Tag Archives: Voice

I Am the Door – Sermon on John 10:1-10 for Midweek Lent 2

The Scripture readings for tonight’s service are Psalm 118:19-24, 28-29; Isaiah 26:1-3; Hebrews 10:19-22; and John 10:1-10.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

John 10 is widely known as the Good Shepherd chapter because it’s where Jesus has two “I Am” statements, “I Am the Door of the sheep; I Am the Good Shepherd” (Jn. 10:7, 11). Both of those declarations are comforting. Very comforting for us. But in context, dear saints, both statements are actually judgment against the Pharisees because they have turned their back on Jesus, the Shepherd of their souls (1 Pet. 2:25).

Last week, we heard the beginning of Jn. 9 where Jesus declares “I Am the Light of the world.” Then, He healed the man who was born blind. A tense exchange follows. The Pharisees pressure the formerly-blind man to deny Jesus (Jn. 9:8-34). They fail. Instead, the man boldly confesses that only someone from God could perform such a miracle. Later, Jesus finds him again, and the man worships and believes in Christ (Jn. 9:35-38).

John 9 closes with Jesus saying, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (Jn. 9:39). The Pharisees hear this and ask Jesus, “Are we also blind?” Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains” (Jn. 9:41). That conversation flows directly into our text tonight, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber” (Jn. 10:1-10). Notice that Jn. 10:6 says that Jesus is addressing this figure of speech to people who are identified only as “them” and “they.” The ‘them’ and ‘they’ are the Pharisees who have rejected Jesus as the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:11). The Pharisees did not understand (Jn. 10:6).

Now, I admit that Jesus doesn’t explicitly say, “I Am the Good Shepherd,” until Jn. 10:11 – one verse after our text. But Jesus has implicitly said it. He begins by mentioning the sheepfold. In Jesus’ day, and still today, a sheepfold was often a cave that was partially closed by a rock wall along the opening. There was just a small gap so the flock could enter the sheepfold for safety or exit it to find pasture. The way that sheepfold was closed is that the shepherd would station himself at the opening and be the door himself. So, to reach the sheep, you had to go through the shepherd. If anyone tried to enter by a different way than through the door (i.e. the shepherd), that person was trying to harm the sheep.

Jesus is that Door because He is that Shepherd. Whoever enters through Him will be saved. When Jesus talks about going in and going out, He isn’t talking about being saved in the sheepfold vs. being not saved when you are out of the sheepfold. Instead, the saved are the ones who go in and the ones who go out and find pasture. The coming and going of the sheep (which needs to happen) is all through Him.

So, being in or out of the sheepfold isn’t equal to being saved or damned. The parable of the Lost Sheep in Lk. 15:1-7 is different in that way. Here, in or out doesn’t matter. Instead, the focus is on the fact that the saved have access through Jesus, the Door. That’s what saves. Christ is your Shepherd-Door. Because of Him, you are safe whether you are in or out. You have peace in the sheepfold, and you have freedom from danger when you are out in the pleasant pastures. Psalm 121:7-8 is a nice parallel to what Jesus says in Jn. 10:9, “The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

With this image, Jesus also recalls parts of our Psalm tonight (Ps. 118:19-24, 28-29). This text takes place when Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn. 7:2), when parts of Ps. 118 were sung. As the people entered the Temple during the feast, they would sing, “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it” (Ps. 118:19-20).

Jesus is the Door through which you have access to and encounter Yahweh, the Great “I Am.” By Christ’s blood, you can have confidence to enter the holy places. He has opened that way for you through His flesh (Heb. 10:19-20). 

Let me switch gears for a moment here. I can’t preach on this text without mentioning how the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd, Who is also the Door.

In Jesus’ day, everyone owned a handful of sheep because that was how you got your clothing, milk, meat, and leather. But daily life – farming, cooking, chores – meant that people couldn’t tend the flock full-time. So, families in a neighborhood would combine their sheep into one larger flock of 60, 80, 100 sheep, and one person would shepherd them all. In large towns, there would be several different flocks that were tended by several shepherds.

By day, each shepherd would lead his flock to pleasant pastures. At night, the shepherd would bring his flock back into the village where there was a large sheepfold. And all the different flocks would spend the night together so most of the shepherds could go home and sleep. Only one of them would be the Door for the night as all the sheep slept in the pen.

In the morning, the shepherds returned to that pen where the flocks were all mixed together. You might think it would be chaotic to try and sort out which shepherd was responsible for which sheep. But, no. It wasn’t a problem. Each shepherd simply called his sheep by name, “Come, Long-ears. Up, White-nose. Let’s go, Stubby-legs.” Each sheep would hear the familiar voice of its own shepherd, and they would all follow him to go frolic in the fields for the day. That’s the picture Jesus uses throughout John 10.

Dear saints, you know the voice of your Shepherd. He softly, tenderly, and kindly calls to you in the Scriptures. Enter through Him and you will be saved. He calls you by name (Is. 43:1-2; Jn. 10:3), and He has called you to life – abundant, eternal life in Him. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

Charged to Silence – Sermon on Mark 7:31-37 for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Mark 7:31–37

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The miracle is strange enough on its own. A man who is deaf and mute is brought to Jesus. Our Lord throws His fingers into the man’s ears. I know our translation says ‘put,’ but the word there is more aggressive and intrusive. It probably wasn’t comfortable for the man. But Jesus isn’t done being weird. Christ spits – exactly where, we aren’t sure. A collection of Jewish literature called the Talmud, which is an interpretation of the Old Testament, taught that saliva was a healing agent. Mark seems to indicate that Jesus’ saliva ends up on the guy’s tongue – either directly or from Jesus’ hand to his tongue. Jesus sighs and says, “Ephphatha,”which means, “Be opened,” and the guy can hear and speak. Again, strange miracle.

Why all the intrusiveness and all the ceremony? Why doesn’t Jesus just do as He had done all sorts of other times – speak the word and let the healing take place (Mt. 8:8)? Well, I don’t know. But what I can say for sure is that Jesus’ still has ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is.

Through His Word, Jesus does amazing things. The same Jesus spoke all things into existence when He created the cosmos (Gen. 1; Jn. 1:3, 14). In the creation account, God spoke into the void and things that did not exist obeyed and came to be. Here, Jesus speaks to ears that He created but couldn’t hear anything, and they obey His command to open. He’s doing Jesus-type things – healing and fixing the brokenness that sin has brought to creation. Yes, the miracle is strange, especially the leadup to it. But what might be even more strange is what happens at the end.

Jesus tells that man to not use his newly loosened tongue to announce the healing to anyone, and He commands the crowds to be silent about it as well. In short, Jesus speaks to two different types of ears with two different responses. Christ speaks a command to deaf ears and a stuck tongue, and they obey. But then He charges hearing ears to keep their working tongues silent, but they zealously disobey (Mk. 7:36). They dismiss Christ’s Word and command.

The only clue we have to the mindset of these people who are blatantly disobeying Jesus comes from what they say, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” It sure seems like their intention is to say nice things about Jesus.

What they say is true. Jesus does do everything well. And He is good, good beyond our imagination. He has just made the deaf hear and the mute speak. That’s true too. However, we need to understand, saying nice things or saying true things can still be sinful. And we know that it is sinful here because, again, Jesus told them to not say anything about it. Exactly why Jesus told them to keep silent, we don’t know. Jesus repeatedly does this in the Gospel of Mark, and in other places where He does this and people disobey Him, we see that His ministry is hindered (Mk. 1:38-45). So, what are we to do with this?

Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7 says that there is a season for everything and a time for every matter under heaven; there is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. And, certainly, when God commands you to keep silent, that is a time to keep silent. So today, God calls us to consider when and how we use our mouth, tongue, and voice and to regularly examine ourselves in light of the 8th Commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” In the Small Catechism, Luther’s explanation of it is so good: “We should fear and love God so that we do not deceitfully lie about, betray, backbite, nor slander our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the most charitable construction on all that he does.”

Of course, we break the 8th Commandment when we desire the truth to be different and lie. But we also break this Commandment when we hijack the truth in order to make our neighbor look bad and spread gossip. Yes, lying is bad, and we often have our conscience pricked when we lie. But gossip and tearing others down is just as bad. There are times when telling the truth is a sin and violation of this Commandment. For example, don’t tell Laura about Peter’s sin if Laura doesn’t need to know about it. You don’t like it when it happens to you. Don’t do it to others. So, don’t lie. Don’t gossip. But also know when to be silent.

We live in a world that is buzzing with communication. Technology has given you the ability chat with a person in Indonesia about a cat while you get into an argument with someone who lives in Spain about weather. With instant access to a majority of the world in our pockets, it is easy to get distracted and waste copious amounts of time communicating with people we don’t know about things that don’t matter, and when that kind of communication is happening, it is easy to use our tongues and fingers to break the 8thCommandment. So, hear this as a call to consider how you use your phone, social media, and the comments section on a news article to interact with others. You should be spending more time interacting with your family and the people around you than you do interacting with people on Insta-Snap-You-Twit-Face.

Also, in your regular in-person relationships and interactions, you need to use your God-given wisdom. Yes, absolutely, there are times when God is giving you an open door to proclaim the truth to those who blatantly deny it. There are times where you should correct, reprove, and rebuke evil and sin. But how do you go about doing it? Are you speaking the truth in love in an effort to correct the erring, or are you mocking, ridiculing, and belittling people and further turning them off to Christianity?

The tongue and all your communication has great power both for good and for evil. James spends a lot of time on this. In James 1:26-27, we read, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” And later, in James 3:2-8, he talks about how horses are guided by a small bit in their mouths and huge ships are steered by a small rudder. In the same way the tongue is a small part of your body, but it can set a huge fire.

Dear saints, what you say and communicate and how you say and communicate it, has great power to both tear down and destroy or to build up and edify. Guard your mouth, your pen and pencil, and, yes, your typing. Guard them in such a way that you declare God’s praise (Ps. 51:15) because faith comes by hearing (Ro. 10:17).

So, dear saints, hear again that Christ Jesus has forgiven you all the sins of your tongue and fingers. Know that His shed blood has covered all your iniquity. Continue to fight against your sin, as you live in Christ’s grace, now and forever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.