Sermon manuscript:
A common temptation for those who have little patience with
puzzles is to make pieces fit by jamming them together. The pieces don’t quite match
up, but close enough. The goal of finishing is more important than
understanding each part of the puzzle for what it is. When the pieces of the
puzzle are not understood for what they are, the puzzle will never be completed
correctly. (That’s something that’s kind of odd about jamming pieces
together—it never ends up working out anyway.)
There are other possible actions with a puzzle. Perhaps some
strange person could just take each piece by itself and look at each piece
endlessly. The pieces of the puzzle are then understood for what each one is,
but the pieces are never put together. Or, (and I can sympathize with this), a person takes a look at a thousand
puzzle pieces and simply walks away from it. “No thank you. I don’t feel like
sorting all of that out.”
To say that God’s revelation to us is like a puzzle would be
incorrect. Saying such a thing implies many incorrect things. It implies that
all I have to do is sort through all the pieces and connect them. It implies
that I’m capable of knowing how everything fits together. It implies that all
that’s needed is a bunch of sorting, brain-work and logic. However, loosely
speaking, there might be some value in comparing what God reveals in his Word to
putting together a puzzle.
We could say that a statement or a passage is one piece. The
individual passages have something to say. How does each individual passage
connect with other passages? I can well imagine folks looking at all the
passages and statements of the bible like a 5,000 piece puzzle dumped onto the
table and wanting to have nothing to do with it. I can also imagine someone
wanting to finish the puzzle very quickly. Hammer in hand they put together
pieces that don’t actually fit, but perhaps are close enough, so as to say that
they are done. Not many people, it seems, are very interested in looking at the
pieces endlessly, not concerned about connecting them together. We are too
impatient for that.
If I might say something from my personal experience, I
think I’ve done all three things over the course of my life. At times I’ve
walked away, not interested. Then I’ve also hammered stuff together, but, just
as you would with a real puzzle, I’ve noticed that things might not fit
correctly. I’ve had to take apart what I used to think fit together because
I’ve looked more closely at the individual passages. I still have to work on
having the patience to look at pieces as they are instead of immediately trying
to hammer them together. What’s bad about hammering together passages is that
you end up having to change what one, or the other, or both say because the
desire is to pretend that they fit together.
The reason why I have brought this extended analogy up is
because of something that Jesus says in our Gospel reading. He says, “My
sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life,
and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father,
who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my
Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
There is quite a bit of familiar stuff in this statement.
Jesus’s sheep hear his voice. Jesus gives them eternal life. Even the fact that
Jesus is God is quite familiar. What has bothered me for a long time is this
part: “No one will snatch them out of my hand… No one can snatch them out of
my Father’s hand.”
This statement immediately brings to my mind lots of
questions. If no one can snatch these sheep away, does that mean that these
sheep can never fall away? What if these sheep end up being really bad and
doing very bad things? No one can snatch them away?
A related issue also comes up. Jesus obviously is saying
that he, the Good Shepherd, is in complete control. The sheep are his. No one
can take them away. If he is in complete control, then why aren’t all people
saved? Or why are some people saved, but not others? Right here in this very
reading Jesus says that these Jews who have gathered around him are not his
sheep. Why not? What did they do that they are not Jesus’s sheep? Or why didn’t
Jesus make them his sheep?
Here it’s like I’ve taken the cover off the box and dumped
all the pieces of the puzzle onto the table. Don’t worry. I’m not going to just
leave you with a big jumble of questions. I’ve had a little experience with
puzzles of this kind. But let me say this before we begin: Don’t have too high
of expectations. Don’t expect that all the pieces are going to come together
perfectly. I’ve already noted how God’s revelation is not a big puzzle. We are
not going to fit everything together—not because the pieces don’t fit, or
because God is holding out on us, but because we are not capable of it.
The Apostle Paul discusses the magnificent kinds of thoughts
that I’ve just brought up today with these questions. He discusses these things
in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11. He concludes that discussion by saying, “Oh,
the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the
Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he
might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him
be glory forever. Amen.” We’re not going to see everything at one, as
though we were looking at a completed puzzle, as though we were God.
But let’s go back to that jumble of questions. They were
brought up by Jesus saying that no one snatches the sheep out of his hand. So
does that mean that his sheep can live however they want, sin all the more so
that grace may abound? And it is the Shepherd who is in control. So why doesn’t
he save everyone? Or why is this one not Jesus’s sheep, while a different one
is? Is there something that this one did, or didn’t do, that makes him or her
different than another one?
So we’ve got this big pile of questions. How are we going to
go about sorting them out? There’s this helpful tip that those who are familiar
with putting together puzzles know. The first thing to look for are the corners
and the edge pieces of the puzzle. They are easy to identify compared to the
others because they have one or more straight sides. There are analogously
clear and simple teachings in God’s revelation too. This is why our Catechism
is valuable. It teaches us these clear and simple things.
So when it comes to the questions that have to do with how
we should act we must go to the Ten Commandments. These commandments give us
God’s will for what is right and how we should live our lives. Generally
speaking, we are to love God and love our neighbor. Those are the two tables of
the Law. And what does God say about all these commandments? He says, “I the
Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the
fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing
love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
What does this mean? God threatens to punish all who break these commandments,
therefore we should fear his wrath and not do anything against them. But he
promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore
we should also love and trust in him and gladly do what he commands.
This corner piece of God’s revelation goes a long way in
sorting out our jumble of questions. What about the sheep who want to wander,
counting on not being snatched away regardless? God threatens to punish all who
break his commandments. Therefore we should fear his wrath. God promises grace
and every blessing. So why would we forego that promised grace and blessing? Do
we believe that the devil, the prince of this world will bless us better? God’s
commandments, and the threats and promises that God attaches to these
commandments, explain a lot. These are the things that have to do with us and
our behavior and God’s reaction to that.
There is another corner piece we must pick out. It
corresponds to the second chief part of the Catechism, the Creed. This has to
do with God’s action instead of my actions. God created me and still sustains
me. God has redeemed me. God has sanctifies me. What Jesus says in our Gospel
reading is all about God’s action, specifically his Gospel. The Gospel is the
good news that God has saved us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The specific aspect of the Gospel that is being addressed by
Jesus’s words is its tremendous scope and power. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He
knows his sheep. No one is going to take those sheep away from him. Jesus says
that God his Father has chosen these sheep and no one can take those sheep away
from him because he is God. It is actually the limitless scope and power of
God’s gracious action that has prompted the questions I’ve brought up today. A
person can wonder, “How does not being able to be snatched away fit in with
God’s threats? How does that fit in with my
actions for good or for ill?”
These two corner pieces don’t fit together—at least not with
our limited thinking. God reveals two
things in these two corner pieces emphatically and clearly. We often sum up
these two very different revelations with the words “Law” and “Gospel.” God
reveals in his Law that he is the righteous judge. He judges people for their
actions and rewards them as he sees fit. Whoever does not measure up is his
enemy. This revelation is that our actions are the basis for God’s reaction.
The Gospel is another revelation from God that is altogether
different. This revelation is all about God’s actions, without any merit or
worthiness in me. God sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him
will not perish but have eternal life. Even where we think our actions might
fit in, the little work that we think we have to do, isn’t so. It is not our
work that we choose to believe in him. Jesus says, “You did not choose me,
but I chose you.” Or think of the actions of a shepherd and his sheep. Is
it the sheep who go and get a shepherd for themselves, or is it the shepherd
who goes and finds his sheep?
It is with this second teaching, with God’s Gospel, that we
must include those rather extreme words in our reading: “No one will snatch
my sheep out of my hand. My Father, who has given the sheep to me, is greater
than all. No one can snatch the sheep out of my Father’s hand.” This is a
clear statement. A very simple person can understand what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is the shepherd. No one takes the sheep away from him. No one can take the sheep away. Who cares what
questions this might bring to your mind? Jesus obviously has good reason for
saying it. The Holy Spirit has good reason for inspiring John to include it in
his Gospel. We are to hear and believe what Jesus says. That means that we are
to be joyful and confident in Jesus being our shepherd. He is more powerful
than our sin or any of our other enemies.
Now when we try to put this piece of revelation together
with other pieces of revelation, we are going to have trouble putting
everything together. That’s not God’s fault. “Who has known the mind of the
Lord or been his counselor?” But we can’t then take a hammer in hand and
smash it together with other things and think that we’ve accomplished anything
good. It always seems to me that when people are trying to fit what Jesus says
in our reading together with other thoughts that it is always the scope and
power of Jesus’s grace that ends up getting clipped off. Folks assume that the
Gospel can’t be that far-reaching. There has to be something dependent upon us.
There has to be some catch.
Where’s the catch in Jesus’s words though? Jesus is the Good
Shepherd. He searches out the lost sheep. He lays down his life for the sheep.
He calls them and gathers them together. No one is going to take the sheep away
from him. There’s no catch.
And so you have to leave this piece of the puzzle be. You
have to leave this statement as it is and do not modify it—even if you can’t
figure out how it fits with everything else. Jesus says he is the Good
Shepherd. You are his sheep. You are hearing his voice. His voice says that he
has saved you completely. No one can change that because he is God.
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