Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

How do you enter your house? If you’re like most people, it’s by one of two ways: either you enter the front door or you enter by your garage door leading into the house. That’s the normal way. Think about what that says. It says that you belong there, that it is your house and you have permission to enter it. Now imagine if you entered your house say through the living room window. It seems odd, doesn’t it? If someone were to drive by and see you entering through the window, what do you think their first thought would be? Obviously, they would think that someone was breaking into the house. You see, when you enter the house through the window, it gives the impression that this isn’t your house, that you don’t belong there.

In our Gospel for today, St. John records for us a parable of Jesus talking about sheep, a shepherd, and robbers. Jesus says, “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. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” Imagine before you a pen of sheep. There is one way into the pen – through the door. When the shepherd enters through the door, the sheep recognize him as their shepherd and they follow him around the pen and wherever he would lead them. But if a person enters the sheep pen through an unusual way, the sheep are thrown off. They know that something is amiss.

Shepherds are a major part of the Scriptures. Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known psalm of them all. We all know the beginning words: “The LORD is my shepherd.” Who is your Shepherd? The Lord is your Shepherd. Jesus is your Shepherd. He leads you and He restores you. He comforts you. He prepares a table for you. He anoints your head. He does everything for you. And in our Introit this morning, Jesus tells you one more thing that He does for you. He says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Today, on this day, the day often called Good Shepherd Sunday, we recognize what our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ did; by dying on the Cross, He laid down His life for His sheep. That is precisely what a shepherd does – lays down his life for the life of the sheep.

Your Lord has laid down His life for you because He loves you. Christ Jesus is our Shepherd out of His pure grace. He did not decide to be our Shepherd because we deserve Him. We deserve the Butcher, not the Shepherd. But Jesus comes to us in love anyway. He nurtures and tenderly cares for us sinners. He truly desires to be the Shepherd for you and for me. He does what any true shepherd does – He gives His life in defense of the sheep. He gives His life in defense of you and me.

Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, does what a shepherd does. He enters by the door. He speaks honestly, without concern for Himself. That’s what any good shepherd does. The shepherd puts the sheep before himself. He will sacrifice himself to insure the safety of the sheep that are entrusted to him.

Jesus our Good Shepherd has gone before us to prepare the way for His flock. He has gone before us to make sure that the way is safe. He has guaranteed that safety by laying down His life for you and for me. He has gone before us and taken our place. He has taken our rightful punishment on Himself so that what is ours now becomes His.

Christ Jesus continues to shepherd His flock today. He leads us beside living waters, and feeds us the best food. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Christ cares for His sheep. He bathes us in Baptism, and washes us with His cleansing Blood, so that we are absolutely clean. He makes us healthy with a proper diet of Word and Sacrament. As He absolves and proclaims and preaches His Gospel, He heals our spiritual diseases and binds up our wounds.

Who cares for sheep better than our Good Shepherd? Who paid a greater price than He? Who is more loving and generous and attentive? Who has faced greater wolves than Jesus faced: sin, death, and the devil?

Your Good Shepherd did all of this for you out of the love for the Father. We have a loving Father who gave to us at so great a cost what we needed the most: salvation.

Christ is your Good Shepherd, who has laid down His life for the sheep, for you. He has gone to the cross to redeem you from sin; He has suffered God’s judgment so that you might be His people. And so the psalm declares, “we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”

Your Good Shepherd has laid down His life for you, and now He has taken it up again. He is risen from the dead, just as He said He would, for the grave cannot silence Him. He declares, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them and they follow Me.” Today you hear His voice, for even today He speaks and His Word does what it says it will do. To you He cries out, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” To you He cries out, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” To you He cries out, “I am the resurrection and life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” He declares this to you in His eternal Word; and by the work of His Holy Spirit, you hear His voice and follow Him. He is your rest. He is your resurrection. He is your life. He is your Good Shepherd.

Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” When we walk through the door that is Christ, we walk into His death and His resurrection. We walk into His forgiveness. We walk into His holiness. We walk into the new life that is only found in Christ. While the thief “comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, “came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly.”

You are sheep of the Good Shepherd, who has laid His life down for the sheep. Your Shepherd does not come to lead you to slaughter; instead, He has already been led to the cross in order to give you life. He does not come to rob you of all that you have in return for His help, but to give you freely of the grace and salvation He has won. He does not call upon you to work hard to snatch grace from Him by your works and labors; He calls you to freely receive. That is why He leads you beside still waters. That is why He speaks His Word. That is why He prepares a banquet table for you, even in the presence of your enemies.

He has done all these things for you. He is your Good Shepherd. By His Word, He has voiced His salvation to you. He is your Door, and through Him you have come into the Kingdom of heaven. In the name of Jesus, amen. Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes from the First Reading, which was read earlier.

Just a couple of weeks ago we celebrated one of the most important days in the Church year. This day for us is a day that if it were not a part of Christ’s life, then Christianity would be radically different, probably not even Christianity at all. The day I’m referring to is Good Friday. Without Good Friday, without the crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. There would be no salvation of sins. There would be no Christianity.

Hear these words from St. Peter again: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Let me put it another way: “You crucified your Savior!” That’s pretty much what Peter says to the crowd wondering what all the fire and wind and commotion of Pentecost are about. Everything you’re seeing and hearing – it’s because of something you did when you killed Jesus!

Imagine what that must have felt like when they heard it. The disciples were Christ’s most trusted friends. With the exception of Judas, the disciples could never think of doing anything to harm Christ. And now Peter is telling them that it was they who crucified Christ. A large portion of the crowd might have been present at Christ’s crucifixion, but none of them hammered the nails into Christ themselves. What Peter meant by his statement was that it was their sins that sent Christ to the cross. It was their sins that hammered the nails. It was their sins that kept him on the cross.

More importantly, it was our sins that sent Christ to the cross. It was our sins that hammered the nails. And it was our sins that kept him on the cross.

They felt a huge amount of pain at the words of Peter. “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”” They were willing to do whatever it took to right the situation. They wanted to feel better, if not for Christ’s sake, for their own. The shame they felt was enough to kill them. The disciples, especially, had the utmost respect for their Teacher. There was so much that He taught them, so much more they could have learned. But when they saw their Master crucified, they ran. They hid. They were ashamed and afraid. Now they are together. Feelings of shame and fear overtake them and the crowd. They were greatly troubled that they had sinned against God and killed the Christ.

The feelings that they felt 2000 years ago we feel today as well. It is hard not to. What if I told you that you alone were the cause of death of the Savior? What would you feel? If only your sins were present, Christ would have died for your sins. Why? Death entered through the craftiness of Satan and ruined what God had created, what had been deemed “ good” and “very good.” There was only one way to purge that death: through the death of an innocent.

An African convert put it this way: “When the story of Christ’s death was first read to me, I cursed Judas and Pilate, the Jews and the soldiers. But when I understood it, I cursed myself, for I, too, have crucified Christ.” No truer words have been spoken. It is easy to place the blame on someone else, as he originally did, though it is very hard to accept one’s own actions, especially if we “didn’t” do it. We don’t want to be on the hook for Christ’s crucifixion. We love Jesus. We would never want to hurt Him, much less kill Him. Surely this can’t be us! But it is us. We are guilty of Christ’s death.

Luther put the blame of killing Christ squarely where it belongs – on himself, on you, and on me. Who killed Jesus? You did. I did. We all did. Confess it, because it is true. What Peter said on the first Pentecost is spoken rightly to us all this morning: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

So what is left to the Christian, both then and now to do? We’ve already ran in shame. We’ve already mourned and now are taking responsibility for our actions, that we have crucified Christ. There is only one thing left for us: “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.”

Peter here uses the word “repent” simply to mean “believe.” This involves a changing of the mind effected by the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel in which an unbeliever becomes a believer. Peter invites the crowd to trust the forgiveness Jesus had already accomplished.

This repentance is not a condition for receiving forgiveness as the text implies: “for the forgiveness of your sins.” Such a thought would make forgiveness dependent upon human action. We are “dead in [our] transgressions and sins.” This repentance is all God’s doing by grace. Peter ties the forgiveness of sins to faith, baptism, and the Holy Spirit. When God empowers believers to share the Gospel, the Holy Spirit works through it to create faith in the hearts of unbelievers and to nourish the faith of those who already believe.

Unless you are willing to take the rap and be in the company of the real and hardened sinners who killed Jesus, then you are putting yourself outside that astonished group of killers whom He justified by His blood. If you will not confess your crime with the crowd that Peter preached to, if you will not admit “God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified”, then you simply will not know the power of His forgiveness, because forgiveness of sin is what Peter proclaims to those who crucified Jesus.

What about the ones who are not guilty of His death, not guilty of any sins? What about them? Listen to these words from 1 John – they should sound very familiar to you: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” We’re all guilty, whether we want to admit it or not. We are guilty to the very fiber of our being, guilty of crucifying our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, by our sins. But even for as guilty as we are, there’s forgiveness. The psalmist writes, “If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness; therefore You are feared.” You and I, as guilty as we are, have been forgiven of murder. In fact, Christ death brought about the resurrection of our death, because we are born spiritually dead because of our sin. Through His life, death, and resurrection, you and I have been given this wonderful gift of forgiveness, given to us in our Baptism into Christ.

We have heeded the words of Peter through our baptism. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith….” Through our baptism, we have been marked as children of God. Through the Lord’s Supper, we continue to sustain our faith by the food which Christ gave to the disciples and to His Church.

Take heart, for “this Jesus whom you crucified”, has taken your sin from you. You have died in Christ and have been forgiven all of your sins through His death and resurrection. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.