Texts from Historic Lectionary: (Ezekiel 34.11-16) 1 Peter 2.21-25; John 10.11-16
Long ago, the mother of a prince gave her son advice in the form of proverbs. The section on what makes for a good wife begin with a question: “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.” But it’s not just in a wife where a man appreciates virtue. A modern-day book of proverbs would have such sayings as, “Who can find an honest auto-mechanic?” “A trustworthy lawyer, who can find?” “A virtuous politician is worth more than rubies.”
In the ancient world, it was difficult to find a good shepherd. Shepherds had a dangerous job. They had to keep foolish, wandering sheep safe from ferocious predators. The owner of the sheep would hope for a good-faith effort by his shepherds in fighting off the wolves and jackals, but if the situation got dangerous, those hired hands would often opt to save their own skin.
The preeminent picture of a good shepherd in the Bible is David. Before he was a king, before he was a warrior, he took care of his father’s sheep. When David is applying before King Saul for the job of taking on the Philistine warrior Goliath, the number one thing David puts on his resumé was his experience as a shepherd:
But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” Moreover David said, “The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!” [1 Sam. 17.34-37]
In the section in Ezekiel 34 just before the reading we heard this morning, the LORD condemns the Jewish leaders for not being like David; they were bad shepherds, bad pastors, because they thought of themselves ahead of the flock: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? … The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost…. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered.”
But the fault is not only with the shepherds; as Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” Our first parents yielded to an inclination to sin, and so wandered away from the love of God [Cyril of Alexandria]. Have you considered how frequently you still, although you are baptized, yield to the inclination to sin? Why do you do what you know is wrong? Why do you live for yourself, putting first your own lusts, and heed not the voice of your Shepherd? When you yield to that inclination to sin, you repeat the pattern of our first parents and wander away all over again, straying from the love of God.
Because of the disobedience of our first parents, and because of our own continued disobedience, the human race has fallen prey to “two bitter and merciless wolves” [Cyril]: the devil, and death. It is that condition which today’s first reading, from Ezekiel, describes: the human race is lost, gone astray, injured, and weak; scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness; oppressed by tyrants.
The shepherds that the LORD sent did not care for the sheep; and so the LORD prophecies that He will reverse this, and do it Himself: He will gather the lost and strayed, heal them, feed them, and cause them to rest securely.
So when Jesus announces that He is the Good Shepherd, He is declaring that He is the LORD, God come in the flesh to rescue His people. And not just His people Israel, but all people: the “other sheep [who are] not of this [Jewish] fold.”
Furthermore, our Lord Jesus indicates that He will be a shepherd like David; since He cares for the sheep, He will put His life on the line for them. Christ the Good Shepherd put Himself between us and those wolves devil and death. They devoured Him, and supposed with the Shepherd dead, the sheep would be theirs. But in attacking Him, they walked into a trap. That the Shepherd could live again was beyond their comprehension; they bit into a man and found God. Seizing their Victim, they themselves became the prey. As David beat back lion and bear with his club, so great David’s greater Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, has turned the wood of the cross into a mighty weapon by which those wolves that threatened us, devil and death, are defeated.
So what does this mean for you, now that we have celebrated our great Easter festival? St. Peter today instructs us that the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for us has also left us an example. We are to follow in His steps. When Peter says that Christ “suffered for you,” he means that Christ has already saved us, so we don’t follow His example in order to be saved; nevertheless in Jesus we see God and Man united together, and thereby we see what it means for us to be a child of God, a follower of Christ, a “Christian”: committing no sin, having no deceit found in our mouths, not reviling when we are reviled, not threatening those who cause us to suffer, but entrusting ourselves to God, who judges justly, with righteousness.
And in Jesus is also our comfort. The sheep in Ezekiel are described as weak and injured, and that pretty much sums up my life and probably yours as well. None of us is untouched by bodily weakness, or damaged psyches, or challenging family situations, or disappointments at failed hopes and shattered dreams, overwhelming work obligations, overwhelming sadness, or overwhelming addictions, compulsions, lusts. You are not alone. All we like sheep have gone astray, all we like sheep are weak, wounded, damaged and frail. But this is our good news, this is what our Good Shepherd has done, the Word of God comforts us with this: “By His wounds we are healed.”
He bore our sins, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, live in His healing. We cannot live in righteousness by ourselves; we cannot protect ourselves from our predators. The only way we will die to sin and live to righteousness is to stay close to our Shepherd. Only in Him, with Him, following Him, in His flock, are we safe. So you, little lamb, hear His voice and know what His mind is toward you in the breaking of the bread. It is as though He says to you here:
I am the Good Shepherd,
I laid down my life for you sheep,
and here I give you the body I laid down.
With you in Me and I in you,
you are safe,
for by My wounds you are healed.
+++SDG+++
Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia
