1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter, is taken from Acts 2:42-47. It’s entitled, “The Life of the Church,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Do you believe in God, serve your community, value close personal relationships, and marriage? A recent Wall Street Journal poll said those who answered yes would likely describe themselves as “very happy.” The survey pool was small—just a little more than 1,000 people—but some of these conclusions still ring true across America. For many years, the survey noted that the percentage of the least happy people stayed reasonably low, hovering around 10 percent, while the happiest always accounted for about 30 percent of respondents. But after 2020, those groups switched places. Now, a third of respondents say they’re “not too happy” while just 12 percent of people describe themselves as “very happy.” The same poll found that Americans don’t value marriage, religion, child-rearing, or community involvement as much as they used to. We see a pattern emerging here, which connects to what the book of Acts describes for us today about the life of the Church and the community Jesus our Good Shepherd gives to us. Churches devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship in the breaking of the bread, and prayers (Acts 2:42). Churches take care of people in body and soul.
3. On Good Shepherd Sunday, the Church wraps itself around this most popular image of Jesus. Early Christian first portrayals of Jesus were as the Good Shepherd, surrounded by his sheep, taking care of them, as shepherds do. But how does he take care of you, how does he give you this abundant life that comes from giving up his life for his sheep, for you?
4. Today’s First Reading from Acts shows you how he takes care of you and where he is to be found with his abundant life. It tells you about the days following Pentecost, that day the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and founded the Christian Church. It tells you about the life of the Church, a life defined first by gathering around Christ’s bodily presence in the liturgy—leitourgia—where gifts are received, the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, and then, next, by the embodiment of Christ and his gifts in the world, where you serve your neighbor—diakonia—by loving them through your mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. The life the Good Shepherd gives to His Church is the life of worship & service.
5. At that first Pentecost, the city of Jerusalem was filled with Jews from all over the world to celebrate the offering of the firstfruits of the spring harvest. Luke reports that on that first Pentecost, these Jews in Jerusalem “were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ ” (Acts 2:37). What caused them to ask this question was the preaching of Peter about Jesus—who said to these Jews: “This man Jesus, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Jesus to death, and God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. . . . Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified!” (Acts 2:23–24, 36)
6. What Peter preached was the Gospel! He preached Jesus Christ crucified and risen! This is the Gospel that Peter experienced as he lived with Christ, the good news he witnessed as Jesus went the way of the cross to suffering, death, and resurrection. Your faith is founded upon these historical events, these acts of salvation. Christ died for your sin—and that’s a fact. The entire fallenness of this world was laid on Jesus, and in the moment of death, in Christ’s shed blood for the atonement of our sin, all creation died with him in a death that was so final that it shook the earth, caused the sun to become dark, and caused the dead in Jerusalem to rise. And then, in Christ’s glorious resurrection, he raised all of creation with him and freed it from the eternal bondage of its fallenness. Creation is now released because Christ, the new Adam, has come and liberated it.
7. Instinctively, the Jews gathered at Jerusalem understood this and said to Peter, “What shall we do?” Peter’s answer is also our response to the Gospel: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
8. Repent—be baptized—forgiveness—the gift of the Holy Spirit. This, too, is the Gospel, but it is the Gospel applied to you. Repent—turn from the darkness of sin to the light of Christ. Repentance means to turn your back on sin and greet Christ in faith as the one who forgives your sins. It means to come to Jesus with the simple faith of a child who in humility confesses the simple Christian faith that Jesus died for me. Baptism is where each of you first turned from darkness to light by the application of water with the Word of God. Pure grace. Grace that changed you from children of wrath to children of love. There the Holy Spirit came upon you, and you became members of the kingdom of which Christ is the King—there in those sacred waters, you were freed from sin, death, and the devil. Forgiveness is freedom—release from bondage. In Baptism you got the whole death thing over. You died in Christ and rose with him. You will never die again but live forever as Christ’s very own.
9. Your Good Shepherd takes care of you in the life of the Church, as those early Christians were taken care of by their Good Shepherd in a very simple way—by gathering for worship around Christ’s bodily presence. We call this liturgy today. The early Christians called it leitourgia, which simply means God serving his world with Christ and his gifts. In worship, the Church was given by God the means by which it could center its life on the death and resurrection of Jesus. If there’s one attitude that characterized the life of the emerging Christian Church at worship, it was joy, for this was their new Jerusalem. It was here that they met God and God met them and they were changed by that confrontation for their eternal good.
10. Acts 2:42. Remember that verse, for here Luke describes the life of the Church as worship: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
11. Luke defines worship in this way: the apostles’ teaching and fellowship in the breaking of the bread and prayers. Three simple things. Every Sunday, this congregation has all three of these things. In these things, Jesus is present here in his flesh, he is here to offer you the gifts of salvation—the greatest gifts that anyone can give and receive. He gives us himself and all that he has accomplished for us—life, salvation, forgiveness. Every Sunday, Jesus comes to us in his Word, as he did today through Peter, Luke, and John. And then after coming to us in his Word and preparing us for what comes next, he then sits down at table with us here as the host of the banquet that has no end. Here at this table, Jesus comes to us in his body and blood. Because Christ is present here, all who have died in Christ are also present with him. For wherever Christ is, there is heaven itself. Heaven is here, as we confess in our liturgy: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.” Yes, from this moment on, by reason of your Baptism, you now participate in the feast of heaven, a feast that knows no end.
12. Your Good Shepherd takes care of the life of the world through the Christ embodied in you, through your love, your forgiveness, your mercy, your sharing with the world the gifts given to you in leitourgia. We call that diakonia, service—serving our neighbor with love, Christ’s love. This is the Gospel, the whole Gospel. Christ first serves us with his gifts in leitourgia, and then we serve our neighbor as ambassadors of his love in diakonia.
13. Acts 2:44–45. Remember those verses, for here Luke describes the life of the Church after they receive the gifts in worship: “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
14. Those early believers weren’t communists, pooling all their resources for the common good. They were Christians who had joined themselves to Christ bodily. Now through their bodies, in concrete, particular ways, they shared what Christ had given them with those in need. The Gospel gave them freedom to do this—to love as Christ had loved them by giving up his life for them as their Good Shepherd, to serve their neighbor as Christ had served them by giving his life as a ransom for many. This is the liturgy of life, where we serve others with Christ’s gifts, embodied in us, as he served us in the apostles’ teaching and in fellowship, the breaking of the bread and prayers.
15. We are gathered here at worship to do what no one else in the world can do: proclaim for the life of the world that Jesus Christ has come, that he has shed his blood for the world’s sins, that he has risen from the dead for the world’s salvation, and that he is constantly present among us, offering his body and blood for our life eternal. There is power in our proclamation to the world that it has been redeemed, re-created, and renewed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here in this place, we have the forgiveness of all our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ, for here in this place the kingdom of God is present among us. We entered his kingdom in Baptism. Today our Lord welcomes us once again to the table of the kingdom. Come to the feast—the life of the Church—and then be what you have become in Christ: ambassadors of his mercy. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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