The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Christ is risen!
Therefore it is written: ‘The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.’
+INJ+
In this day and age, we have no lack of voices which seek to lead us. Every moment, ten thousand mouths speak guidance to you, begging you to turn their way. They make promises, though whether they can deliver on them is never made clear. They are peddlers of false hope, these voices that speak to us, these tongues that wag; they are the fruit of the Tower of Babel, the unceasing chatter that bombards us from all sides.
Politicians speak to you; they tell you that they can give you prosperity and plenty, but they need your help first, they need your vote, for without the holy authority of your single freely given choice to lend them your tiny share of power in this society, they cannot take care of you. This is to say, they demand a sacrifice, and in return for such an offering, you will be blessed.
A vote is nothing but a sacrifice made with the hope of receiving something greater in return from the one we sacrifice to. If we did not expect something better in return, we wouldn’t head to the polls.
Activists too speak to you; and they speak loudly. They are there to warn you of the wrath that is to come, though a wrath not revealed from heaven, but very much of this world. They do not so much demand your vote, but your support. You must give them some of your time, some of your activity on X and Instagram. They need you to raise awareness. And in exchange for this small offering of time and effort, they promise that they will cause the oceans to subside from their rise, the ice caps to cease from melting, the moral fabric of the nation to keep from fraying, and the police to refrain from beating.
They too demand a sacrifice, a sacrifice of moments of your life, and a sacrifice of the space of your mind. A little bit of passionate, or perhaps angry obsession within your mind, and they will abolish evil from the earth. It is a small sacrifice they ask of you for such a great reward.
Journalists too speak to you; quietly they reveal to you the many subtle evils that have long gone ignored, or kept hidden by the powerful. Like a fence for illegal goods, they catch you in a corner, and pull open their coat to show you the secret things of our decaying society. They ask you to have a heart, to care, to sorrow on behalf of the longsuffering souls that have wallowed in anonymity, the homeless, the addicted, the abused; those who genuinely deserve our Christian love and compassion.
They only ask a piece of your heart, that moved to pity, you agitate. You write your representative, you write your Senator. You ‘raise awareness’ by bringing up the unseemly topic in every family conversation or free-spirited talk by the coffee pot.
And I need not make mention of charitable organizations, NGO’s, podcasters, YouTubers. For these too ask a sacrifice of your time, attention, action, heart, and mind, that the world might become a better place, that this world might be saved.
And of course, all would also be happy if you consider giving a nominal cash donation to their cause.
These are the idols of the unbelieving world, all those spirits that demand sacrifice from us, and promise a paradise in return. They tell us about the endless number of problems ‘out there,’ and beseech us in doing our part in solving them.
To do good, and to donate; to volunteer and help, these are good things, even Christian things. In and of themselves they are loving things, insofar as we know that we do them because to do so in and of itself is good. They become idols when we do them only because of the reward they promise, for in doing so, we forget the good of our neighbor, and look past them, through them, to the Neverland we are guaranteed.
We think we protest for an unjustly killed suspect, but he becomes just a means to demanding institutional reform. We think we demand justice for this or that person or group, but they just become a door to walk through on our way to political revolution. The pitiable person that we thought we were helping merely becomes a means to a grand societal end. He loses all his humanity to us. He becomes just a thing, a tool, a vessel to be filled with the ambitions of others.
The idols always speak, and we cannot but hear their voice. Most of us succumb to them, or at least some of them. Like the ancient pagans, we accept that all have their power, but we choose to devote ourselves to just one or a few. To be an activist for healthcare reform or the rights of women is no different from being a devotee of Apollo the Healer, or the Cybelene Mystery.
But some of us think ourselves wise. We shut out all the voices of the world, we close in on ourselves. We think we will find peace by turning inward, focusing on our local life, our family life, our inner life.
Yet as soon as we do, new voices arise, and they only speak more loudly, and much more eloquently. They are the voices of envy that sees the good of another as merely a lack in yourself. They are the voices of greed, which sees your Christian poverty as a lack of divine blessing. They are the voices of wrath, that fills our minds with the intoxicating wine of righteousness as we pour out our judgment against so many supposed wrongdoers.
Yet these are not merely the voices of our minds. They are the voices of the demons. We run from the voices of the idols, and are instead besieged by the voices of the makers of idols; and of the god of this world, Satan, whom we once called ‘father.’
You may think that you have the strength, the eloquence, the reserve to speak against the idols, and against the idol makers, but you never will, for the factory of idols is established within your own heart. You cannot speak against them, because they speak to you in your own voice, with your own words, with your own eloquence. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander, and these are what defile a person.
No matter what argument you make against them, they will make one just as convincing to you, because they are you, insofar as they are your flesh, your sinful flesh, unwashed and defiled.
You have no voice with which to silence the tumult of demonic frenzy in your mind. You have no voice with which to still the nation’s rage.
But a new voice you hear, the voice of the shepherd. It is a voice that says something very simple, something that overwhelms all the voices of the world, and of hell, and of your hellish soul.
While the world draws you to their many causes, while your heart draws you to manifold sins, while Satan draws you into condemnation, yet a voice speaks to you, that of the Good Shepherd. And all it says, is follow me.
It may sound like just yet another demand placed on us by just another mouth, and to those who are perishing, it seems to be just that. But that could not be farther from the truth. For the Shepherd does not guide you into yet another political reform or psycho-social experiment; He does not demand yet another sacrifice as a seed-offering for yet another promise. Rather He simply calls his sheep by name.
And why?
That he might lead them out.
He calls us to follow Him, for where He is going is not to yet another promised dreamworld. Rather, he leads us out, away, away from the voices that never shut up and the demands that never cease and the sacrifices that never satisfy the lust for power of those who command it, or the lust of our heart which is always hungry.
He leads us out. We sheep, who hear his voice.
We follow Him, but it is not as if the voices of the unbelieving world, nor the cries of our unbelieving heart immediately disappear. They still call out, cry out, scream. But we follow the shepherd out, and with each step they grow more and more distant, and with every passing day we hear them less and less.
Yet a lion follows the flock of the Shepherd’s sheep, seeking whom it may devour. It follows, and its roar never grows more faint. This is the ancient foe, whose gluttonous desire for our souls never ceases, not until the day when he shall be cast down into the pit of fire.
Yet the Shepherd does not leave you alone, for by His angels He guards you against all evil. He does not leave you alone, for by the rod of His Law, He keeps you upon the paths of peace, and away from the tents of the wicked. He does not leave you alone, for by the staff of His Gospel, we grow as a vine away from the thorns of sensuality and earthly delight, towards his marvelous light.
And if you should fall into trial, if you are found worthy to be faced by the deafening lion, by the snake tongued temptation of Satan, you are not left unarmed, for the Shepherd have given even to His own sheep a great weapon, for it is written that the Word of God is sharper than any two edged blade, for it is the sword of the Spirit.
And a great weapon it is indeed, for it will silence every lying voice, and crush every word of deception, as it is written,
‘The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The Lord is over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars,
Yes, the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.’
Now this voice He has placed within you in His very word, that in every time you may take it out of its sheath, and slay the lion before you.
The devil accuses you: You cannot be saved, for your sins are many. But the voice of the Lord thunders: ‘cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow.’
The devil puffs you up: You have no need of God, for your own effort is enough for you. But the voice of the Lord thunders: ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter therein.’
The devil seeks to blaspheme against the Lord: He is no good God, for a good God would care for all your needs. But the voice of the Lord thunders, ‘the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’
The devil shows you all the manifold evils of the world: How can God allow such suffering? But the voice of the Lord thunders, ‘how great are thy works O Lord, thou hast made all things in wisdom.’
The Good Shepherd speaks to you, and the Good Shepherd speaks in you, and the mountains melt as wax.
This is the life you inherited when you renounced the thief, the devil, and all of his works, and all of his ways, in your blessed Baptism. It is a life of temptation, or suffering, of war. But these are merely what follows you from the life you have now left, for even now, you are being led out.
Now you might ask, it is great and all that we are being led out of this world of darkness. But to where do we go?
I do not dare to describe the homeland of the Shepherd. I dare not speak to what glories lie therein. All I know is this:
‘That you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
+INJ+
Preached by Pastor Fields
Sermon Texts: Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10.