The Holy Spirit is exactly the Helper we need

Posted on May 15, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Cantate – Easter 4

James 1:16-21  +  John 16:5-15

It’s been 29 days since we celebrated Easter Sunday. In just 11 days we’ll celebrate Jesus’ Ascension to the right hand of God, since He spent 40 days appearing on and off to His disciples and then ascended into heaven. And 10 days after that, we’ll celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the 50th day after Jesus rose from the dead. Today’s Gospel gets us thinking about those two events and why they’re so vitally important.

On the night before He died, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. And the very thought of that made His eleven disciples very sad. Why did Jesus have to go away? They didn’t even know what He meant by “going away.” We do. He was going away, first, to judgment and death. He would see them again when He rose from the dead, but then He would go away in a more permanent way by ascending into heaven. Why did He have to ascend into heaven, so that we can’t see Him here anymore, so that we can’t ask Him questions and hear His responses, so that we can’t see His miracles or see His face? The simple answer is, He went away, because He was no longer needed here. I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away.

The Son of God was needed here on earth, in human flesh, to live a righteous human life, to die an innocent human death. He was needed here to reveal God to us, to reveal the depth of the Father’s love for poor sinners by becoming the sacrifice for sins, the Substitute who paid the penalty for all people’s sins with His own blood, with His own death. He was needed here to earn a righteous verdict and the forgiveness of sins for all sinners. He was needed here to rise from the dead and to show His disciples the proof of His victory over sin, death, and the devil in His risen and glorified body, to show us the life that awaits all who believe when He comes again in glory.

All of that is done. All of that was accomplished nearly 2,000 years ago. What’s needed now, during this entire New Testament period, is for the blood of Christ and all that He earned by it to be applied to sinners for their justification. What’s needed now is for sinners around the world to hear the Gospel call to repent and believe in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, for sinners to be baptized and brought into the household of God’s Holy Church, adopted into His family for the sake of Christ, and made coheirs together with Christ of an eternal heavenly inheritance. That’s what needs to happen for the rest of this earthly age.

All of that—all that’s needed until the end of the age—is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

The Holy Spirit’s proper work is explained in this name that Jesus gives Him: Comforter, also translated as Helper or Encourager, sometimes just transliterated from the Greek word, Paraclete. The proper work of the Holy Spirit is to help sinners by bringing them to faith in Christ Jesus, encouraging them, convincing them to flee in faith to Christ and there to receive the forgiveness of sins. His proper work is to comfort sinners with the knowledge of God’s love in Christ Jesus and with the assurance that all who trust in Him are safe from the guilt of sin, from the accusations of the devil, and from the fate of eternal death.

But before He can get to that work for which He is named, He has other important work to do. Sometimes we call it His “foreign work,” or His “alien work” (from the Latin), because His proper work and His ultimate goal is to help and comfort. But before He can comfort, He first has to convict.

And when he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin, and regarding righteousness, and regarding judgment. Regarding to sin, because they do not believe in me; regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more; regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

How does the Spirit convict or rebuke the world? He does it through the preaching of the Law. The apostles were sent out by Jesus and empowered by His Spirit to expose sin, to tell the world what sin is and to accuse the world of it. The only way to escape the guilt and condemnation of sin is to flee in faith to Christ Jesus; where there is faith in Christ, there is Christ, and where Christ is, all guilt and condemnation are gone. But where sinners remain in unbelief, there they remain guilty of every misdeed, every harsh word, every wicked thought. They are rebuked, convicted regarding sin.

And regarding righteousness, because Jesus, the only Righteous One, has gone to the Father. And yet men, in unbelief, will still claim to be righteous without him. They hate the Word of God. They despise the commandments of God. They reject Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, but they still pretend that they are righteous, that they are good.

Don’t those who defend and promote abortion claim to be the righteous ones, advocating for women’s health and women’s rights? Don’t those who promote the LGBT agenda claim to be the righteous ones, who care about people’s feelings and stand up to the bullies who believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman? For that matter, though, don’t people in general claim to be good, claim to be righteous, claim to deserve to go to heaven, at least, more than certain other people do? But as the prophet Isaiah says, “All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” All our righteousness is worthless before God, because there is no one righteous—truly righteous and deserving of eternal life—except for the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, who has gone to the Father. But the world still refuses to embrace Him by faith, and so the Holy Spirit convicts the world regarding righteousness.

And the Spirit rebukes the world and convicts it regarding judgment, because the unbelieving world refuses to believe that Christ is the Judge and that Christ will come for judgment. They’re more afraid of meteorites and climate change than they are of the imminent judgment of God. But there is the Holy Spirit, wherever Christian preachers preach the Law, announcing the already-pronounced judgment against Satan, the ruler of this world, and the impending judgment that the inhabitants of this world, too, will surely face, unless they are rescued from Satan’s kingdom through faith in Christ Jesus. For this, the Spirit is needed here.

So Christians can take great comfort in the fact that the Holy Spirit is constantly at work rebuking sin, wherever the Word of God is preached. We can also take comfort that the Holy Spirit brings some of those sinners in the world—like you and me—to repent of our sins and to believe in Christ Jesus. He washes away sins in Holy Baptism and there He clothes us with the true righteousness, with the righteousness of Christ. Now we are safe, as long as we remain in Christ.

And it’s the Holy Spirit’s work to see to it that we do. Jesus told His apostles: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth … He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and proclaim it to you.

For the apostles, that meant that the Holy Spirit would guide them to understand the truth of Christ, to preach it in the world, and to record it for us in the inspired books and letters of the New Testament. For us, it means that we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit preserved for us in the Scriptures, together with His continual working through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, to keep convicting, to keep helping and comforting, to keep teaching and guiding His beloved Christian Church all the way up to the end of the age. This is the exactly the help we need.

I think we sometimes get the idea that, if only Jesus were here in person, making appearances around the world, then people would listen. Then we would have real and lasting comfort. But it’s not true. We don’t need Jesus sitting down in one home at a time, in one church at a time, preaching and teaching in one place at a time around the world, as He did long ago. What we need is His Holy Spirit, filling the world all at once and working through the powerful preaching of Law and Gospel, convicting sinners everywhere regarding sin and righteousness and judgment, comforting Christians everywhere with the peace of Christ and the forgiveness of sins, teaching the truth from Christian pulpits, washing away sins through Holy Baptism, and bringing the body and blood of Christ to Christian altars. This is why we will celebrate the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost in the coming weeks, because the Spirit is needed here, and the ascended Christ has given us exactly what we need. Amen.

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Still more reasons to rejoice

Posted on May 11, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Jubilate

Lamentations 3:18-26  +  Hebrews 4:14-16  +  John 14:1-11

You remember how, on Sunday, we talked about that constant mingling of joy and sorrow in the Christian life. All three of our lessons this evening help us to find that joy in times of sorrow.

Where did the prophet Jeremiah find joy in the midst of his great sorrow, in the midst of his lamentations over the lost city of Jerusalem, over its impenitence and destruction, over the exile of God’s people, over his own mistreatment at the hands of the people of Israel? He remembers the LORD’s mercy and compassion. He remembers that they do not fail, even though everyone around us should fail, even though friends turn out to be enemies, and the religious leaders turn out to be scoundrels, as Jeremiah experienced. As for the mercy and compassion of God, they are “new every morning.” His mercy doesn’t cease. His compassion always returns, because He is faithful. He doesn’t take pleasure in our sorrow, just as the Father didn’t take pleasure in Jesus’ sorrow.

What’s more, if the Lord is your portion, as Jeremiah calls Him, if He is the one you live for, if He is the one you seek to possess above everything else, then, no matter who disappoints you on earth, you can never truly be disappointed. You can always hope in God. He is “good to those who wait for Him.” So, Jeremiah says, “hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” You don’t have to figure everything out. You don’t have to solve the unsolvable problems of this world. Wait quietly for the Lord’s salvation. That’s a dependable source of joy in times of sorrow.

Where else do Christians find joy in times of sorrow? The writer to the Hebrews tells us. We have a great High Priest and Mediator who suffered, who died, who rose again, and who has now ascended to the right hand of God. And remember, He is there as One who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because He was tempted as we are in every way, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That means we can pray to the Lord Jesus, our High Priest, as One who understands our weaknesses, who understands what it is to be tempted to sin, tempted to despair, tempted to give up. He understands, and, therefore, He is able to help and willing to show us mercy and grant us His favor and help in every time of need.

Where else do Christians find joy in times of sorrow? That we learn from the Lord Jesus Himself as He gathered with His disciples on the most sorrowful night of His life, and of theirs, gathered in the upper room, waiting to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane. What did Jesus give His disciples to hold onto through the sorrow? In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

And what is the way to those heavenly mansions? What is the path? I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, Jesus says. You know Jesus, so you know the Way—the only Way to God. You know that you stand righteous before God by faith alone in Him alone. That’s the Truth. And you have come to Him for life. He’s the only source of it. In fact, He is the Life. There is no eternal life apart from Him. And He’s given Himself to you freely, to have Him as your Lord, to have Him as your Savior, to have Him as the One who will walk through this entire life with you, even through the valley of the shadow of death, until He comes back for you, to bring you to those mansions He’s preparing for you even now.

Is that enough to get rid of all the sorrow of this life? Of course not. But it’s enough to get you through it, and it’s enough to give you something to rejoice over in the meantime. May God the Holy Spirit continue to work that fruit called “joy” in your hearts! Amen.

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Momentary sorrow, everlasting joy

Posted on May 8, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Jubilate – Easter 3

1 Peter 2:11-20  +  John 16:16-23

The interplay between sorrow and joy pretty much characterizes the Christian life. I say “the Christian life.” Obviously non-Christians also have times of sorrow and times of joy. But never the kind of joy that Christians have: the joy of knowing—knowing! where we came from, why we’re here, why things are so messed up in the world and in ourselves, and what God has done about it, is doing about it, and will do about it; the joy of knowing the true God, knowing how to be accepted by Him and that, by faith in Christ, we have been accepted by Him; knowing the love of an everlasting Father and of His Son who gave Himself for us; knowing the peace of sins forgiven, death defeated, guilt erased, and eternal life to look forward to, where there will be no more sorrow at all, but only perfect joy, no longer as something to look forward to, but as something we will fully experience.

For now, there is still sorrow mingled with that Christian joy. A little while of sorrow, followed by joy that no one will take away from you, as Jesus promised His apostles in today’s Gospel. Ponder the words of Jesus again this morning and listen to what He says about the momentary sorrow and the everlasting joy.

“A little while, and you will not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me, because I am going to the Father.” Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. It was Maundy Thursday evening in the upper room. In a little while Jesus would be hauled away, tried, crucified, and buried. The disciples wouldn’t see him for a little while. They would weep and mourn, and the world would rejoice. But then they would see Him, because He would rise from the dead and appear to them on Easter Sunday and over the next forty days, until He went to the Father on the day of His ascension.

They didn’t understand that at the time, though, on Maundy Thursday, before the events took place. They had to go through the sorrow that accompanied not seeing Jesus, even though Jesus told them that joy would surely follow.

It’s the same for us. We know the joy is coming. We have a foretaste of it even now, in all the ways I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, and in hearing the Gospel and celebrating the Lord’s Supper with one another, and with Him. But until we see Jesus, which won’t be until the end of this world, or the end of our time in it, the joy of Christians is constantly mingled with sorrow. And I don’t just mean the same sorrows that all people face, and there are plenty of those in this sin-stricken world. No, Jesus says that we Christians will mourn as the world rejoices, as the world gets it way in so many ways, even as it got its way in putting Jesus to death.

We mourn—as the world rejoices!—over the sad state of the Christian Church on earth. On the one hand, false doctrine and indifference toward the Word of Christ plague the visible Church, and Christians are willing to compromise on God’s Word in order to hold onto less important things. On the other hand, pride and lovelessness also abound among those who are called Christians, even if their doctrine is technically correct. Believers in Christ rightly mourn over that, while the world is happy to see the Church so divided and distorted.

We also mourn—as the world rejoices!—over society’s demonic attack on all that is good and right, on the family as God created it, on the very language we use, on reality itself. We mourn as the world celebrates and normalizes depravity and wickedness, sexual immorality and murder in all their forms. We mourn over people’s apathy or outright hatred toward children growing in their mother’s womb, and toward marriage, and toward decency. Meanwhile, the world rejoices, because the world belongs to the devil, whose highest goal is to pervert and destroy God’s good creation, and to make the Word of God appear foolish to those who are perishing.

Yes, we mourn over our own sins, too, or at least, we’d better. The good we want to do, we don’t do—not fully. And the evil we don’t want to do—that’s what we often do, as St. Paul says to the Romans in chapter 7. God’s children want to be perfect and holy, like our Father, like Jesus. We want to work together with His Holy Spirit, who is always tugging us toward what is right. And yet, try as we might, we can’t reach the goal. That doesn’t mean we stop trying. If you stop trying, if you stop struggling against the flesh, you stop being a Christian. But the more we try, the more we realize how far we have to go to grow into the perfectly loving image of our perfectly loving God. And so we mourn over our sin, while the world rejoices to see Christians not behaving as Christians should.

How do we live with the sorrow? Jesus tells us how. We learn a lesson from mothers—a fitting lesson for Mothers’ Day. A woman has sorrow when she is giving birth, because her hour has come. But as soon as she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world. So it is that you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. Why do women willingly go through childbirth, knowing the sorrow and pain that accompany it? Because they know that the joy of bringing a little girl or a little boy into the world is worth far more than the sorrow. The sorrow is gone in a moment. But that life that a mom brings into the world—that human life usually lasts a lot longer than a moment. It has the potential to be around for 70 or 80 years, or longer. It has the potential to do much good in the world. And if that child that’s born into the world is brought to Jesus for cleansing and is brought into His kingdom through Baptism and faith, then he or she has the potential to live, not just 70 or 80 years, but forever! What honor God has given to women, in spite of the sorrow that’s inevitably involved!

The joy God has in store for His people is even greater, because it’s more certain. A mom doesn’t know if her child will live a long life on the earth, or if that child will believe in Jesus for eternal life. But the mere hope of it, the hope of that joy, gets her through the sorrow of childbirth. The people of God, on the other hand, will most certainly see Jesus again. And until then, He will most certainly continue to provide His Means of Grace—His Word and Sacrament, through which His Holy Spirit will most certainly guard and keep you steadfast in the faith, if you use these Means of Grace and pray and resolve to walk with His Spirit in love. You believers will most certainly see Jesus again, not to be judged and condemned by Him, with the rest of the world, but to join Him at the eternal marriage feast, in everlasting joy.

So embrace the sorrow now, because it’s the only path to that joy. And meanwhile, remember the joy that is already yours: the joy of knowing where you came from, why you’re here, why things are so messed up in the world and in yourself, and what God has done about it, is doing about it, and will do about it. Remember the joy of knowing the true God, knowing how to be accepted by Him and that, by faith in Christ, you have been accepted by Him. Remember the joy of knowing the love of an everlasting Father and of His Son who gave Himself for you; the joy of knowing the peace of sins forgiven, death defeated, and guilt erased. May God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—preserve you in that joy through all the sorrows of this life. Amen.

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The testimony about Christ in the writings of Moses

Posted on May 4, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 2

John 5:31-47

In the lesson this evening from St. John’s Gospel, Jesus rebukes the Jews for not believing in Him. And why should they have believed? Not because of what Jesus said about Himself, but because of the testimony that others had given about Him. John the Baptist was one of those witnesses. But there was a much more important one. God the Father Himself had testified about Jesus. Not audibly or visibly, but in the Holy Scriptures, specifically, the Scriptures written by Moses. If you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. If you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?

We’ve considered recently some Old Testament prophecies about the Christ’s death and resurrection. Let’s take a moment this evening to consider the Father’s testimony about His Son in the Torah, in the writings of Moses—testimony which people reject at their own peril.

The Book of Genesis begins with the Creation, with the power of God’s Word to create all things and to manipulate the things He created. What else is it to change water into wine but a divine act of creation? To walk on water? To calm a storm? To speak healing to human bodies that were previously diseased? What else is it to raise people to life from the dead but to do the work of God?

Adam and Eve fell into sin, and Jesus agreed with Moses that the human race has been fallen ever since. But Moses also wrote of the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. What else is it to drive out demons but to show that one has power over the serpent? Isn’t it God’s own testimony that this is the Man in whom mankind was to believe?

Moses went on to write about the depravity of the human race at the time of Cain and up to the days of Noah. He shows that mankind is hopeless and lost unless God Himself steps in to save by His grace. What else was the preaching of Jesus but man’s depravity and God’s desire to save by His grace?

Moses wrote about God’s gracious selection of Abraham and his family, the miraculous birth of Isaac, God’s promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s Seed, and about Abraham being justified before he was ever circumcised, not by works, but by faith in God’s promise. Well, Jesus was a Son of Abraham. And what else did He preach but to trust in the Lord God for justification, and not in one’s own works or circumcision?

Moses wrote about Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, and how the Messiah would come from them, too, and Jesus was their descendant. He also recorded Jacob’s prophecy that the scepter wouldn’t depart from Israel until the true King and Messiah should come, and it was just prior to Jesus’ birth that the scepter had departed from Israel, God’s testimony to them that the Messiah’s coming was imminent.

Moses wrote about Israel’s slavery in Egypt, and Jesus preached about the people’s ongoing slavery to sin. Moses wrote that you can’t deliver yourselves from slavery. God alone must deliver you. He must raise up a Deliverer. Redemption is God’s work alone. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!

Moses wrote about the Passover and the Passover Lamb. What else is Jesus but the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?

Moses wrote about Israel’s thirst in the wilderness, and how God had to provide it through Moses, His servant. So Jesus taught that God must provide the living water you need for your thirsty soul. It must come from God, through His servant, the Christ.

Moses wrote about Israel’s hunger in the wilderness, and how God had to provide bread from heaven. So Jesus taught that God alone could satisfy their hungry souls with His righteousness, with the true Bread that came down from heaven, the bread of life, Jesus Christ.

Moses wrote down God’s commandments. He explained sin and atonement through blood-sacrifice. He taught about man’s uncleanness and about God’s holiness and man’s dire need for holiness to be able to stand before God. He taught about the priesthood and the need for an Intercessor, for a High Priest, chosen by God, who could be the mediator between God and Man. Then along comes Jesus, the Holy One, who convicts all people of sin. But He also presents Himself as the once-for-all, all-atoning Sacrifice, whose blood cleanses the unclean, who is the great High Priest and the one Mediator between God and Man.

Moses wrote about Israel’s idolatry and warned them that they would die in it, if they refused to repent. So Jesus also warned the Jews about their idolatry of money and their idolatry of themselves, and warned them of their coming destruction.

Moses wrote about the bronze serpent, lifted up on the pole. That was a testimony of God to how the world could be saved, by looking to Jesus in faith.

Moses wrote about the future conquest of Canaan, and so he testified that God alone must give you victory over your enemies, over sin, death, and the devil, even as Jesus gave sinners that victory through the forgiveness of sins, through His eventual death and resurrection, and by conquering the devil through them.

Finally, Moses wrote about the Promised Land, how it was God’s free gift to an undeserving people, because of the covenant He made with Abraham. So Jesus proclaimed the first covenant fulfilled and a new covenant in place, the gift of the heavenly Promised Land and of eternal life to all who believe.

As Moses wrote, The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brothers. You must listen to Him! That Prophet was Jesus, witnessed by Moses, witnessed by God the Father through Moses and through Jesus’ words and works, which were all just the things Moses had testified about and portrayed in his writings. If you truly believe Moses, you will also believe that Jesus is the Christ, and you will put all your faith and trust in Him! Do it now! Do it continually, so that on the Last Day you are not counted among those who saw and heard God’s testimony about His Son, and yet ended up calling Him a liar. May God preserve us from such an end! Amen.

 

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Following the Good Shepherd

Posted on May 1, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Misericordias Domini – Easter 2

1 Peter 2:21-25  +  John 10:11-16

It was 15 years ago last week that I preached my very first sermon here at Emmanuel, as your called shepherd, also on John chapter 10 and the Good Shepherd. And ever since, it has been my greatest desire and aim never to make the sermon, or anything in the church, about me, but always and only about Christ, the Good Shepherd.

How is Christ a good Shepherd? He’s a good Shepherd in many ways. He cares for His sheep and His lambs, for each and every baptized believer in His Holy Christian Church. He feeds His sheep—feeds us with His Word and Sacrament, forgives our sins, strengthens our faith and guards us from that easy slide into unbelief, into viewing life as the rest of the world views it, from an earthly perspective instead of from a heavenly one. He also leads His sheep—leads us by His Spirit and by His Word, teaching us so that we know what is right and wrong, and learn to choose the right and avoid the wrong as He empowers and encourages us by His Holy Spirit. And, like a shepherd, the Good Shepherd goes searching for the lost sheep, for the ones who stray from His Word and Sacrament and blunder into sin and impenitence, sending out His ministers to find them, accompanying them as they do, and then rejoicing when the lost are found and returned to the flock. These are tender, sweet images of Jesus, our Good Shepherd.

But the image in today’s Gospel is a bloodier one than that. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Christ laid down His life for us. Suffered for us. Died for us. Stood between the wolf and the sheep and allowed Himself to be devoured, so that we might live.

Why? Who or what was the wolf that was prowling around, ready to pounce on us? The wolf here is a symbol of danger. We were in danger because of our own sins against God, because of our own selfishness, our own disobedience to God’s commandments, our misplaced trust in ourselves, our idolatry, our pride. Our sins meant death for us. They’re the reason why we die in the first place, and suffer every other evil and misfortune here on this earth. And our sins gave the devil power over us, to accuse us before God and to drag us away to hell. In the end, God’s own righteous anger over our sins is what would have allowed the devil to have us and death to take us and hell to torment us forever.

But then the Good Shepherd intervened—intervened by God the Father’s own will and design—to suffer the death we had earned for ourselves, in order to share His righteousness and His life with us, in order to Shepherd us here on earth and there in the life that awaits after this life. He laid down His life, knowing that it would be enough—enough to save anyone and everyone who believes in Him, who takes refuge in Him, who claims Him and Him alone before God the Father as the reason why He should forgive us and accept us and welcome us into eternal life, not because we’re such good people, but only because of Christ and His works for us.

Now, in this Gospel, Jesus also contrasts Himself with the hireling who is unwilling to suffer for the sheep. The hireling is in it for himself, to get paid. If it’s a question of him suffering or the sheep suffering, he’ll choose the sheep suffering. He’ll run away when the danger approaches.

So any number of men who called themselves prophets in the Old Testament preached what the people wanted to hear in order to build themselves up. Those who told them what they needed to hear, the earnest warnings from God to repent and believe in Him—they were usually hated and rejected. So, few were willing to suffer in that way.

Even the apostle Peter once fell into that trap. Instead of standing up against the men who came to Antioch from Jerusalem trying to force the Christians to live, not according to God’s Word, but according to human traditions and beliefs, Peter, seeking to avoid conflict and shame for himself, gave in to the human traditions being imposed by those men until the apostle Paul stood up and warned him and the other believers and turned their eyes back to Christ, who was crucified so that we might be free from the slavery of sin and from the slavery of trying to save ourselves by our works and from the slavery of manmade traditions, as if man had the right to regulate the things that God has left free.

In today’s Epistle, that same apostle Peter, having been restored to the truth of Christ and the freedom of the Gospel, calls on all Christians to imitate Christ specifically in doing good and in being willing to suffer for doing good. To this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow in his steps. We can’t follow the example of Christ in suffering for sins. His suffering for sins was the only payment for sins, the only atonement for sins that God accepts. We can’t pay for anyone’s sins before God, including our own. But still, St. Peter calls on us all in today’s Epistle to follow the example of Christ in suffering patiently, suffering for doing good. No deceit was found in His mouth. And so, as His people, no deceit should be found in your mouth, either. No twisting of the truth. No hiding of the truth.

Oh, and you could avoid much suffering in this world if you just allow deceit to come out of your mouth, or if you just remain silent when you know it would help your neighbor more for you to speak. It’s tempting to keep quiet, tempting to go along with the crowd, tempting to avoid having to suffer. But if you would be sheep who follow the Good Shepherd, then you must follow Him in this way, too.

Is He worth following? Is He worth suffering for? What does Peter say about Him? He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, should live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray. But you have now been brought back to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

So, yes, the Good Shepherd is worth following, worth suffering for, precisely because He is good, because He laid down His life for us and gives us healing by His wounds, the healing of the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, the adoption of sons, and the gift of eternal life. That’s what a good shepherd does.

Somewhat ironically, given recent events, the word Overseer that Peter uses here in the Epistle is the word that’s also translated as “bishop.” Christ is your true Shepherd and Overseer or Bishop. Nothing can change that. But He Himself has appointed shepherds and overseers in His Church to shepherd and to oversee on His behalf. Your shepherd and overseer under Christ is the one whom you called 15 years ago in the name of Christ to do this task, your “pastor” or “shepherd.” And he is called to do it after the example of Christ, in word and deed, and in suffering—called to do it, not as a lord of all, but as a servant of all; not as one who can demand obedience to his own word, but who points you always to God’s Word; not as a hireling, but as one who cares for the sheep entrusted to his care with all the love and compassion of Christ.

What a task we’ve all been given, as sheep of the Good Shepherd and as a pastor under the Good Shepherd! Who is up to it? None of us, on our own. But as Christ feeds and strengthens us by His Word and Sacraments, as He leads us and guards us by His Spirit and by His Word, He will make us up to the task of living as sheep in His fold, until He brings us safely into His heavenly pastures. May God grant it, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

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