Sermon Text: Jeremiah 23:1-6
Please listen with me to a reading from the 23rd chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah, verses 1 through 6. You’ll notice that the last part of this text overlaps with the first part of today’s Old Testament lesson.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!,” says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord. “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the Lord. “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
So far our text.
One of the Sundays of our church year, during the Easter season, is called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Jesus, of course, is the Good Shepherd, whose love and care for us is recounted in the lessons and hymns on that day.
In contrast, what God says through the Prophet Jeremiah, in the passage we have just read, could serve as the theme for a “Bad Shepherd Sunday” – if there were such a thing. The Lord severely criticizes the shepherds of Israel: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!,” says the Lord.
In Israel, the divinely-appointed shepherds were the priests, whose duties included offering the sacrifices that pointed forward to Christ; and giving instruction from God’s Word to the people concerning God’s ways, and God’s promises concerning the coming Christ.
The kings were also among the shepherds of Israel. In the theocratic system of the Old Testament era, they played an important role in governing the religious life of the people, and in preserving the true faith for the nation.
But in the time of Jeremiah, these priests and kings – these shepherds – were bad shepherds. A primary focus of their bad shepherding, is that they had not kept the sheep together, but had instead scattered them.
Literal sheep remain safe when they remain together, under the protection of their shepherd. When a sheep is alone, he is vulnerable. And if he stays alone, all by himself in the wilderness, it is only a matter of time before he is found by a predator and devoured.
In ancient Israel, the priests and kings were neglecting their spiritual duties as defined by God. Instead of working to make sure that the people knew and believed the Word of God, they had led the people away from the Word of God by tolerating, and even promoting, idolatry.
The perversions of Baal worship and Molech worship replaced the solemnity of the worship of Jehovah. The profane liturgy of the pagan high places replaced the sacred liturgy of the Temple.
The people of Israel might have been with each other physically, as they engaged in their idolatry. But they were no longer with God. They were no longer a part of the Lord’s true flock.
In their hearts, they had been scattered. And so each of them, one by one, could now be picked off by the devil, who roams the earth looking for isolated and vulnerable souls to drag off to damnation. And as a nation, they were also dragged off, by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, into slavery and exile.
Their shepherds had not kept them together, around the Word of God, and under the protection of God. Their shepherds had not paid attention to them. But God, in his wrath, was now going to pay attention to those shepherds.
“You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord.
The spiritual shepherds of today will invite upon themselves the same kind of divine judgment, if they scatter the flocks entrusted to their care by teaching or tolerating the false doctrine of today’s paganisms and substitute gospels.
St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” And to the Romans he likewise writes: “ I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”
Anything that falls short of the preaching of the cross of the Christ who has come – and the preaching of the forgiveness, life, and salvation that God offers to fallen humanity through the cross of his Son – has no power to keep the Lord’s sheep within his flock.
Today’s popular “gospels” – purported gospels of self-indulgence and self-fulfillment, of material wealth and earthly prosperity, of moral license and ethical indifference – attract many. Those who are drawn to these deceptions may physically gather in large numbers at those places where these things are preached.
But as far as the spiritual protection of the true God is concerned – and regarding the inner union with God and with God’s flock that come through faith in God’s Word – these false gospels are actually dispersing the people.
Those who – in their hearts – give themselves over to these modern-day idolatries, and depart from the cross of Christ, thereby depart from the flock of Christ. And they will be overcome and devoured by the world, the flesh, and the devil.
In the New Testament era, the civil authorities are not responsible for the outward maintenance of public worship and sound doctrine, as the kings of Israel were. But those who are responsible for this today, among the clergy and laity of the church, will also call God’s anger down upon themselves, if they ignore this responsibility.
Those whose duty it is to support and facilitate the preaching of the message of Jesus Christ and the administration of his sacraments, and the gathering together of God’s people around those means of grace, will be judged – as were the unbelieving kings of the past – if they, like those kings, allow the Lord’s Temple to become desolate.
An accounting will be demanded for the souls who are lost to the church, when the shepherds who were called to use God’s truth to draw them together, and to keep them together, pastured them instead on human and devilish lies: so that those souls scattered, to worship the gods of this world, at the idolatrous altars of this world.
St. James writes:
“My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”
And we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
“We know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
God’s judgment against the priests and kings of old was severe. But this severity was offset by the sweetness of his promise, concerning the way in which he himself would provide a remedy for the spiritual disaster that these bad shepherds’ sins had caused. Through Jeremiah, the Lord declares:
“But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking.”
Because of their idolatry, the people of Israel were scattered to the idolatrous nations, and they were devoured by those nations. The northern kingdom of Israel was more evil, and more thoroughly apostate, than was the southern kingdom of Judah. And it was punished accordingly.
The people of Judah were able to retain their identity as children of Abraham during their exile in Babylon. For them, the hardships of their exile served to purge them of their outward idolatry, so that they were ready to return to the Holy Land, and to reestablish the worship of the Temple in Jerusalem, when God allowed this to happen after 70 years.
But the northern kingdom was totally sucked into the paganism of the Assyrian Empire. They became completely blended into the larger world of the Gentiles, and ceased to exist as a distinct, identifiable nation.
It would take a miracle to extract them from this. But a miracle is what God performed for them – for us – through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus says in St. Matthew’s Gospel that before this world is brought to its end, the “gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations.” And from those many nations who are hearing this gospel, the Lord’s people – his elect – are even now being called forth to rejoin his chosen flock.
There may not in every case be a specific genetic connection between those ancient Israelites who were sucked into the larger Gentile world, and the elect from among the Gentiles who are reclaimed by Christ and incorporated into his church – although some or many of us no doubt do have traces of Hebrew DNA.
But the deeper point remains. God never forgot those ancient exiles – those ancient scattered sheep – who once had been called by his name, even though they had forgotten him.
And the Lord always had a gracious, saving plan for the nations into which the northern tribes of Israel had been absorbed; and a gracious, saving plan for those tribes insofar as they were now within those nations.
God’s redeeming love for the world is now being manifested, and his plan for the world is now being implemented, as the Great Commission that Jesus entrusted to his disciples is being fulfilled. Jesus tells them, and through them he tells us:
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
In the body of Christ – the Holy Christian Church – Jews and Gentiles are brought together, by faith in the one Redeemer of the world. Judah and Israel – the descendants of the southern kingdom, and the descendants of the dispersed northern kingdom – are, mystically, reunited.
The flock of God is restored. The wanderers are called back to their Lord and protector.
And the focus of this Great Commission also includes those individuals in our time who were formerly in the communion of the church, but who have been lost to it – at least for now.
By the power of the gospel, as this gospel re-engages them; and by the power of their baptism, which is continually calling them home, they, too, can be reclaimed.
We should not give up on people, on whom God has not given up. And God has not given up on them. The parable of the prodigal son reminds us of that, if nothing else does.
Sometimes, you might think that a profound miracle would be necessary to extract some of the former Christians you know, from the falsehood and godlessness into which they have now enmeshed themselves, since their departure from the faith. But a miracle is exactly what Jesus offers them.
And considering that this service is also going out over YouTube, I would add that if anyone who is listening to this is in this situation, a miracle of restoration and renewal is exactly what Jesus is offering to you. The beginning of a new church year, on this first Sunday in Advent, is a great time for a new beginning in your relationship with the church, and with the Lord and chief shepherd of the church.
When a child of Adam is spiritually born again, and becomes a believer in Christ, that is a miracle. When one who had fallen away from Christ is restored to faith – and is spiritually resurrected – that, too, is a miracle. With God, all things are indeed possible.
Also, if any of you sense in your conscience that your own sins may be partly responsible for having turned certain friends or family members away from the church, that certainly would be a great burden of guilt to bear. Know, therefore, that Jesus is also here for you, and that his forgiveness is here for you.
As the eternal high priest who offered himself as the atoning sacrifice for human sin, Jesus died for all our offenses. He died for all our shortcomings and inconsistences, and for our many failures in how we have conducted ourselves: as pastors, as church members, as neighbors, and as husbands, wives, and parents.
Christ’s complete faithfulness and perfect obedience as the ultimate priest for God’s people, and as the ultimate king over God’s people, are credited to us when we are justified before God, by faith in him. Before God, he takes away our sins, and places his righteousness upon us in the stead of those sins.
That’s what God is talking about when he says today, through Jeremiah, that the name by which the Savior will be called is: “The Lord our righteousness.”
If it is possible, you might seek out those whom your conscience tells you you have let down or misled, and apologize for your failing. You can try, with the Lord’s help, to do better in your future interactions with them. And you can pray for them.
You can pray that they will accept Jesus’ admonition to them, to repent of their sins: for which they do bear the ultimate responsibility, and not you.
And you can pray that by the working of the Holy Spirit, they will humbly accept Jesus’ invitation to them, to cling once again to his cross; and to walk once again in the newness of the life that he gives to those whom he owns.
Ultimately, it is the Good Shepherd himself on whom we must all rely. God does give us pastors and teachers, parents and religious leaders, through whom he works, and through whom he blesses us. But all of these people, who are themselves still tainted by sin, will eventually disappoint us – sometimes in small ways; sometimes in big ways.
They will need our forgiveness for these failures, even as we each need the forgiveness of those whom we have hurt. Above all of this, however, is Jesus Christ the Lord. And he will never fail us.
To everyone who looks today to Jesus the Good Shepherd – even to those whose faith may tremble with weakness, or falter with doubt – I as your human shepherd can tell you without hesitation that Jesus will never fail you. He will never abandon you or forsake you.
Jesus’ words of hope and life are never stale or barren. No hypocrisy or insincerity ever attaches to anything he says or does.
Jesus is the “Branch of righteousness” whom God raised up for David. And in another sense, but in a very real sense, he is the Branch of righteousness whom God raised up for you: to make you righteous in God’s sight; and to reign over you and within you in righteousness and in love.
In the healing and reconciling fellowship of the flock of his church, to which he calls you, he shall indeed “reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness,” as he daily convicts his people of their sins and calls them to repentance, but as he also daily forgives and pardons his people, and restores them to his protective shepherd’s embrace.
And within the healing and reconciling fellowship of the flock of his church, in which he preserves you in time and in eternity, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely.” Amen.