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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