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The sermon for December 25 was on John 1:1-14.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Before Jesus summoned from afar the wise men, before He made Himself known to
the priests, before the Empire was aware of His presence, Jesus gathered to
Himself His shepherds. God has always had a soft spot for shepherds. Able was a
shepherd and so was King David.
I, too, am a shepherd. I take special joy from the fact that the angels appear
to the Shepherds first and that the first evangelists, the witnesses of our
incarnate Christ are the shepherds of Bethlehem, Judah. I sympathize with those
men. I understand them. I think the way they think and I live the way they live,
really and truly if not exactly.
I am a shepherd and I want what shepherds want. I want to increase my flock. I
want there to be more sheep here, more believers here next year than there are
this year. And I don't just want more sheep. I want better, healthier, stronger,
sheep. I want, to set aside the metaphor, Christians who are devoted entirely to
the Word and Sacraments. I want congregants who are daring and faithful and well
informed. I want you to be robust in your confession and powerful in you witness
to the person and work of Christ Jesus our Lord. This is what I work and long
for.
Like all other shepherds, I also want to protect my flock. When the wolves come
prowling around with their false doctrine luring my sheep from the clear water
and tender food provide in the Means of Grace I am not inclined to shout
"Boo!" or to merely tell them to "Be gone!" I'm apt to take
out after them with the rod and the staff of my office and to kill them on the
spot. When the serpents of sin and temptation threaten to inject their venom
into one of my sheep, my first thought is to kill the serpent. I am not afraid
of the violence of my vocation.
I tend my congregation the same way I shepherd my Marines. I go where they go. I
sleep where they sleep. I even eat and drink what they eat and drink. Because of
that I'm a bit rougher than other men of similar education. And I'm always on
the job. I keep more than a mere weather eye on the horizon. I'm always
suspicious of potential threats to your spiritual well being. I don't fit in
quite right with the sheep because I'm the shepherd and I don't fit in quite
right with polite society because it is often the predator of my flock. Jesus
comforts, first of all, the shepherds.
When I think of the Biblical pattern of the shepherd I think of King David. When
He was trying to persuade the Army of God to let Him fight Goliath, he made his
case by pointing out that defending the people of Israel from a blaspheming
enemy was really no different than defending his father's sheep from their
predators. He also ruled well, for the most part and took care of his people
with the same careful attention common to all good shepherds. I aspire to that
kind of noble and kingly service. I am a shepherd and that is what I know of the
world.
I find though, as the years pass, that what I know of the world is not, in every
single case, the right kind of knowledge. I know about living by faith and
trusting God to provide our daily bread by whatever means. That kind of daring
financial management is just right for a Church or a family but it would be
criminally negligent of any other kind of business. I know about forgiveness and
pardon but the Judges and Magistrates can't simply turn criminals loose. I know
about turning the other cheek and about self-sacrifice but the President and
Congress must not do so.
I have become skilled at the particular work God has given me to do but I find
that my skills are not universally useful and I know that you too have
discovered the same thing. You have worked hard to become firemen and farmers,
home builders and home makers, electricians and engineers. You have accumulated
lifetimes of experience and expertise only to find that you still don't have all
the answers. That 40 or 50 or 60 years of refinement in a particular field of
work can still leave you almost completely ignorant of the proper way to manage
other endeavors.
That's where we begin to come into conflict with one another. Two grown men of
many years experience in different fields will come together with very different
ideas about how to manage a third field. In the business world these conflict
often result in the cut throat deals that give commerce such a bad reputation.
In government they lead to the back stabbing that makes politics so sordid. In
the home and in the congregation they lead chiefly to hurt feelings and grudges.
Our old enemy the devil pits our good intentions against one another as he
stalks us.
Then comes the Good Shepherd, great David's Greater Son. Here, at last, is a man
with all the answers. He knows when to let Himself be abused and when to drive
out the moneychangers. He knows when to ask His Father for the impossible and
when to plan ahead. He knows when to shine more brightly than the sun and when
to glow warmly, like a fireside. Christ's wisdom and skill and expertise is more
than sum total of all of our own and then ever so much more so than that. He
never does what we expect but He always does just exactly the right thing.
Rather than traipse around after His sheep, Jesus draws them to Himself through
His Word and Sacraments. Rather than rule with might of arms or force of will,
rather than rely on His kingly sovereignty, Jesus reigns with humility and
servitude. Instead of eating the meat of the sheep He feeds His sheep with very
own Flesh and Blood. Instead of watering the sheep, He drowns them in Holy
Baptism and draws them out again new and redeemed and living forever. Our King
could come no more nobly than in the manger nor could he reign more victoriously
than from the cross. His humility is humbling, His righteousness is ennobling,
His grace saves us.
Christmas has come, it brings with it beauty and warmth and celebration and
sometimes temptation and hurt feelings and family conflict. When you are next
tempted to bring out the big guns of all your many years of experience, remember
the Christ Child. No shepherd, no plumber, no priest, no accountant or engineer
would have chosen such a plan of salvation, such an arrival for our God. You
would not have done what Christ has done. None of us has all the answers.
God alone knows what is best and God alone can accomplish it. Today we and the
shepherds learn what it means for God to have born a child. We are held by the
one we would hold. We are protected by the one we want to guard. We are served
by the one we desire to serve and we are praised and blessed and commended by
the one whom alone we worship. That it is so with our Lord means that it can be
so among ourselves, however imperfectly. May your Christmas be very and truly
merry and may you find that you are, by Word and Sacrament, filled with the
humility of Christ and the his love for our fellow men. Amen.
The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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