Sermon for Third Sunday of Easter - Misercordias Domini - Ez 34:11-16

 

Easter 3

                                                                                      Ez 34:11-16

                                                                                      4/23/23

 

          “Can you call my cell phone?”  When you are with someone and you ask them to do this, they know what it means.  They know that you have lost your cell phone and are now asking for help in finding it. 

It’s not hard to misplace a phone.  I am willing to bet that we have all done it.  After all, we carry them everywhere we go and look at them in all kinds of settings.  All that is required to lose the phone is to set it down some place and forget to pick it up.  Then, after some time has passed, we can’t remember where we put it. 

So the person calls our cell phone and we then go walking through the rooms of a house or building listening for the ringing.  Of course, we hope that we had not turned the ringer off on the phone.  For if we did, the whole process becomes much more challenging as we listen for the vibration of the phone.

In our Old Testament lesson, Yahweh speaks of how he will search for his people – his sheep - who have been scattered.  He will seek them out, and will not fail to find them.  He will bring them back to good grazing land.  Ultimately, just after our text he promises that he will set over them one shepherd, his servant David.  In these words, God promises deliverance for his people in exile.  And he speaks of what the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, has done for us.

Ezekiel wrote our text in the time after 587 B.C. The prophet himself was not in Judah. Instead, he was already in exile.  He had been taken into exile in Babylon in 597 B.C. when the Babylonians had taken away some of those who were in the upper levels of Judahite society.  Ezekiel was a priest, so the Babylonians took him away from Judah.

Ezekiel was in exile because Judah’s kings had been unfaithful to Yahweh.  They had worshipped other gods, and had even brought the images of false god’s into the temple in Jerusalem.  In Deuteronomy God had said that the king’s role was the study the Torah and be guided by it in his actions.

However, the kings of Judah had not done this.  It was common in the Near Eastern world for kings to be described as a shepherd of the people.  In our text, Yahweh uses this metaphor as he talks about how the kings of Judah had failed. Just before our text he said, “The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts.”

          The kings of Judah had led the people into unfaithfulness.  And God’s final judgment had just arrived.  In the previous chapter we learn that a person who had escaped the destruction of Jerusalem came to the Judahites in Babylon and told them, “The city had been struck down.”  In 587 B.C. the Babylonians responded to Judah’s rebellion by capturing Jerusalem, destroying the temple and tearing down the city’s walls.  Then, they took all but the very poorest of the people into exile in Babylon.

The Babylonians were the instrument of God’s judgment.  It was the kings – the shepherds of the people – who were responsible for what had happened.  And just before our text God had said, “My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.”

The book of Ezekiel is very interesting because it is structured exactly on the pattern of Law and Gospel.  In the first thirty three chapters leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, Yahweh speaks nothing but condemnation. However, once the judgment falls upon Jerusalem, Yahweh speaks nothing but hope and restoration.

Our text is part of that encouraging word. The kings of Judah – the shepherds – had failed and Judah had been scattered in exile.  Yet we hear: “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”

          God himself would seek out his people who were scattered in exile. He would bring them back to their own land.  In our text he promises: “And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel.”

          God acted in 538 B.C. to do this. The Persians unexpectedly defeated the Babylonians.  And then their king, Cyrus, issued a decree that the Judahites could return to their land and rebuild the temple. Cyrus was God’s instrument to provide deliverance for his people.

          But God’s promises in this chapter go beyond the mere return of Judah from exile.  Just after our text he goes on to say, “And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.” 

          God promised that he would send the Messiah who would care for the people and be their shepherd.  This one would fulfill God’s promise in our text when he says, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy.”

In our text God expresses how he himself is going to search for his sheep. He is going to seek the lost, bring back the strayed, and bind up the injured. In these words we learn about God’s merciful and loving character. Earlier God said, “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”  God wants to save.  And he acted in Jesus Christ to do this.

The Son of David, Jesus, was the Messiah sent by God.  He came to be the opposite of what Judah’s kings had been. He came to heal the sick, and bind up the injured, and bring back those who had strayed. Rather than unfaithfully looking out for himself, he came to carry out the Father’s will to seek and to save the lost.

          The Father sent forth Jesus to do this because we were lost.  We were lost in our sin.  We do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  Instead, we allow wealth, and sports, and hobbies to receive more attention than God.  We put our own interests before those of our neighbors, because we love ourselves more than we love them. Because of this we were exiled from God. We were lost and had no way of returning to the Father.

          But God sent forth his Son into the world.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, he was the son of David because Joseph took him as his son.  True God and true man, he came as the Messiah promised by God in Ezekiel.  He came as the shepherd who rescues and delivers us.

          We expect rescue and deliverance to take place through might and victory. But Jesus came as the shepherd who works in a very different way.  In our Gospel lesson Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This is not how things are supposed to work.  Shepherds don’t give their lives to save sheep. But Jesus is the One who gave his life on the cross order to rescue of us from sin.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

          Jesus lay down his life as received the judgment against our sin.  Yet death that ended in death could never break sin’s hold on us. And so during this Easter season we rejoice that on the third day Jesus rose from the dead.        

Just after the Gospel lesson Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”  On Easter Jesus took up his life again as he began the resurrection that will be ours on the Last Day.

          Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lay down his life to save us.  His love now becomes the model and pattern by which we live.  At the Last Supper Jesus washed the disciples’ feet to illustrate what he was about to do by his death on the cross.  Then he told them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

          Love and sacrifice for others. That is the life that we now live because of Jesus.  We seek the lost, and bring back the strayed, and bind up the injured because this is what God had done for us in Christ.  This is not something that we are able to do on our own.  Instead, it is a life that God makes possible because he has given us new life.  We have been born again of water and the Spirit.  The Spirit of Christ who called us to faith is the One who leads and enables us to live in this way – to live in the way of Christ.

          In our Old Testament lesson we hear God promise to seek out his flock and bring them back.  God did this in the sixth century B.C. as he brought the people of Judah back from exile.  But in the promise of the Messiah - his shepherd David - God showed that he would do more than that.

          God has acted in Jesus Christ to seek the lost, bring back the strayed, and bind up the injured.  Jesus Christ did this for us because he is the Good Shepherd who lay down his life for us.  By his death he has won for the forgiveness of sins.  And in his resurrection he has defeated death and given us the living hope.  As we look for his return on the Last Day, we share his love with other by what we do and say.