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Text:
1 Peter Following in the Footsteps of the
Shepherd In the name of Jesus, dear friends
in Christ: Today, Good Shepherd Sunday,
brings us to what is about the half-way point of the Church’s festive season of
Easter– which consists of the fifty days between the Resurrection and Pentecost. It’s a time set aside to celebrate the
completion of all that our Lord Jesus accomplished by laying down his life as
the spotless sacrifice for our sin and then taking his life up again exactly as
he said he would. And what we want to do
during this time is to mentally and spiritually place ourselves in the sandals
of the original disciples. We want to
experience with them first the joy of seeing the risen Lord. Then we want to know their relief and release
from fear as he speaks his word of peace and forgiveness. And then finally, we want to learn again with
them the unfolding revelation of divine truth as Jesus continues to open our
minds to understand the Holy Scriptures: all the things that had been written
about him that are now fulfilled. And this in not merely an academic
exercise. Jesus didn’t die for our sin
and rise again simply to inform us that some ancient prophecies and promises have
been fulfilled and that as a result we can look forward one day to being taken to
heaven to live with him. Sure, that much
is true; but it’s only part of the story.
If that’s all there were to it, he might just as well take us there
now. But no, he’s determined that we
should remain in this world for a purpose.
He has more for us to learn and to do.
And a big part of that is to increasingly apply his death for sin and
the power of his resurrection to our lives here in the present. You see, he doesn’t declare to us his
forgiveness purchased at so high a price so that we can say to ourselves,
“Great. I’m off the hook”, and then go
on merrily wallowing in whatever sins and vices suit our fancy. No.
Instead we are to learn what it means daily to die with him to sin and
rise with him to live a new and holy life. This is what we saw in last week’s
message. In it I asked you to think of
yourself as a garden plot planted formerly with the lousy seeds of corruption
that brought forth nothing but the weeds of sin, but now planted with the
imperishable Seed of God’s Word – specifically the Word of his grace and
forgiveness in Jesus. And because Christ
Jesus himself is the Word that’s planted, it’s Christ Jesus that ought to be
seen growing in us so that we produce more and more Christ-like behavior. Today I’d like to build on that idea
a bit, shifting the image to one more consistent with today’s theme; namely of
sheep following their Shepherd. That is,
after all, what sheep are supposed to do.
I’ve mentioned this before, but typically what you had in villages of
the ancient world was a communal sheep pen.
In it all the various flocks and herds of the villagers would be kept
together at night. Then, in the morning,
each shepherd would call out his own sheep and they, recognizing the voice of
their shepherd, would follow him to whatever pasture he would lead them for the
day. So now that’s us: we are sheep in the pen of this world mixed
up with all the others. But each morning
Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calls us out by his Gospel of grace and forgiveness
and bids us follow him. And we recognize
his voice. And we think to ourselves,
“Here’s the guy who takes care of me, who leads me to where there are green
pastures and quiet waters. He’s the guy
who defends me from all harm and danger.
I’ll follow him because I know he has my best interest at heart.” (Okay, so maybe real sheep don’t have the
intellect to do quite the same detailed analysis; but we’re smarter than the
average sheep. And you catch my drift: they know their shepherd and trust him, so
they follow.) And they know how to
detect a phony. There are other
shepherds leading other flocks which might correspond to other religions or the
empty philosophies of man; but they aren’t the Good Shepherd. All their trails, as full and rewarding as
they may seem to be in the short term, lead eventually to the slaughter
house. We won’t be fooled by them. And then there are the thieves and robbers
who are only trying to fatten themselves at our expense. We won’t be taken in by them either. No. We
follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd. We know
his voice when we hear it, and we go wherever he leads. And as such we don’t want to be
turning aside at every little thing we pass that attracts our interest. Nor do we want to be wondering all over the
place off the trail and just sort of keeping Jesus in sight from a
distance. That’s how sheep get separated
from the flock. That’s how they get lost
and sometimes killed by wild animals.
It’s far better, as Peter says in this morning’s Epistle, to follow
right in the footsteps of Jesus. We want
our feet to touch the ground in exactly the same places his did. And what we’re talking about here is
imitating Jesus and using his life as a pattern or example for our own. A few years ago you couldn’t go
anywhere in Christian circles without seeing the letters WWJD. It was on everything: T-shirts, bumper stickers, key chains,
bracelets, you name it. To some extent
it’s still around today. The letters
stand for “What Would Jesus Do?” The
idea is that when confronted with a decision to make, especially a moral or
ethical one, you should choose the course of action that you think Jesus would most
likely follow. And I think there’s a
little bit of irony there because one thing I’m pretty sure Jesus would never
do is try to make a lot of money selling trinkets emblazed with a catchy
gimmick to his followers. But beyond
that, it’s really the wrong question to ask.
Casting it that way, “What would
Jesus do?” leaves the question open to speculation. You have to take an educated guess. It’s like you’re a sheep running out ahead of
the Shepherd who’s come to a fork in the trail, and now you’re trying to decide
which way the Shepherd will turn and lead the flock when he gets there. The answer that the sheep will invariably come
up with, of course, is whichever way looks easiest and best for the sheep at
the moment—which may not at all be what the Shepherd has in mind. You see, only he knows the way to the best
pasture that will do the flock the most good.
And very often the trail that looks easiest isn’t the one that leads
there. So like I said, “What would Jesus do?” is the wrong
question. If we are truly following the Shepherd and trying to
imitate him, we’re walking right behind him and asking, “What did Jesus do?” We’re putting our feet directly in his
footprints so that his life, his walk of sinless perfection and steadfast
faith, becomes the model for our own. This
is what Peter means when he says that Christ left you an example. The actual word he uses means a traced
outline. In the ancient world very few
people could write. It was a special
skill that few attained. So when making
an inscription in stone you’d have a professional scribe draw an outline of the
letters which would then be carved out by the less skilled laborers with their
chisels and hammers. That’s the idea
here. Jesus has written out the
letters. He’s left the design for
us. All that remains is for us is to
make sure we stay within the lines. That
will ensure that our lives are copies of his own. And that pretty much begs the
question, “What exactly does Christ-like behavior look like? What is the pattern he left behind?” That’s easy enough to answer. We know that Jesus committed no sin. When faced with temptations, he said, “No”. When the devil tried to talk him into things,
he answered with what the Word of God had to say about it. Jesus invariably chose the hard right over
the easy wrong. And this isn’t rocket
science. We know the difference between
right and wrong. We too know what God
has said in his commandments. And Jesus
has given us his own Spirit to help direct and guide us. So when it comes to basic questions of
morality we know where the lines are ninety-nine point nine, nine percent of
the time. And when we wander outside
them, we know it. There really is no
excuse for it. What else do we know about the
example Jesus left? Peter says, “No
deceit was found in his mouth”, which is to say Jesus always spoke the truth. He didn’t lie. He didn’t intentionally deceive anyone or
lead them astray. Well, that too is an
example easy enough to follow. And
please understand that I’m not talking about the untruths you might say mistakenly
in ignorance of all the facts, or of the kinds of fabrications that are
sometimes necessary in this fallen world on account of good manners and just
getting along, like when you write a pleasant thank you note for a gift you
hate or when my wife says that my gray hairs make me look “distinguished”. No they don’t. They make me look old; but it’s still nice of
her to say it. I’m not talking about
that kind of thing. I’m talking about
knowing the truth and deliberately negating, twisting, or concealing it in
order to gain an advantage or to avoid unpleasant consequences. Once again, when it comes to truthfulness we
know exactly where the lines that describe Christ-like behavior are. And so we never have an excuse for going
outside of them. And let me say this: up to this point there’s nothing I’ve said
about following the example of Christ that most atheists or full blown pagans
wouldn’t readily agree to. They too (for
the most part) know the difference between right and wrong and between telling
the truth and a lie. So, say it another
way, nothing we’ve covered thus far is uniquely Christ-like behavior. Therefore subject to the limitations of the
fallen flesh, it’s possible for anyone to strive to obey the law and tell the
truth without ever following Jesus. What makes the walk of a follower
truly Christ-like is his or her attitude about personal justice. What happens when you are in the right, when
you’ve done exactly what you’re supposed to do, when you’ve honored the terms
of a contract or agreement, when you’ve “pony-ed up” your fair share, or even
gone above and beyond the call of duty and then you are made to suffer for it? Someone takes advantage of you. They lie about you. They attack your reputation. They steal your job or the promotion you
earned. They take credit for your work
or your ideas. They make you take the
fall for their mistakes. They rip you
off. They hurt you physically. What happens then? Do you fly into righteous rage? Do you demand your rights? Do you threaten that you’ll get even? Do you seek revenge? Do you hire a lawyer and go to court? That doesn’t fit the pattern at all, does
it? What did Jesus do? Which way do his footsteps lead? We know the answer. “When he was reviled, he did not revile in
return; when he suffered he did not threaten.”
He suffered unjustly – more unjustly than you ever could – and yet he
didn’t demand his rights. He who was
perfect in every way suffered in his body the penalty of all of our sins. And yet he does not seek revenge. No. He
gives himself willingly in sacrificial love.
He forgives. He befriends. He lifts us up again and again from where we
have fallen in our failures and bids us, “Follow me.” And this, Peter tells us, is
precisely how we are to follow
him. It’s in his example of suffering
unjustly without complaining or becoming angry.
“It’s a gracious thing”, he says, “when mindful of God, one endures sorrows
while suffering unjustly, that is, for doing good.” That’s the example Christ has left for us to
follow: bearing the consequences of the
sins of others gladly and willingly; and it’s in conforming ourselves to that
example that we become manifestly Christ-like.
And please understand this is not some lofty, never-to-be-pursued,
oh-pastor-you can’t-be-serious kind of goal that we talk about in church,
nodding our heads with all appropriate piety, while really thinking, “I’d
sooner be damned than give that a try.”
No. Peter says, “To this you were
called.” When Jesus said, “Follow me”,
this is exactly what he was talking about.
It’s the expectation he has for his followers. You ought to fear being damned if you imagine
that it’s a goal not to be taken seriously. But someone will protest, how can I do
that? Why, I’ll be trampled on. They’ll rob me blind. They’ll take away everything I’ve got –
everything I’ve worked so hard for.
People will think I’m a fool.
Yes. Maybe. At least that’s what happened to Jesus when
he did it. Ah, but then God who judges
justly raised him up and exalted him to the highest place. So let me ask you: what did he lose in the end? Better yet, what did he gain? And who in all the glory of heaven will ever
be thinking him a fool? No one. Instead they’ll be singing his praises for
all eternity. I’d say that’s a pretty
good pattern to follow. And so we return to the sheep pen. The Shepherd – our Good Shepherd – says,
“Follow me. Walk in my footsteps. Let me be your example and your guide. And trust me for your safety and protection.” And following him he has promised that we
shall never be in need. And when (not
if) the trail leads through the valley of the shadow of death, there really is
nothing to fear, for he is with us. He’s
going to take care of us. His rod and
staff, which are a whole lot mightier than anything we sheep can muster,
comfort us. And to help us on the way he
has prepared for us a place at his table, right here, even though we are
surrounded by potential enemies. Here
his grace and forgiveness for us overflow.
And they give us the Spirit and strength to follow him according to the
example he has given us. Let us therefore make this our goal. Dying again with him through repentance to
our sin, our untruthfulness, our unbelief, and our reluctance to bear the sins
of others by surrendering our desire for personal justice into the hands of the
righteous Judge, let’s receive again the assurance of his forgiveness. And then let’s rise again with him to a new
life in steadfast faith to follow faithfully in his footsteps. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
