May 7, 2023               Text:  John 14:1-14

Dear Friends in Christ,

While I still like my Rand McNally Atlas when traveling I have gotten used to the directions that are pulled up on Toni’s phone.  But the system is not foolproof.  Last year when we were searching for our house in Savannah, Georgia, the directions took us over the large bridge there and into an area with just a hotel, golf course, and Department of Transportation.  No house.  We recalibrated and found our destination.  When we, or mostly I, want to go a different route than the one prescribed you get that annoying, “make a U-turn in 100 feet.”

Like the directions on the phone can send us the wrong way, so many people in our world are headed the wrong way in seeking God.  There is only one right way and Jesus clearly spells it out in our text, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (v. 6)

In today’s Gospel Jesus makes statements like that that are very bold.  For starters, He thinks He is the Son of his Father, the Son of God.  Jesus backs up this claim throughout the book of John.  All that the Father is and does is equally embodied and personified in the Son.

“LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON”

Too often we take for granted the way Jesus lets the words “my Father” slip so naturally from his lips as in “my Father’s house” (v. 2) and “known my Father.” (v. 7). These words were shocking and brazen.  As Leon Morris comments:  “The expression ‘My Father’ is noteworthy.  It was not the way Jews usually referred to God.  Usually they spoke of ‘our Father,’ and while they might use ‘My Father’ in prayer they would qualify it with ‘in heaven’ or some other expression to remove the suggestion of familiarity.  Jesus did no such thing, here or elsewhere.  He habitually thought of God as in the closest relationship to Himself.  The expression implies a claim which the Jews did not miss.”  Like Father, Like Son.

Jesus speaks the very words of God.  They are the “words of eternal life.” (John 6:63). They are spoken by the one who is “the truth.” (v. 6). 

Jesus does the very works of God.  Jesus has the power to bestow life as we see in His miracles of raising the dead.  Jesus is Creator.  “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3). Jesus is the world’s Judge.  John 5:22 says, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.”  Jesus is Savior.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son. That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)  Like Father, Like Son.

Jesus reveals the very character of God.  Jesus is truth and faithfulness together.  True to his word, Jesus faithfully carried out the mission he was sent to do by his Father.  His mission was to save you and I from our damning sin.  His mission was to save us from hell.  His mission was to save us from the devil.  His mission took Him to a cross and to a tomb that was found empty.  And true to his word, this same Jesus will “come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (v. 3). We will be with Him in His Father’s house.  Like Father, Like Son.

Jesus works and words confront every human with the question “Who is this man?”  When we have grasped the “who”, the “what he came to do” falls in place.  The Gospel today shows that Jesus is God incarnate.  To know Jesus is to know God.  To see Jesus is to see God.  No one short of God could do the things he said and do the things he did.  When Jesus made statements like “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), he was identifying himself not just with the Father’s works and ways but with his very being.  Like Father, Like Son.

C.S. Lewis the former agnostic from Cambridge turned Christian wrote:  “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about (Jesus):  ‘I’m ready to (believe) Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic – on level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God:  or else a madman or something worse.”

Because he is who he is and did what he did, he will also make good on his promise to do what he said.  It is a promise we hold dear:  “In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:2-3)

Like Father, Like Son . . . for us.

Amen.  

April 30, 2023         Text:  Psalm 23

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the most famous one-hit wonder songs of the 1970’s was “Seasons In The Sun.”  Sung by Terry Jacks its words were about a man who was dying.  Here is one verse, “Goodbye, papa, please pray for me, I was the black sheep of the family, You tried to teach me right from wrong, Too much wine and too much song, Wonder how I got along.”

The black sheep of the family?  What does that mean?  We define it as someone different from the rest, a family member who doesn’t fit in.  In the song the young man has some “prodigal son” in him and that makes him the “black sheep of the family.”

A black sheep has a recessive gene that makes their wool black.  Their wool is less valuable because the wool cannot be dyed.  Many languages of our world have some form of “black sheep” in their vernacular.

Do we have any amongst us today who were the “black sheep of the family?”  Or were all of you the nice, white sheep that always followed the voice of your dad and mom?  I am going this way in the sermon today – we are all black sheep.  Before throwing your hymnal my way, listen up and let’s see if this is not true.  We are going to find out together why . . .

 “BLACK SHEEP NEED A GOOD SHEPHERD”

Let’s start with a series of questions to get to the answer.  Do you ever wander from the flock?  Do you ever listen to voices that are not the best for you?  Ever push your way past someone else to get to the front of the pen or the buffet line?  Are you ever told what to do in God’s Word and you do the opposite?  If you still consider yourself a white sheep, one more question?  Does your pristine exterior ever get dirty because your interior is so rotten – in thoughts, in actions, in gestures?  Hello, black sheep!

OK, now that we are all in the pen together this morning, we are going to need an intervention.  We need a helper, a leader . . . a Good Shepherd.  King David has just what we need in the beginning of Psalm 23.  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” (v. 1-3). 

Notice in this psalm that all the important actions happen by the Shepherd’s work, not yours.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads; He restores; He leads.  

As we heard in our Gospel for today, He leads us by His voice.  The Good Shepherd rose from the dead to lead you.  One positive of sheep is they have impeccable hearing.  You can merge them together quite easily.  We are to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd.  

He first taught you to recognize His voice at your Baptism; through the Word and the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, He continues to teach you and lead you through this sinful world with His voice.  We are sent the Holy Spirit to help distinguish His voice and the black sheep voices we sometimes follow in this world.  He calls you and I – the black sheep of His family to repentance, to the anointing of your head with the oil of Holy Baptism, to feed on the lush pastures of His Word and at the Table of His life-giving flesh and blood spread before you.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (v. 4-6)

There are times you might feel abandoned.  Why would a caring shepherd lead me through the valley of the shadow of death?  Why does the death of loved ones cast a shadow over us?  Does your own death loom like a dark cloud?  Has the Good Shepherd left us black sheep because of our sin and failure?  No, He is not punishing us.  No, He has not failed to care for you.  He comforts us.  Jesus is with us in death.  He went through it first for you to open the way to life.  He is with you when you mourn.  He wept at Lazarus’ tomb.  Jesus is your Good Shepherd who gives you goodness and mercy.  He leads you to His house today and He will keep you in that house until you make the crossover to eternal dwellings.

As the Good Shepherd does His work in our lives, a transformation takes place.  That black wool gets whiter and whiter.  Washed in the blood of our Savior we enter His eternal House as white and as bright as we can be.  Feeling good, shining.  What a glorious day that will be to stand before the Good Shepherd.  

Can you see now why the black sheep need the Good Shepherd?

Amen.