In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” That’s what Jesus says about Himself in our Gospel lesson today from John chapter 10, and with these words our Lord introduces us to what is without a doubt the most beloved metaphor for His relationship to the Church in the whole Bible. Christ is the Shepherd, and we, His Christians, and the sheep.

The reason why people love this illustration so much, and rightly so, is because it’s easy to understand. As Martin Luther once said in the Smalcald Articles, “[Even] a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd.” My little kids might not be able to explain you the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation, but they can still tell you who belongs to Jesus and who doesn’t. It’s the believers. It’s those who actually trust in Christ and look to Him for forgiveness.

We hear things all of the time nowadays about who the true Church and where you find it. One of the favorite talking points of Roman Catholics, and you see this all over the internet, is that they’re the Church that Jesus founded. Since they can trace the ordination of their priests back to the time of the Apostles, or so they say, the claim is that this somehow automatically validates everything that they say and do. It proves the legitimacy of their doctrine. And yet, you don’t have to be an expert in the Bible to know that many of the things that they teach aren’t in it. What about purgatory and the idea that after you die you have to go to a place of cleansing in order to be made holy enough to enter into God’s presence? Where is that in the Scriptures? And doesn’t that completely undermine what the Bible actually says about the death of Jesus? Doesn’t God’s Word tell us clearly that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all of our sin? So, why on earth would we need to be cleansed from it even more, and even if we did, how on earth could our own suffering ever do that? It’s ridiculous.

Or what about praying to the saints, and sacrificing the Mass on behalf of those who are already dead? Sure, God’s Word does suggest to us that those in heaven might pray for us, but where does it ever say that because of that we should pray to them? The Bible tells us to pray to Christ alone. It says that there’s one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. And who is Communion for? Is that gift for people who can’t even eat it and drink it anymore because they’re already dead? Of course, not! It’s for the living, so that when they die, they can die in Christ and go to heaven.

Just because a certain denomination looks old, and does things that have the appearance of ancient tradition, that doesn’t mean that those traditions are right. That’s the same dumb argument that the Pharisees made in the Bible. They opposed the Ministry of Jesus because they said that their Rabbis from the past had always been doing things their way. They appealed even to Moses and the Prophets, as if the Scriptures were on their side, even though they ignored large portions of them. And the same thing is true today. We don’t find the true Church just by looking for things that look old, we do it by listening to the voice of our Good Shepherd. We follow after God’s Word, and derive our beliefs from clear Biblical teaching. Human traditions, and ancient ceremonies, may be helpful to remind us of God’s Word, but when they get in the way of it, we need to get rid of them. We embrace them only insofar as they actually point people to Jesus, because He is the Good Shepherd, and no one, and nothing else.

Besides helping us see who the real Church is, the illustration of a Shepherd watching over His sheep is also good for teaching us about sin and how the grace of God works. If you know anything about sheep, you know that they are not very bright animals. Lots of times they wander away from the flock and put themselves in danger. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it before, but a few years ago there was a great video going around online of a shepherd trying to pull one of his sheep out from a crack in the ground. He’s literally yanking on its back legs, but the dumb thing keeps going further and further into the hole. And when he finally pulls it out, what does it immediately do? It takes two hops and jumps right back into the same crack.

We laugh, but that is a very accurate depiction of our sinful condition. In fact, our sinful condition is much worse. Sheep are animals that don’t have the use of reason. They can’t think and talk like we can, and yet, what have we done with all of our “big brains?” The prophet Isaiah tells us, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned – every one – to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Even though God made us to be a people of his pasture and the sheep of His hand, and gave us special privileges that were given to no other creature in all creation, we didn’t use those gifts in the right way. We didn’t use them to follow His Word; we used them to turn away from it. Just like Adam and Eve before us, we too thought that we knew better than God did, and went on our own way instead. We jumped over the fence of His holy commandments, thinking that the grass would be greener on the other side, and instead, we found ourselves on the edge of cliff, hanging over the abyss of hell. We wandered so far away from the herd, that we could never find our way back. And the devil, that wicked wolf, who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, almost had us completely consumed in his jaws before Christ came along and pried us loose. 

As the prophet Amos says in Amos chapter 3, “As the Shepherd rips a pair of knees or a piece of an ear out of the loin’s mouth, so also shall the children of Israel be safely ripped away.” That’s what Jesus, our Good Shepherd did for us, but He didn’t do it in the way you’d think he would. Christ didn’t overcome the devil, and deliver us from our sin, by overpowering him physically. He did it by taking our place and dying in our stead. Jesus defeated our enemies, by letting our enemies attack him instead of us. He became a sheep Himself, the Lamb of God, in order to take away the sins of the world. As Christ tells us in our Gospel lesson, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This is what distinguishes Jesus from every other false god and every other false shepherd that there is. It’s what makes Him different than the hired hand. He is the only one who can save us.

Yes, all religions claim some sort of salvation for their followers. The Buddhist’s teach about Nirvana. The Hindu’s talk about reincarnation. The Jews say they’ll be an afterlife. And the Muslims make their claims about terrorists getting a bunch of virgins. But for all the differences among those different religions, one thing is the same in them all. They way that you get to have whatever their version of heaven is, is through the way that you live your life. It’s through your own good works and your own good deeds, whatever those works and deeds might be. But that’s not how it is with Jesus. Our good shepherd, the Good Shepherd, doesn’t deliver His sheep by showing them the way to do it themselves. He knows His sheep. He knows that no matter what He showed them, they could never do it on their own. So, He does it on His own. Christ takes care of every part of what’s needed for our salvation so that we can have complete and total confidence in it. He proves His mercy and love to us, by saving us while we were still sinners. He gives us what we don’t deserve.

We don’t stop being sheep once we become Christians. On the one hand, that means we’re still helpless little lambs. We don’t stop falling into sin and getting ourselves into trouble just because we’ve been converted. That’s not an excuse to sin on purpose, but it is just the plain truth of how things go. Despite our best intentions and efforts, we still wander into danger and make all kinds of bad decisions. Time and time again, we hop over the fence, and do the same stupid things over and over. Our Old Adam clings to us to the day that we die, and we never get rid of him until this life is over.

But that’s why we listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd, and put of faith in Jesus. We do that because of what He’s already done for us and what continues to do for us even now. Christ not only paid the price for our sins once and for all, and went out and found us when we were doomed and lost, but He keeps on gathering us to Himself through His Word and Sacraments. By the preaching of His Law and Gospel, He leads us away from our sins to the green pastures of the Church where He feeds our souls with the forgivness that we need to be healed. As King David says in Psalm 23, he leads us in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake and prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Jesus gives us His holy Body and precious Blood for true food and true drink, so that we would have no doubts that He is ours and we are His. Surely, His goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives, and because of it, we know that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

That’s what Jesus does for His flock. That’s what He promises to those who believe in Him. Faith in Jesus is what makes you part of the Church. It’s the only that that does that. It’s also the only thing that saves. Not because faith is something special on its own, but because faith looks to Christ. Faith relies on the work of Jesus and Jesus is the One who does the saving. Christ is the Shepherd and we are His sheep. And there’s nothing better to be than that. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.