Third Sunday of Easter (John 10:11-16)

Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!

From the time of the Hebrew Prophets until the holy Christian Church, the people of God have often been compared to sheep. As the prophet Isaiah spoke, “All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned, everyone to his own way.” No matter how self-sufficient the sheep believe they are, the ravaging wolves seek to devour them. To escape from their certain death, sheep survive in the flock, and the flock remains safe under a shepherd. A shepherd who sees the wolves coming to either devour the sheep or separate them. Yet not all of the shepherds of Israel were faithful. So, when our Lord Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd, He shows that He is the fulfillment of the prophets: God will unite His people into one flock under one Shepherd, guide them to a stream of living water, and be their God forevermore. 

The entire chapter of Ezekiel 34 contains the promises of our Lord’s kingship over His people, as the Lord God Himself will be their Shepherd, seeking them out. To understand such promises, we need to look to the preceding verses in our Old Testament reading. As the Lord says to the prophet of Ezekiel, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophecy, and say to them, ‘thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: ‘Woe to you, shepherds of Israel, who feed yourselves! Should not the shepherd feed the flocks?” While Ezekiel refers to the rulers and leaders of Israel, the shepherds over the nation, they do not truly care for the flock. 

These unfaithful shepherds are the kings and leaders of armies, the priests at the temple, the false prophets, and also the patriots of families of the tribes. These are the people who have been put into positions of authority and influence by God Himself, and they have used such power to feed themselves and to starve the sheep. Ezekiel says that they clothe themselves with their wool, they slaughter the fatlings, and yet they do not feed the people. The shepherds took advantage of the Israel; they abused their labor, manipulated their trust, and only cared about themselves. The people of God who were freed from bondage in Egypt are now oppressed once again by their own brothers. The rulers of the nation of Israel saw the people as their own sheep rather than as the Lord’s sheep entrusted to them.

So in the portion that we just heard, the Lord God bestowed on them a tremendous promise. That the Lord will rescue the sheep that rightfully belong to Him and deliver them from those who scattered them. As the shepherds of old neglected to feed, this is our Lord‘s first priority. For He will not provide only food to get by, but the Lord will bring them to the mountains of Israel, where there are good pastures. Even as the shepherds the Lord has placed over the people were unfaithful, the Lord will always be faithful to the people He has brought into His land and covenant. As the sheep were scattered away, He will bring them back. As they were beaten down by the rod of their oppressor, He will bind them up and strengthen the sick. And to those who brought scandal and harm to the sheep of God, God promised to feed them in judgment. 

Those were the unfaithful shepherds in the days of Israel, but who are the unfaithful shepherds of our day? There are those who are both inside and outside the holy Christian church, but let us primarily focus on those who are not of the church, as they still attack those within. It is the phenomenon of our age that everyone wants their opinion to matter the most. No matter what age group you are in, someone is always trying to grab your attention and tell you that their opinion is the most important. These could be personalities on TV, the radio, or podcasts, or on social media, such as Facebook or other platforms. We are at a point where we consume so many voices and opinions that it is hard to determine what we think about something or whether we’re just repeating what we’ve already heard. And we know that these people are trying to lead us away and bring us into their own persuasion because how do these people become so influential. First, many of these people try to say the craziest thing possible so that the sheep begin to talk about them. And the more you talk about them and what they said, the less absurd they sound. As a result, their sheep keep listening to them. And second, these personalities and influencers cannot agree with anyone else. They have to critique everyone, to make themselves an island by persuading their sheep that either you are with them and the truth, or you are believing some fantasy.

This is how they divide the sheep by the words of their mouth. They feed people lies so they can clothe themselves in the wool of advertising and sponsorship. And many of these unfaithful shepherds are worse than in the days of the prophets, for they were not given power by God, but they carve themselves out a piece of authority based on deception. These bad shepherds have one evil intention, and that is to have you and I break the first commandment. To build up so much trust in their sheep that they value the voice of their over the word of the Lord. For this, they are no better than the hired hands that, when they see that their viewers have gone away, and the wolf of their own making comes to devour them, where can they be found? 

So, in our gospel reading, when the Lord Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” this is no less comforting to us than it was to the people of Israel. For Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of the words of Ezekiel. For now, the people of God will no longer be held under the oppression of hired hands. The sheep truly belong to Christ, and He knows them personally, and they know Him by His sacrifice on the cross and His Resurrection from the dead. It is by His blood and death that the Lord has purchased us back from demonic lies and destruction brought on by the unfaithful shepherds of both their day and ours. For He does not gather them to persuade them of lies, but Christ gathers them so that He may lay down His life for them and bring them back to the good land. Our Lord Jesus accomplishes this by His voice for the sheep, who know Christ by His voice. 

And we know our Lord’s voice by the word of God. We know the promises of His love and mercy towards us because His word is ever efficacious, creating faith and giving us new and clean hearts. And these hearts are strengthened by His Holy Sacraments. Therefore, because we have the word of God, we can discern and distinguish between the words of the Good Shepherd and the lies of the unfaithful, those who seek us for their own benefit and not out of love as the Lord Jesus does. 

Because you are the Lord God’s sheep, you have been washed by Christ’s blood and brought into the one flock. He has brought you into the evergreen pastures and high Mountains of His holy Church. And you hear his word and his voice. His voice that says, ‘You are forgiven because I was crucified and raised life again.’ Amen.