B, Easter 4, Good Shepherd Sunday - John 10:11,17-18 "The Good Shepherd's Power"

John 10:11, 17–18 (ESV)  "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  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."

The kingdom and the power and the glory are God the Father’s.  In Jesus’ victory over death in his death and resurrection, God the Father has given Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, the kingdom, the power, and the glory.  The Father did this, “when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places”. (Ephesians 1:20 ESV)

Here in the Good Shepherd narrative, Jesus refers to the power he has, as a result of the “command”(literally in the Greek), or “charge” he has received from God the Father. 

As we just heard in Ephesians chapter one, Jesus’ resurrection is usually referred to as passive.  In all but a couple of instances, we’re told Jesus “was raised” from the dead by God the Father or God the Holy Spirit.

Here in John ten, Jesus tells us he has authority to lay his life down and to take it up.  Also, in John chapter two, after he clears the temple and confronts the Jews, he says of his own body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)

Humanity has the power to lay down its life but taking it up again is somewhat problematic!

Many valiant individuals have thrown themselves in harm’s way, to save the life of another.  Many parents or spouses have given their lives for each other or their children.  Soldiers in active combat, in service to our country, have laid down their lives on the battlefield, some even taking their own lives to protect national secrets from the enemy.  Others, blinded by hopelessness, lay down their lives through suicide.

None of these though, who have laid down their lives, honourably or otherwise,  have been able to take their lives back up again!  Once you’re dead, you’re dead!

Jesus’ authority is different.  He has the authority to lay down in death, and he has the authority to take life back up.  He has the power to give himself unto death, and he has the power to return from the dead.  Having been commanded by God, he had the right to die on the cross, and having died a sinless death, pleasing the Father, he had the right to take his sinless life back up!

As a human being, it might seem Jesus’ power to take back his life, as being on an unequal footing with us.  After all, the great claim of Jesus being our Saviour, is that he became like us in every way.  If Jesus is like me, how is it that he can raise himself from death, and I can’t!  Since when I die, despite how noble a cause my death might serve, I still can’t raise myself back to life.

We know that the majority of biblical sources tell us that Jesus “was” raised, and he did not raise himself!  Even in John chapter two after Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)  John notes in verse twenty-two, “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”  (John 2:22 ESV)  They don’t remember Jesus as raising himself but rather that he “was raised”, and they believe!

How do we reconcile Jesus being raised and Jesus raising up himself?  And in understanding this anomaly, what is God’s word to us who live in our Good Shepherd’s resurrection power and authority?

The Gospel of John takes up the new commandment of God in the work of Jesus Christ his Son.  This work was done with authority and power, and he had the  right to do so. 

Be reminded of what we’re told in John chapter one.  “He [The Word who was God] …came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”. (John 1:11–12 ESV)

This right to become children of God is the power or the authority to become children of God.  Just as Jesus had the right to take up his life, we have the right to take up our Christian life as the children of God.  In fact, just as Jesus was commanded by our Father, Jesus commands us, saying, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV)

So how Jesus takes up his life, has a very real bearing, on how we too are to take up the commandment to love as Jesus has loved us!

Jesus laid down his life and took it back up again.  But what was this life, and from where did its power come?

Jesus’ authority, power, or right, comes from the Holy Spirit who proceeds from God the Father and God the Son. 

In love, the Father and the Holy Spirit, work through the Son’s vulnerability in the flesh of a human body susceptible of sin.  He was made incarnate in the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was caused to be seen resting on Jesus when he was baptised in the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness throughout his ministry, where angelic messengers from God ministered to him.

Commanded by God, Jesus willingly, and for the joy set before him, walked the way of the cross, laying down his life. 

When Jesus lay down his life, he lay it right down into the lowest depths on Holy Saturday, the depths of hell!  We hear in First Peter, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison”.  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

The Holy Spirit gave Jesus Christ life within his spirit.  So, even in death and descent into hell, the light of his life, shone in hell’s darkness, exposing sin.  Jesus Christ’s sinless life shone in hell!  Not for salvation!  But, as reminder to those who chose not to receive God, that they no longer have access to a Redeemer or redemption.

Jesus lay his life down and took it up again.  Jesus has the power and authority within himself, of himself, but not for himself.  This is no selfish or individualistic whim!  No!  This is Jesus’ freedom in obedience to the command and will of the Father.  He has the power to raise himself, yet he allows the Holy Spirit to raise him, despite having the authority and power to do it himself.

The Spirit gives Jesus’ life; and Jesus takes up this life once again at his resurrection.  Our Good Shepherd’s servanthood in power and authority continues today having been raised.   Jesus our Good Shepherd actively became passive so that passively he became, and now is, active.

Because this is so contrary to who we are, and how we think and work, let me say that again! Jesus actively became passive, so that passively he became, and now is, active.

You now live in the life that Jesus has picked up in power and authority.  You now have the right to be children of God.  The Holy Spirit, who brings you to Jesus in his word and sacraments, authorises you and empowers you to live in the life of Jesus.  To serve as he serves, to love as he loves, and to forgive as he forgives!

You no longer can be condemned, as Paul reminds us in Romans, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”  (Romans 8:34 ESV)

Jesus now eternally serves and shepherds us with life.   In his power and authority, by faith, see him interceding for you before our Heavenly Father. 

But Jesus, our Good and Risen Shepherd, is not only before the Father in heaven, but he’s amongst and within us, his body.  He serves and shepherds us!  So, through us, he might serve and shepherd others with his power and authority!

It is now our right as Christians in the power and authority of Jesus Christ, to serve others as he and the Father continually send the Holy Spirit, to raise us up in newness of life in him, our Good Shepherd.  Amen.

B, Christmas Day, The Birth of our Lord - John 1:1-14 Hebrews 1:1-4 "Light and Life"

In the first and third verse of Genesis chapter one, we hear, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  (Genesis 1:1,3 ESV)

All who hear these words should recognise their similarity when we hear John chapter one. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  (John 1:1–4 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one draws from the beginning of Genesis and the Gospel of John, as Christ being the Word of God, speaking the word of God, who created the world. 

From Hebrews chapter one, we hear of Jesus Christ, the Son of God our Father, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”  (Hebrews 1:3a ESV)

The true light and life of Christmas is Christ Jesus.  In the beginning at creation, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God the Son, not yet human, was the Word not yet made flesh, and he is the light and life of all things - everything.

But the Word of God, the Son of God, who is God, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of God’s nature, was enfleshed into a human being, as a man.  Jesus was born, in the incarnation of created human flesh.  God the Son, was born as the Son of Man, born into a world in which God created for fleshy humans to dwell.

The Creator became created.  God became man.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary, the carrier of the Christ.  A fragile human woman, carrying a fragile human baby.  The eternal Son of God came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became a human, a baby boy, to be the Son of Man, the servant of humanity!

Jesus came as the light of life for his creation.  “He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”  (John 1:10 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one does not dwell on the beginning, as does John and Genesis chapters one, but rather picks up the theme of Jesus’ beginning and power, to point us to God’s purpose and destination.  We hear, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3b ESV)

Succinctly and without hesitation the writer of Hebrews, confesses the Son of God, as he who covered sin with his purity and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, which is God the Father.  He did this for his own people, the people of God, and they did not receive him. 

Brighter than the sun, the Word made Flesh, now shone in the darkness of the womb, in the darkness of the stable, amongst the darkness of his very own people.  And despite their darkness, the darkness did not overcome the Light of the World, the Life of the World, the Word made Flesh!

We Christians, ones who are being made holy through this work of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, joyfully rejoice over the coming of Christ at the first Christmas.  And we eagerly await and willingly confess our sins, to our Father in heaven, through the help of the Holy Spirit, who fills us with patience for Jesus’ second coming.  We endure in the darkness knowing our destination is Jesus the Christ, light and life of the world.

Not so the world.  You will not hear anything about God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit.  And what you hear of Jesus is minimal, at best.  You will not hear that he is the Son of God, or that he is the Christ, the Messiah.  When he is sung about in carols, they’re sung as a sentiment for feeling a certain way at this time of year.

Thanks be to God, Christmas is called Christmas.  The world cannot separate Christ from Christmas no matter how hard they try.  And thanks be to God our Father, he has given us voices to sing carols about Christ, and mouths to proclaim, the name of Christ, as our Messiah and as the Messiah for all people.  Despite Saint Nicolas and his charity being dragged into the harlotry of ho, ho, ho, happy holidays and desperate desires for the latest craving, Jesus Christ is still the true light and life of an ever-darkening world.  

In fact, Jesus’ light shines brighter and brighter as the true messianic gift to humanity, the true salvific servant of man, as the world seeks to dwell in darkness and deception, which is the lie that our commercialised Christmas has become.  Yet the darkness cannot overcome the Christ in Christmas!

Those seeking popularity on television will not tell you who is the Christ in Christmas!  Nor will the singers proclaim who the holy child is, so meek and mild. 

No, they are living the lie that the worldly Christmas has become, as they continue to add deceptive words to deceptive words to keep the lie going.  And we all know what this lie is!  We all participate in the lie, when we entertain the dark spirit of the Christmas lie by putting our faith in our desires for silver and gold – gifts that are gods made with human hands.

As the psalmist says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:4–8 ESV)

But you and I are being made holy and set apart by the holy Christ Child.  He grew and made purification for your sin!   Jesus Christ is the one true holy gift of God, shining in the brightness of eternity, in the holiness of purity to cover all darkness in you this Christmas! 

This is your gift from God for all eternity to not only dispel the darkness the world has without him, but the darkness you have within.  Jesus Christ is the Word made Flesh who dwells amongst us but also tabernacles within each of us, enlightening us with grace and truth.  Let the Christ be born daily in you, knowing the promise, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16 ESV)

He is the gift that keeps on giving, from the beginning to the end, through the darkness of death into eternity.  The one true gift that shines into the future and gives hope in a holy destination for you and all humanity who believes in him.

Let the Holy Spirit be the true Spirit of Christmas which can freely give the gift of the Christ of Christmas to all.  Those of you who have been deceived by the darkness into seeing this season as a season of personal pleasure-seeking with its gathering and giving gifts of greed, and that’s all of us, know the gift of forgiveness is for you!

Receive the gift of grace upon grace this Christmas!  The gift of Christ upon Christ!  The gift of God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, made Man, to serve you, a child of God.

Hear the promise from John chapter one, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11–13 ESV)

Our right to be children of God is not a human right, but a freedom given to us as the gift of God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and Christ was the light and life of the world.  At the end Jesus Christ is the gift that leads from darkness into a destination of light and life. 

The Word made Flesh is the gift of light and life for you!  Amen.