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Just as Ezekiel heard the voice of the LORD against the false shepherds of Israel roughly 570 years before Christ, Jesus was speaking directly to the false shepherds of Israel, the 33 AD version. Thanks to all of the evil kings of Israel and Judah, all of the false prophets and priests who led the people to tolerate and worship false gods ever since the time God's flock had reentered the Promised Land of Israel, things never changed. Israel's history has been one constant battle against the scattering of God's flock by strangers, hired hands, wolves, false voices.
But that has been human history, really. The serpent, the greatest and most deadly of all the false voices, spoke his deception to Adam and Eve in the garden, and ever since, our flesh and our ears have been infected with a cacophony of voices that compete with the Word of God.
The serpent and his false voice — the stranger, the hired hand, the wolf — are one and the same. Satan wants to scatter and separate the sheep from the Good Shepherd. Satan wants to see the sheep that God has created be lost and destroyed, snatched up by the wolf of hell and devoured.
“Did God really say…” the serpent started with Eve. It is a voice that questions the Word of God. It raises doubts and objections to the righteous Law of God. It raises doubts and objections to the story of God's loving creation of the world and of His people. It questions God's Gospel plan of restoring and reconciling His people to Himself in His only–begotten Son.
Under this false voice of Satan, the corrupted world which he influences — and our sinful flesh which wants to listen to him — the family disintegrates, communities crumble, the sheep scatter and go their own way, fending for themselves.
If you scatter from the voice of the Good Shepherd, the consequences around the corner for you are dire. The voice of the serpent and false shepherds and hired hands under his domain will destroy you, keeping you out of the reach of the Good Shepherd's hands.
Listening to Satan breeds hopelessness, and the voice of God becomes a voice we learn to avoid, ignore, and even dread, rather than crave and welcome in our ear. Just look at what Adam and Eve did after they ate of the fruit. Upon hearing God walking in the garden and calling out for them, they hid themselves. They were lost. They scattered. They feared talking to God, feared admitting to their sin, sought to shift the blame to everyone else, even to God. “The woman you gave me did this,” Adam says to God.
Ever since, you have all been born into the same sin and shame. When you give into your sinful flesh, when you seek to fulfill your own whims and desires, when you act out on your lusts — your covetousness, your greed, your hatred and petty jealousy towards those around you — you have listened to the false voice of Satan and the world, the hired hand who cares nothing for you, who only wants to use and abuse and consume you, even though he is crafty enough to sound like he is “good” and “right” when in fact he is deadly evil.
Repent of listening to the false voice. Repent of scattering away from the Good Shepherd to try life on your own terms. Repent of sin today, now, before it is too late. Repent and turn in your baptism, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to tune in only the voice of the Good Shepherd.
How does the Voice of God's Word, the Voice of the Good Shepherd, ever get into our ears and drown out the voice of the Satan and his false shepherds? How does Jesus gather us back safely into the flock when we our lost? How does He get His holy and precious hands back onto us to retrieve us?
The first thing He did was come among us to live in our flesh, to make of Himself a perfect blood offering to pay for our sins, ransoming us and winning the right to gather us as His flock. Listen to these words that the Lutheran composer, Felix Mendelssohn, beautifully set to music in a famous choral anthem, summarizing today's Gospel:
A good and patient Shepherd, His soul he gave to save His sheep and to bring us salvation.
For the flock He His life gave in pain and suffering. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
Jesus patiently suffered all attacks of the serpent. Jesus turned away the temptations of Satan's voice. Jesus Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin, and the voice of the serpent, and live to righteousness by His voice of life and forgiveness. By His wounds, you have been healed. For we all like sheep had gone astray, everyone to his own way, scattered by the serpent's false voice, but now “you have been returned (by God) upon the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:25b, my literal translation).
Then, having become the Lamb whose blood has taken away the punishment for the sin of the whole world, He walked out of His tomb alive, ready, and willing to spend the rest of time gathering His eternal flock back together.
Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them…(Ezekiel 34:11–12)
I AM the Good Shepherd, I know the ones that are mine, and the ones that are mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I am laying down my life on behalf of the sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not in this sheepfold, and it is necessary for me to lead those, and my voice they will hear — and they will become one flock, one shepherd.(John 10:14–16, my literal translation)
Jesus has patiently gone out and gathered each of you lost sheep up with His Holy Gospel and in Holy Baptism and carries each of you home upon His shoulders, back to the life of repentance and faith in Him, speaking comfort in your ear and feeding you His forgiveness as members of His flock.
The Good Shepherd is not our pilot or co–pilot. He is not our coach. He is also not detached from us, waiting in heaven for us to climb our way up to Him. Instead, He gets down into the dirt of His creation for us. That's what a real shepherd does. The work is dirty and difficult, because our sinful world is. He has compassion upon all of you, upon all the people in the world who are lost in the voice of the serpent, assailed by this corrupt world, who are cared for by hired hands who do not truly care, who are under attack from the wolf of unbelief and hell, all of those who Jesus sees as “harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36).
Jesus acted on His compassion, dying and rising for you, and now acts as your Good Shepherd. These are not just empty phrases to make us feel good. Jesus is today and tomorrow actively gathering you, His flock, around His voice of absolution, around His risen Body and Blood, all given out freely to save you from sin and death, to feed you even in the very presence of your enemies. His Gospel Voice consoles and comforts, teaches and forgives you.
The invisible Savior of us all, who has indeed risen from the dead, has created for Himself a visible Church. The Church that remains faithful to His Voice is His tool, His voice, and His hands. The Good Shepherd had installed the Apostles as His messengers and ambassadors by the time of His Ascension. They were to continue His work, speaking in His Name the forgiveness of sins, giving out His grace in Baptism and Supper.
Today, Christ continues to give the Church shepherds and teachers for the building up of His Church. Paul tells the pastors at Ephesus (Ephesians 4:11ff) to “take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you guardians, to feed the Church of the Lord which He obtained with His own blood.” Peter, too, tells pastors to be shepherds for the flock of God which is under their care in such a way that they may have their reward from the chief Shepherd, to whom they must give account of their stewardship. (1 Peter 5). These men search high and low for the lost, using the simple tools God has given them: Gospel, and Sacrament.
So, it is therefore true that all that we do as Christians together in the flock are no matter of indifference. No person can get along through the valley of the shadow of death as a lone sheep, without Christ and His under–shepherds who proclaim His voice. It is important that the flock hold together and listen to the voice of the One Good Shepherd.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, pray for our pastors in Christ and for each other that we all continue strong and steadfast in the prayers, doctrine, hymns, liturgy, preaching, and teaching which all comes from His Word and in the Sacrament that is blessed by the voice of the Good Shepherd. There, in His Voice is life, real, true, lasting and eternal life. Listen for His Voice. It is the right voice. It is the only voice that will never fail you.
God grant this prayer, for Jesus' sake, who is the eternal Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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