Preparing for Worship - Sunday, May 11, 2025

This 4th Sunday of the Easter season is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, with a focus on our Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus. The psalm is Psalm 23, a psalm of David familiar to many. Even David, as King, was a sheep and needed a Shepherd to lead and guide him and provide for his physical and spiritual needs. That is what his Lord did, with green pastures and still waters, and care for his soul. The Lord was with him, seeking to lead him in righteous ways and helping him through dangerous times in the shadow of evil and death. Even in the presence of enemies and in the midst of his own sins and failures, at times, the Lord showed him goodness and mercy, with forgiveness, all his life, and pursued him and finally brought him to perfect peace and joy in the house of the Lord in eternal life forever.

Jesus, of course, was the ultimate Good Shepherd, the Heavenly Father’s Son, who came into this world as a true man to accomplish the saving work for David and for us all. The Gospel lesson is from John 10:22-30. Jesus was in Jerusalem at the temple during the Feast of Dedication, a winter Jewish festival (Hanukkah), remembering how the evil Greek leader, Antiochus Epiphanes, was stopped from desecrating the temple and overthrown, and Jews regained freedom in Israel for a period of time under the Maccabees. At this festival, Jews asked Jesus to tell them if He really was the promised Christ, the Messiah. Jesus said that He had already told them who He was, but they would not believe because they were not His sheep, following Him. Jesus calls people to be His sheep, through His Word and work, and He knows them and brings them to hear His voice and believe and follow Him. He is one with God the Father and gives His sheep the gift of eternal life, and no one can snatch such people from His hands. (People can resist and reject Him, though, refusing to be drawn into His hands and flock, as many Jews did, or can drift away from Jesus and His Word, and go on their own, to their sorrow. Jesus will not let this happen easily, though, for believers. He guards and protects His flock.)

In the Acts 20:17-35 reading, from the history of the New Testament church, Paul meets with the elders (pastoral leaders of the church at Ephesus) and reminds them of how he had faithfully sought to teach them the whole counsel of God, whatever was profitable for them, and especially the Gospel of the grace of God, bringing people to repentance for sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was revealing to Paul, though, that imprisonment and afflictions were coming for Him and that he might not see these leaders again. He calls these pastors to pay careful attention to themselves and their faith, and to the flock, the people bought by the blood of Christ, over whom they are shepherds. He warns, with tears, of fierce wolves, men speaking twisted things, and seeking to attack the flock and draw people away from the truth. Paul commends these leaders to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build them up and give to them and their believers, their flock, the eternal inheritance prepared for them. This means hard work in very challenging situations, not for personal gain, and Paul gives himself as an example of one who knew the Words of Jesus that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” in helping the weak and struggling sheep entrusted to them.

The Lord Jesus, the Lamb who was sacrificed for His sheep and washed them clean by His blood, shed for them, will be the Key for His people, His sheep. In Revelation 7:9-17, John sees a vision of an innumerable multitude of believers from every tribe and nation, in heaven, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” who deserves all glory and honor and praise and much more. Some may even die for the faith, in the tribulations of this life, but all believers will be with the Lord forever in His temple, His holy of holies, in His presence, praising and serving Him. There will be no more hunger or thirst or tears or scorching heat, but springs of living water, provided by their Lamb, their Living Lord and Good Shepherd.

What an amazing future is ahead for us in eternal life in heaven, in the whole new existence the Lord has for us. This gives us great hope and patient endurance in the tribulations we face in this life, along with the blessings and joys God already gives us here, in Christ and His Word and Sacraments, which sustain us.