no one can pluck me out of his hand.” There is only one source of such assurance. It's the words of today's Holy Gospel, the words spoken by the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus. He announces that as our victorious Savior, He safely and perfectly guards His sheep. Sadly, all who reject Jesus as the Christ are not part of his flock. Happily, Jesus and His father share a unified relationship, and that's the source of our unified relationship with our Good Shepherd and with each other.
Now the Jews who gathered around Jesus that particular day were clearly unbelievers. We know that from Jesus' warning. The Jews said to Him, “‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock’” (John 10:24-26). It seemed like another innocent question and answer session between the Jews and Jesus. But stubbornly, they denied that Jesus was their long-promised Messiah. They constantly tried to compromise Jesus by getting Him to contradict himself. Or worse yet, they tried to trick Him into admitting that He really was not the Christ He claimed to be. In the face of all this opposition, Jesus told them plainly that He was the Christ. The problem was not that He was unclear in his words. Jesus did not beat around the bush. He did not talk in a foreign language or in a secret code. His words, His miraculous signs and wonders in His ministry, the clear, simple words of others witnessing about Jesus—all of these identified Jesus as that Promised Savior and Messiah.
The apostle Simon Peter had given a bold witness about Christ, and he had done so not long before the suffering death and resurrection of the Good Shepherd. Simon boldly declared, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). And after the New Testament Pentecost, Simon Peter further declared, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38). Likewise, when Jesus questioned Martha, the sister of Lazarus, about His identity and His atoning work, Martha declared, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (John 11:27). Later, at the mock trial after Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was asked whether He was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus declared, “You have said so” (Matthew 26:64). We declare the same every time we confess the Apostles’, the Nicene, or the Athanasian Creed. Or when we sing the canticle, “We praise you, O God”, in Matins.
Unfortunately, and again sadly, the Jews refused to believe what Jesus told them plainly about himself. They were content to remain straying, wandering sheep. That's the disastrously sad problem down to this day. You still hear and verbally confess the true message of your Good Shepherd, your Beautiful Savior. But still by nature, we think and we act and we talk with attitudes, actions, and words that communicate a different message. By nature, it's a message that says we really don't believe what we have confessed in so many a divine service. After all, if we really believed it, wouldn't we live it? Wouldn't we then avoid the temptations of Satan, the world, and our flesh? Wouldn't we strive to set aside anger and hate and jealousy? To seek to reconcile broken relationships rather than take the easy worldly way out? Wouldn't we then, with great energy, tell the good news about Jesus to one another, to others, and to all whom God places in our daily lives?
Well, the answers to these questions are yes and no. In our fallen state of spiritual uncleanness as straying sheep, we often deny our Savior with sinful thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions. In our new life of spiritual cleanness through Holy Baptism, we strive to live the sanctified life that confesses Jesus as the Christ. It's a troublesome state of frustration and anxiety. St. Paul described it this way in Romans, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19). But then St. Paul proclaimed the solution: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25).
That becomes both our confession of sin and our soul comforting confession of faith. We realize, we trust that our victorious Savior safeguards, leads, and feeds his sheep. Jesus proclaims here that He and the Heavenly Father share a unified relationship when He declares He and the Father are one. Unity is necessary for, as an example, a sports team to succeed. Unity is necessary for marriages to last. We are Christians of the same unified confession of faith. We recognize our oneness in Christ through Holy Baptism. We declare the same by celebrating and using the Sacrament of the Altar together. There God gives you Christ's real Body and Blood to comfort you with His forgiveness, to strengthen you to stay rock solid in the one true faith. Yes, the Father and the Son have a divine, mystical union. That seems ironic when we consider the love God has for sinners. The Father sent His Son Jesus to save the world of sinners. His all-consuming love for you is expressed in the familiar words, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son” (John 3:16).
That's the love which Emmanuel, your Good Shepherd, wants you to have for others as well. The apostle St. John used the strong repeating theme taught by the Good Shepherd, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). Because of His great love for us, Jesus fulfilled the Father's saving will. He lived the perfect life that you as a stray sheep cannot live. He suffered and died the gruesome death that you deserve for sin. Jesus the Good Shepherd conquered Satan, sin, and death itself. He did so with His bodily resurrection from the dead. He did it because, as He said, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). And you have now claimed that completed salvation as your very own. You did so through the power of the Holy Spirit given to you in Holy Baptism. Now we thank and praise God that our victorious Savior safely safeguards all His sheep.
Today's first reading from Acts is called St. Paul's Farewell Message to the Church. St. Paul gave basic instructions to the pastors to whom he was speaking, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). That responsibility is both a gift and it's awesome. The word ‘pastor’ comes from the Latin word for shepherd. The word communicates the shepherd—sheep relationship despite all human weaknesses and shortcomings. The title pastor points to that God given responsibility to care for all in their spiritual warfare. In that way, pastors are the visible representatives of our invisible Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd is always leading His flock, His church. He leads them toward the goal of eternity with Him. And so our Good Shepherd also leads pastors to serve Him as His under-shepherds.
Then in the second reading, we heard the hymn of praise of all believers in heaven, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10). The angel with St. John then told him, “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). Those tears are the sign of all you endure in your walk through this daily life. You, the baptized, are headed to that same eternal joyful celebration in Heaven's glory. You will stand before the Lamb who is also the Good Shepherd, Emmanuel Himself.
In this Divine Service, we get an ever so brief glimpse into that eternal celebration. You can rest assured that you will reach that eternal home because your Good Shepherd won it for you. The Holy Spirit with the Word washed you clean in Holy Baptism with Christ's holy precious blood. Jesus has clothed you with his righteous white robes. We rejoice together with thanksgiving that our victorious Savior, the Good Shepherd, always safeguards His sheep. We rejoice that the Holy Spirit leads all of His sheep to confess that Jesus the Good Shepherd is the Christ. We rejoice in the unified living relationship of our Good Shepherd with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting. Amen.
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