Proper 19 C
The Shepherd Finds the Sheep
Luke 15:1-10
11 September 2016 – Redeemer
I don’t know much about sheep. I didn’t grow up on a farm. I don’t have a degree in sheepology. So this past week I relied on an expert, a man by the name of Ken Bailey who lived in the Middle East for 40 years and taught New Testament theology there.
We need to dispel some of our ideas about sheep ranching in New Testament times. There were no fences and corrals. Sheep were simply kept by shepherds and each shepherd had a little tune he would hum or a little phrase by which his sheep heard him, recognized him, and followed him. The shepherd led the sheep around – moving so they could eat and drink. Shepherd out front. Sheep behind. As Jesus Himself said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.”
But, believe it or not, the sheep didn’t always follow the shepherd. A sheep might get so caught up in a patch of delicious green grass with some tasty little yellow flowers that that sheep didn’t listen. The shepherd moved on, his voice growing fainter and fainter, until that sheep was all alone. Here I’m particularly grateful to Dr. Bailey for his description of how lost a lost sheep really is. Evidently when a sheep finds itself all alone, apart from its shepherd, it turns into a quivering mass of mutton. This is especially true if the sheep senses danger or finds itself in a predicament. A lost sheep gets so terrified it won’t even acknowledge the shepherd’s voice. I visited a shut-in this past week who grew up on a farm with sheep and she said there were many times when they pulled, pushed, and cajoled sheep with absolutely no affect – they wouldn’t budge.
So what happens when a shepherd loses a sheep? “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing.” The Shepherd does all the finding. He leaves the 99 in the care of another shepherd and seeks that one lost sheep. He searches. He retraces his steps. He climbs down in ravines, looks in the brambles, listens for the howl of wolves. When he finds that sheep, that quivering mass of mutton, he must pick it up and carry it home, because it is frozen with fear and lostness. The Shepherd carries that 75-80 pound animal on his shoulders all the way home.
To grasp the significance of the parable you need to remember where and to whom Jesus told the story. He taught this parable to the Pharisees and Scribes, because they were grumbling that Jesus “receives sinners and eats with them.” Here, in this text, Jesus brings into sharp contrast the two religions of the world. Every religion in the world teaches one of two ways to please God. The first and most common way taught to please God is by being good, by seeking Him out, by turning your life around and showing Him you’re worth life or heaven or blessing (or whatever you desire from Him). The other religion teaches that you cannot please God because you are not pleasing, but sinful. God alone, all by Himself, does the work to choose you, save you, forgive you, declare you favorable in God’s eyes. Religion one is a religion of law where you work. Religion #2 is a religion of grace where God works and gives you His gifts. The Pharisees worshipped in the church of the Law. They believed that their life and conduct was exemplary. To use the language of the parable they were blue ribbon, grand champion sheep, clean fleece, perfect manners, so good they could probably lead the shepherd around. Jesus, by receiving sinners and tax collectors and eating with them, taught religion #2 – grace upon grace, the gift of forgiveness to sinners.
Which religion do you need? For who among us has not found ourselves all alone – a quivering and suffering mess of humanity? Your sinful desires carry you far from your Shepherd’s voice. The troubles of the world overwhelm you. The devil and his demons circle you like a pack a wolves and your fleece is no defense. You are hurt by the people who should love you most. This loneliness gets so bad you look forward to death more than life. You’re paralyzed with fear.
So what do you need? Do you need a whip and rod? Come on, pick yourself up. Crawl out of that ravine. Make your way back to the land of the living. The Shepherd might be looking for you. He can help, but you’ve got to make a start, an effort. Give your heart to Jesus. Commit your life to Him. Seek God and He will find you. Such preaching will be about as successful as hoping a lost and paralyzed sheep will figure out its way home and find the shepherd. That sheep isn’t moving.
What do you need? You need Jesus because Jesus receives sinners and eats with them. You cannot find Him because as God’s Word says, you, in your sin, are blind to seeing Him and deaf to hearing Him. But He comes into your mess – He comes into this world to seek and to save the lost. This is why He became a man, why He was born of Mary, why God sent His only begotten Son into the world – to seek and to save the lost. The Shepherd goes to where the sheep is lost – so Christ climbs down in the stinking filth of our sin, into the valley of death. He gets all tangled up with the thorns and thistles of this fallen world. In His incarnation and His baptism He scoops us lost sheep up – taking our flesh upon Himself, taking the burden of our sin, taking our messed up bodies and souls. And then He marches us home, carrying us the whole way – by bearing our sin to the cross. The whole weight of our salvation falls on His shoulders alone – suffering, death, hell, all alone – the One Shepherd for all the lost sheep, the One shepherd for you. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6, ESV)
The parable, the finding of the lost, ends with rejoicing. “And when (the Shepherd) comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’” (Luke 15:6, ESV) Dr. Bailey taught me something this week that I never realized about this parable. I always thought the rejoicing was over the sheep, but Dr. Bailey points out that the rejoicing is over the Shepherd’s work – the Shepherd says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Why would anyone rejoice over a sheep that got itself lost? The party in heaven isn’t about us, even though we like to think that it’s about us. The party is about the sheep. The great celebration of the parable is in that diligent, seeking, saving, sheep-carrying shepherd. The Shepherd’s neighbors gather around Him to slap Him on the back and commend Him for finding that wayward sheep. In the same way when heaven rejoices over a sinner who repents, the celebration isn’t about the sinner turning his life around and finding Jesus, but about the Savior who plucked that sinner, plucked you from your lostness in sin and death, and brought you back to life by forgiving you. Jesus is at the center of the party in heaven. The angels rejoice in Jesus because He is for you and He found you. In His Name. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
10 September 2016 anno Domini