04/26/2026

He is risen.

He is risen to me.

Hallelujah.

Good morning.

It is good to be back here again after two years.

Visited with you a couple of years ago, but not on a Sunday, and I promised that next time we would come and visit you on a Sunday.

So thank you to Pastor Jason and to Pastor Mike for the invitation to spend time with you.

To thank you for your prayers, for your support, to update you on the work that we're doing on behalf of your congregation and the LCMS in Asia.

It is a blessing to be here.

I bring you greetings from President Harrison, the head of our LCMS.

I bring you greetings from Southeast Asia and the 20 or so folks who serve out there in close to 20 different countries.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

And uh and I promised that I I would not go much longer than 45 minutes.

So hopefully those brunch reservations aren't locked in.

So Good Shepherd Sunday and the temptation to preach on the gospel lesson or on the psalm is almost uh almost can't be resisted.

It's just it's just so it's just right there.

It's so perfect and it's laid out for us and it's beautiful.

And so naturally, yeah, we're not going to do that today.

We're going to look at kind of the black sheep, as it were, of the readings this morning.

We're going to look at the epistle lesson, the letter of Peter to this group of Christians.

And uh and if you refer to the back of your bulletin, we're Lutherans, we don't usually use Pew Bibles, but if you refer to the last to the back of your bulletin, you've got the reading printed there.

And I thought what we would do, because sometimes we get so used to hearing scripture, we hear it in a certain way, and if we're familiar with it, and I'm sorry, all you've got is my backside, but it's it is my better side.

Um sometimes we get so used to anticipating what it's going to say that we don't actually hear what it says.

And so I'd like for us to address 1 Peter 2 in reverse, starting with the last verse of the section, uh verse 25, and then moving back through these verses to verse 19.

And if we do that, then we get to start with the Good Shepherd.

And of course, that's why this reading is included, because Peter mentions the Good Shepherd.

He mentions that word, and that's this Sunday.

And as we talked about and already defined in the children's message, so hopefully all of you were paying attention, the Good Shepherd is Jesus.

It's not somebody else, it's Jesus.

And so Peter makes this assertion.

And when we read it earlier, it may have sounded like the conclusion, but it's also sort of the founding premise of what Peter wants to say to his hearers, and that means you and I here today, as well as those who received this 2,000 years ago.

For you were stranding like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

That is our state, that is our condition.

You and I have received the good shepherd.

In our baptism, as we confess our faith here each uh Sunday, excuse me, we confess that this is the relationship we have.

The relationship of a sheep to a good shepherd.

Overseer here is also translated in other places in the New Testament as bishop.

And so there's this indication of authority.

In case there's any question, because I didn't grow up with a around a lot of sheep or shepherds, and so I might not know the relationship of a sheep to a shepherd, and I might think that maybe the shepherd is just sort of there to give friendly guidance or maybe a suggestion here and there.

But but hey, you guys do what you want.

In case we're under that impression, the the word overseer here implies an authority.

Our good shepherd is truly a good shepherd, but make no mistake, he is our overseer.

He is our bishop, he is our head, and we are under his care for sure, but we're also under his authority.

And so as we as we contemplate this, we can hear in the Psalm the beautiful things that our Good Shepherd does for us at all the different stages of our life and beyond life itself.

And we can hear Jesus' words declaring who he is, declaring his identity as the Good Shepherd, and using several different metaphors to get at this idea.

But if we want to consider what this means for us as sheep in our lives, then this reading from 1 Peter is necessary.

So we begin in this condition of sheep who have a shepherd, sheep who have been rescued, who have been brought back, who have strayed at some point and have been brought back into the safety and into the authority of our good shepherd.

That's where we begin, and that's a beautiful thing, that's a comforting thing.

And that should be our rock, our anchor, our touch point in every stage of life and in every situation we run into.

Joys and sorrows.

We remain under the care of the Good Shepherd.

Now, how did we get there?

Did we get there because we're good people?

Good sheep?

The little I know of sheep is that sheep are not, well, they're not particularly good or evil, but if there is one thing that they're known for, it's not being particularly bright.

And this has caused in modern times people to take kind of offense at this and say we don't really like this description of sheep so much because we're smarter than that.

Which I'm pretty sure is what the sheep is thinking as it grazes itself into a wolf or into thickets or whatever else.

It's thinking it's a genius.

How did we reach this situation of being back in the care of our creator and our redeemer and our sanctifier and our good shepherd?

Well, we reached it because, verse 24, he, again, the good shepherd Jesus, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.

We enjoy this privileged position as the sheep, even the dumb sheep, but sheep of the good shepherd, because of the shepherd's sacrifice for us.

We don't know how to talk about forgiveness in our culture.

Somebody apologizes for something, what do you usually say?

Oh, it's no big deal.

It's okay.

Scripture addresses forgiveness in a way that no other philosophy or religion does.

By talking about acknowledgement of a harm that was done, a wrong that was committed, and then righting that wrong.

The one thing we desperately don't necessarily want to do when we have to apologize about something.

We're hoping where they're just going to say it's okay, don't worry about it.

But in terms of God, you can't simply sweep that stuff under the rug.

Wages of sin is death.

You eat from the forbidden fruit, you violate, you go against the good guidance of the good shepherd.

The natural repercussion of that is death and separation from God.

And that doesn't just get wished away.

And all throughout Scripture, we see how that is dealt with by God.

He's very consistent.

It's dealt with by blood and death.

The wages of sin are death, and the piper must be paid.

And the gospel, the beauty, is that God sends his son into the world to do what Adam could not and what you and I cannot, and that is to save us from our sins, to deliver us from our sins.

And he does that through very real, very palpable, very physical suffering and death, through blood being spilled for you and for me.

And for every other person in creation, whether they know it or not, that blood is available for their forgiveness and grace to bring them back into the safety of the shepherd's fold.

He paid the price.

And we just went through that in Holy Week and remembering that that last week of his life leading up to his arrest and his conviction twice.

And his sentencing and his execution and his burial.

And we just celebrated the joy of the empty tomb, his resurrection, that death could not hold him.

It could not hold him because the sins that he died for were not his.

They're mine.

Past, present, future.

They're all there with him on the cross.

He bore our sins.

He took our death on himself.

Not our physical death, but our spiritual death and separation from God, the Father.

He took that on himself and he took it to the cross.

And by his wounds, by his blood, by his death, he has opened to us life.

He has opened to us the possibility that we might die to sin.

Not perfectly and not completely, unfortunately, not this side of eternity or not this side of our Lord's return.

But that we might know truth and we might hear the voice of our good shepherd, and as Pastor demonstrated earlier, we might follow.

Not perfectly, not all the time.

But by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we are constantly hearing that voice, calling us back.

If when we stray, when we err, calling us back to Him.

And we know His voice now.

And by the Holy Spirit's power, we're able to follow it somewhat.

And to live to righteousness.

Not that our lives are going to be earning us righteousness.

That's done through Christ's wounds, through his death, through his blood.

And the evidence of that is his resurrection from the dead.

Proof that what he said was true.

We are healed.

We are restored.

And this is wonderful and it's beautiful, and this is great news.

And we rejoice in this.

And then we start thinking about what this means, that Jesus walks into the Jordan River, subjects himself to baptism, and comes out of the water, as we like to speculate how this works to some degree, comes out of that water, not simply dripping wet, but holding our sins on him, carrying our sins with him to the cross and into the grave to be buried forever.

And that's a rough road to walk.

And we wonder, well, I wonder how that made Jesus feel.

Was he angry about that?

Was he bitter about that?

Did he regret that?

I would.

I would not make a good, gracious God.

I would be a very, very bad God.

Maybe Jesus was like me.

Verse 23.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

So how did Jesus suffer unfairly on our behalf?

By the very design of God the Father?

He suffered in a way very few of us, at least myself, likes to suffer.

He suffered willingly.

He asked about plan B, Lord, if there's another way, take this cup from me.

But he was obedient to the Father's will and purpose.

He was reviled, he was beaten, he was spit about.

We went through all of that in Holy Week, that brutality, not just on Good Friday, but on Monday, Thursday, emotionally and verbally in the week prior to that.

And he didn't dish it back out.

He didn't seek to get even, he didn't seek to get ahead.

He didn't seek to prove his innocence.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, he did not lash out at his enemies, he could have cursed them from the cross, he could have struck them dead from the cross.

Jesus hung on the cross not because he couldn't get down, but in order that he might save us.

He continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

This is an important thing, I think, that as we suffer, sometimes we're we're inclined to wonder why it is that we're suffering.

Why did we get that medical result, that test result?

Why did we fail that class?

Why did we get laid off?

Why is our relationship on the rocks?

Why are our kids out of our control?

Why are our parents doofuses?

Whatever it is.

Why must I suffer with this?

Jesus, and granted, he's the Son of God.

He's got some bennies that you and I don't have yet, or ever.

But he's able to see beyond that moment of suffering and to trust that whatever is being said about him, whatever is being done to him, whatever injustices he is suffering, are not because his father is not there, and not because his father does not love him, but because there is a purpose.

And therefore he endures the suffering, he endures the injustice, trusting in the Father's righteousness.

Trusting that the Father will be his vindicator.

He doesn't have to.

He just has to sit through it, trusting that his father will make all things right again.

Verse 23 reminds us, he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

He's not suffering for himself and for his own sins.

He had no sins of his own.

He suffered and died for your sins and for mine.

That we might not be held accountable for them before the Father.

That we might be covered in his blood, that we might partake in his body and blood as you do on a regular basis here around this altar.

And by partaking in that body and blood, you changed, you're transformed, you are forgiven, you are assured of grace and peace in your relationship with God.

Jesus suffered innocently.

And then verse 20 and 21 get to the stuff that we don't necessarily like to hear.

Verse 21, for to this you have been called.

You and I have been, might be, will be called to suffer.

For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

And yet Peter talks about the Christian life being one of suffering.

One of being willing to suffer, one of expecting to suffer, because we are no longer of this world.

We have been marked in our baptism.

We have been changed and transformed in our baptism.

And as Jesus will remind his disciples in other verses, if they're going to do this to me, imagine what they're going to do to y'all.

That's to be expected.

Shouldn't be a surprise.

We, as Americans, have been blessed to be exempt from a lot of that for a good portion of our lives.

And we struggle and groan as our culture changes around us and as our culture is less respectful and indulgent of our of the things that we take for granted as reality.

But we have been called, if necessary, to suffer because Christ also suffered for you.

We will not be asked to endure anything that Christ didn't endure already.

You are not going into uncharted territory.

Regardless of the prognosis, regardless of the uh the results of the counseling therapy sessions, the relationship counseling, regardless of the results of your test in whatever class you're struggling with, regardless of the results of your annual review, you're not being called to deal with anything that Jesus didn't deal with.

And because Jesus dealt with it, you don't deal with it alone.

Jesus suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

So Jesus is not promising exemption from suffering to us.

He is telling us that when you suffer, you have an opportunity to suffer as he did, to not revile back, to not lash out, to not express hatred and vitriol, when this is how people greet you and what you believe in.

You can be fundamentally different because Christ has shown you what it looks like.

Verse 20.

For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it you endure?

But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God, and that is weird language.

That my suffering might be a gracious thing in the sight of God.

I don't recall the theologian, I don't remember if it was C.

S.

Lewis or somebody else, who made the observation that we are the envy of the angels because we have the opportunity to live by faith.

We have the opportunity to place our faith and our hope in something that is not yet seen, but which we know and are assured of is absolutely real and true, and the angels don't get that opportunity.

They live in the presence of God.

There is no doubt, there is no uncertainty.

But you and I have the opportunity to confess our faith here every Sunday, and through the week, trusting.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed, Jesus said last week.

That's you and I.

And so maybe, maybe to extend that observation, although I'm not nearly as good a theologian, maybe to extend that observation, we have another advantage or benefit that the angels don't enjoy, and that is that we have the ability to suffer.

And we have the ability for our faith to be expressed in the midst of our suffering, in how we suffer.

We can think of Paul writing to the Romans and talking about this.

The Christians have the opportunity to suffer differently than any other people in all of creation.

Even if that means suffering unfairly.

Or maybe it's his staff, I forget which is which.

One of them's for helping the sheep, but one of them is to defend the sheep.

One of them is to fight off the predators, the lions, the wolves, or the lions and the tigers and the bears.

Oh my.

That would threaten the sheep.

And the sheep knows that those, that the shepherd is capable of doing that and willing to do that.

And so maybe when we suffer, we recognize that it's not again because God isn't there, he's not watching, he's not powerful enough.

Maybe the suffering is of our own making.

Certainly the suffering is the making of a sinful world.

And if our Lord delays by our standards, rescue.

Perhaps there's a reason for this.

If the Lord calls us away from a really green Pasture and we're we're going through this period where we're hungry and we're thirsty and we're tired and this is just no fun and we don't understand it.

Maybe he's leading us to something better.

Or maybe he's not leading us to something better, but he's leading us out of danger where we were.

Just like Jesus.

We have the opportunity to entrust ourselves to him who judges justly, going back to verse 23 for a moment.

And then verse 19 is where Peter begins and where we conclude.

This is a gracious thing when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

Now I kind of take personal issue, not personal issue, but I take issue with how this reading selection is carved up for us, because as it almost always is on a Sunday morning, you can't get the full context.

But Peter is writing to these people, and he's talked about their identity in Christ, and now he's talking about what that looks like, and he's giving tangible examples.

He's not speaking hypothetically.

And he begins by speaking to slaves, or as we prefer to translate it, servants.

Talking to slaves and saying to them in verse 18 that you endure suffering from your masters, even if it's unjust suffering.

The identity of the Christian servant or slave is the identity of Christ.

And it's not up to them to change the political or the economic order of the day to their personal advantage, but it is their opportunity to endure whatever they have to endure as Christ endured for us.

Certainly not as perfectly as he did.

But we can endeavor, we can look back to what Christ did for us and say, I'm going to seek to not curse, but to bless, to ask for their forgiveness because they act in ignorance, because they don't know who the good shepherd is or what he's done for them.

And I will seek to endure this suffering for this moment, because that's how Christ suffered for me.

And maybe, maybe, if I suffer more like Christ and less like me, maybe the Holy Spirit will be able to use that in order to speak truth and to speak love and grace into their hearts, and maybe their hearts will be transformed.

So we have it all here.

The good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, to take his life up again and lead his sheep, as Pastor demonstrated, to lead us into everlasting life, into the good pastures.

Our job is to trust and to follow, to listen.

We have the privilege of doing that.

We have the privilege of doing that not alone, not as one single sheep, but as a community, as a Christian community, when we can call one another back and we can echo the words of Christ when somebody is straying, when somebody is suffering, when somebody says, I don't think I can keep doing this.

Or when somebody says, I think things are going so well, I really don't need to come to church.

The Holy Spirit can use us as the flock to help call them back, to help them hear our good shepherd's voice.

That shepherd who never abandons us, who leads us not just to the precipice of the valley of the shadow of death, but down and into it and out the other side, to the table that's prepared.

To our foes and those who would oppose us, and more importantly, oppose our God, watching as we are blessed and loved forever in his presence.

That's the promise you and I have through our Good Shepherd.

And may that promise bring you in joy and sorrow in good times and bad times peace.

A peace that the world desperately needs.

We can't replicate it, we can't synthesize it.

But in our Good Shepherd, we have a peace that passes all understanding and alone promises to keep your hearts and minds through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ until life everlasting.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

Amen.