Some of you may be old enough to remember a bumper stick back in the sixties that read, “I found it.” The “it” was in reference to Jesus and finding Jesus and a relationship with Him. Notice the blatant attempt to steal the show, to take the credit for something we sinful human beings simply cannot do. “I” found it. What arrogance? My usual response to such statements, “I found it,” meaning “I found Jesus,” is, “I did not know He was lost.” Interestingly enough, our text for today truly steers us in the right direction as God says, “I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out” (v. 11b). Who is running the verbs? Who is seeking who? Who is choosing who? Who is doing what?
Before we get to our text, I want to briefly look at the other lessons for this morning. In the Gospel reading Jesus reminds us that He is the Good Shepherd who searches and looks for us. Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Notice who looks for who. Does the lost sheep go looking for the shepherd? Does the lost coin go looking for its owner? In both parables, it is the shepherd and the woman who go looking for what is lost. What was lost, the sheep and the coin, do not go looking for the shepherd and the woman. In the same way, we who are lost do not go looking for God, but He comes looking for us.
In our epistle lesson, Paul reminds Timothy, and us, that it is Jesus who makes us righteous and strengthens us in faith. Paul reminds us how we act in ignorance and unbelief, which is our nature because we have been conceived and born in sin and because, as God says in Genesis, every inclination of our hearts is evil all the time. Because we are born with a sin tainted will, we cannot act as God would have us to act, we do not go looking for God, it is God who loves us. It is God who gave His life for ours in the person of Jesus and it is God who makes us righteous, even strengthening us in our faith.
Getting to our text. The summary of our text is verse eleven, “11For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out” (v. 11). In the verses before our text Ezekiel has been reviewing with the Children of Israel the rules, if you will, the stipulations that will guide their restoration. In other words he has been explaining to them what they must do in order to be restored as God’s people. He then proceeds to speak promises of redemption, of spiritual redemption, to those who can only see defeat and dark pessimism. Remember, the children of Israel were in exile and their culture and way of life seemed all but lost. Yet, as He had done time and again, God continued to remember His people, not that He had ever forgotten, and promise to them that indeed the Savior of the world would be born through their descendants. It was and is always the Lord who works to seek and save His people.
In our text the children of Israel are shown that it is not they who seek the Lord, but rather it is the opposite. It is God who searches and finds them. It is the Lord who seeks the lost to save them and it has been this way since the beginning. When Adam and Eve sinned, bringing judgement to all humanity, it was the Lord who stepped in and promised to send a Savior. When God called Abram to be the father of a great nation, to be the one nation through whom the Savior would be born, it was not because of anything Abram had done, and it was not Abram who came seeking the Lord, rather it was simply that God chose him. When God remember Israel and brought them out of bondage of slavery in Egypt, it was because God is gracious. When Israel continually disobeyed the Lord and went running after other gods and idols, it was the Lord who always heard their cry and rescued them, even though they often simply returned to running after other gods and idols. It was and is always the Lord who is the active, prime mover, seeking and searching for His sinful human beings.
Which brings us to our “What does this mean?” question. Our nature is very much like that of Israel. We are conceived and born in sin. Sin is in our DNA. Every inclination, every intention of our hearts is evil all the time. We are indeed born spiritually blind, spiritually dead and, enemies of God. It is simply in our nature that we sin and I say this fact not to give us an excuse to go on sinning, but as a reminder of just how loving and gracious our God truly is. Thus, unfortunately, it is according to our sinful human nature that we think we have anything to do with our own salvation. And it might have something to do with the fact that we live in a world where we are taught that nothing is free and that we have to do it ourselves. Anyway, we might best think about it this way, we are conceived and born in sin, thus we are sinful human beings. We might be described as the scum of the earth and yet, it is Jesus who comes down to earth, giving up the glory that was rightful His. Jesus, who is true God, takes on human flesh and blood, even taking our place as the scum of the earth. He suffers and dies and pays the price for our sins. He washes us. He cleanses us. He forgives us. He brings us into His mansion in heaven. He sits us at His royal banqueting table. He puts the fork in our hands and helps us bring the divine food to our mouths. Now, with what arrogance would we sit up and say, “Look what I chose to do for myself.”
As Ezekiel so well reminds us this morning, it is God who is running the show. It is God who is doing the doing. It is God who is giving and we are being given to. It is God who calls us to faith and His usual way of calling us to faith is through means in particular, through the means of Holy Baptism and if not through the means of Holy Baptism, then most certainly through the means of His Holy Word. It is God who searches for us and calls us to faith.
God calls us to faith and He strengthens and keeps us in faith. Again, God strengthens and keeps us in faith through means as well and in particular through the means of our remembering our baptism, through His Word, through confession and absolution and through His Holy Supper. Now, let me stop a moment and comment on this remembering our baptism. Why is remembering our baptism so important? Because we believe that baptism is a means through which our Lord calls us to and gives us faith. It is our remembering our baptism that reminds us that it is God who has given us faith and so we can be sure that what God does is good, is perfect, and is right. Those who would believe that baptism is something we do for God as a sign of obedience can only hope that they got it right, that they did what is right and continue to do what is right. Notice, who is doing what. When baptism is something we do, we can never be sure if it is right, so we may have to do it again, and again. But, when we know that baptism is what God is doing, we know He gets it right and we can rest assured that by simply remembering that we have been baptized, nothing else is necessary.
Of course, we are reminded that at this time we are living this side of heaven and so we are sinner/saints, which means that we continue to have a tendency to stray. We cannot always be the people God would have us to be. We stray, we sin and God comes searching for us. In much the same way as God continually came searching for the children of Israel, calling them back to faith, so our Lord continues to call us back to faith. He continues to forgive us.
Remember, when God promised to send a Savior, His promise was to Adam and Eve, to all people, before there was a Jew or a Gentile. God’s promise has always been to all people. God cares for all His sheep, all that are His by faith, and He does not differentiate for any reason. We call this the order of redemption, that is that in God’s eyes we are all equal, equal sinners and equal saints, because He makes us equal.
God is not partial. God does not show favoritism. God gives to us and to all people the forgiveness which was earned and paid for by Jesus. When Jesus suffered on the cross, His suffering was for all sins, those committed before He was born and those we have yet to commit. Yet, just because all our sins have already been paid for, this does not give us license to sin, simply the confidence that we need not be afraid, because we know we will sin and yet those sins have been paid for and forgiven.
So, again this week, as every week, as always, we see that God is the Prime Mover. It all beings and ends with the Lord. God called us into being, at our conception. God has given us life. God knows that even though we are conceived and born in sin, even though every inclination of our hearts is evil all the time, He loves us and because He created us to love us, He sent Jesus to take care of our sin. God has taken care of our sin. He has called us to faith and forgiveness. He calls us to our vocations and to live lives as priests in the priesthood of all believers.
Thus, we rejoice. God does and gives and we are done to and given to. Actually, if we look at nature, the natural order of the world, we can see very well how this works out. When sheep stray, do they go looking for the shepherd? No, they continue on their path of straying. If you have children or grand children, when they do something wrong, do they come running to you to tell you what they have done, or do they try to hide what they have done and even hide themselves? When adults do something that is wrong or sinful, do we run to confession? When we know in our hearts that what we are doing is wrong and we should not be doing it, do we go asking if it is right or not, or why it is wrong, or would we rather remain in our self imposed ignorance and think that this gives us an excuse? Thanks be to God that He knows us, He knows our hearts and He does everything He can, searching and seeking us out in order to give us faith, forgiveness and life.
The Lord is the Good Shepherd who searches for us, cares for us and provides for us. Our nature is to be unloving to those we believe the Lord does not love. Our nature is to fail to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Our nature is to believe we go searching for the Lord instead of His searching for us. God’s remedy is that the Lord loves us and shows His love for us in creating and redeeming us; the Lord loves us and shows His love for us in providing for us and caring for us; the Lord loves us and shows His love for us in sanctifying us and keeping us in faith. The Lord searches and finds us, giving us life, at conception; faith through Baptism; forgiveness of sins paid for by the blood of His Son; new life, life and salvation as gift, by grace through faith. And He stirs in us our response of faith to say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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