Your Shepherd-King Reigns!

Last Sunday of End Time, Christ the King, 11/26/17
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 23-24


Your Shepherd-King Reigns!
I. He gathers his flock.
II. He tends his flock.


There are many things you can learn from a study of history and one of them certainly is this: in the absence of good leadership, people suffer. It’s been proven time and time again. We see it happening in our own world before our very eyes. Sometimes we even see it in our own leaders. Where good leadership is absent, people suffer.

And that truth is crystal clear among God’s people—the Children of Israel—in the Old Testament. When the people had a godly and pious king, such as King David, the people flourished. But, unfortunately, all too often their kings weren’t committed to the Lord and the people suffered. Eventually, the situation became so deplorable that God used other nations to remove Israel’s kings from the throne of his people for good.

The people to whom God’s prophet, Ezekiel, wrote these words of our text, didn’t have one of their own people ruling over them. In the previous century of Israel’s history there were precious few “good” rulers of God’s people. Most of Israel’s kings refused to listen to the word of the Lord and even promoted the practice of wicked idolatry. So the Lord removed them. And now a few thousand of his people lived in exile in Babylon.

Spiritually speaking, it seemed as if God’s people were leader-less, as if they had no one looking out for their best interests and the best interests of God’s kingdom. But nothing could have been further from the truth. The Lord of heaven and earth was still in control. And although it doesn’t always seem like it today—in fact there may be times when we are convinced that evil rules the day—the Lord is always in control. Our God rules!

But he doesn’t do so as some power-drunk despot. No, he always and only has our best interests in mind. How’s that for a change of pace—a leader who actually looks out for those he’s leading! In fact, our God impresses on us this morning that his main concern is to care for us, as a shepherd cares for his sheep.

From a human standpoint, the outlook for God’s people during Ezekiel’s days on earth couldn’t have looked more desperate. That was true also as Jesus stood before Pilate on trial for claiming to be a king. To Pilate and the blood-thirsty crowd of Jews in the early morning hours of Good Friday, Jesus was a pathetic figure to say the least and the furthest thing from what the people were looking for in a king. But those impressions did nothing to diminish the truth—that Jesus was standing there as the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and the world’s only eternal King.

On this closing Sunday of the church year, we celebrate the truth that Jesus is our King. God leads us to see through these words of Ezekiel just how unique he is among kings. He’s your Shepherd-King and your Shepherd-King reigns! May that eternal truth bring us God’s comfort and strength as we worship him this morning.

Part I.

While it’s true that modern means of communication make it possible to influence and lead diverse people who are living scattered around the globe, that’s not the ideal. The ideal for a leader is to have a localized group of people—the larger the better—who recognize their leader and present a force to be reckoned with.

That ideal wasn’t even in the picture for the people to whom Ezekiel wrote these words. They were living under a foreign king and they were powerless to enact any sort of change in their lives. They had no voice to express the need for change in their lives and no platform from which to share their thoughts. They had been marginalized and the plan was to absorb them into the Babylonian culture. As a nation, the Jews were on life-support.

But none of those impediments mattered to the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth. He announced through Ezekiel, “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land.” First, he promised to gather them. That must have seemed like a pipe-dream to the Jews who first read these words. First, the world’s most powerful nation at that time—the Babylonians—stood firm against such a dream. Second, the Jews at this time had no one to lead them. It seemed as if suffering in exile was their lot in life. But here the Lord promised to gather them.

Even more so, he promised to feed them. “I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.” These words remind us of Psalm 23, don’t they? Surely the Jews who read them had the same recollection. It must have sounded wonderful, almost too good to be true.

How would this happen and who would do it? Listen to the Lord’s promise, “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken.” Ezekiel lived about 600 BC. David had died about 900 BC. Did the eternal God have his dates mixed up? Was he trying to confuse or dupe the people? Did he plan on raising David from the dead? None of the above. He was referring to King David’s greatest descendant, Jesus Christ. Jesus would gather and feed his sheep.

How? He redeemed all people with his sacrifice on the cross and he brings people into his kingdom through faith in him. As he declared before Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His kingdom is a spiritual, eternal kingdom. He has gathered us into the holy Christian church and he feeds us through his gospel in word and sacrament.

In spite of what our world thinks about Christ and in spite of the forces of evil in our world, your Shepherd-King reigns. He gathers his flock.

Do you realize what that truth means for you? You’ve been gathered into the flock of your Shepherd-King! He has gathered you so that he can feed you. Are you impressed! Maybe not, at least not all the time. How can that be that we—God’s people—aren’t impressed with the truth that he is our Shepherd-King? When we think that life under his care should be more glorious, more fulfilling, more impressive than it is at the moment. In other words, we want to see more glory here on earth than we’re currently experiencing. We’re not asking to be rich and famous; we just want our lives here to be a little more blessed than they currently are. But your Shepherd-King answers those earth-bound desires with this truth: “I have gathered you into my eternal kingdom in which I will bless you eternally. My kingdom is not of this world, remember? So focus on what I have done for you. By faith in me you live with the forgiveness of sins. You are heirs of eternal life. I have destined you for life with me. And nothing can change or destroy those plans because I died for you. I rose for you. I rule over all things for you.” Yes, your Shepherd-King reigns!

Part II.

That truth fills us with comfort and confidence…until evil comes crashing into our lives unexpectedly. Then we wonder what our Shepherd-King is going to do about the injustice, the oppression and the evil that we face every day.

He addressed that very concern with these words through his prophet Ezekiel, “I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.” What problems are assaulting your peace of mind? Heartaches? Depression? Loneliness? The feeling that you don’t measure-up? Your Shepherd-King declares that he’s here to heal your wounds and strengthen you. He does that through the good news that he is your Savior from sin. He has come to make everything right in your life forever. His resurrection guarantees it.

And as your Shepherd-King he will also finally and forever deal with all those who oppose him and his kingdom. None can escape his justice. They wanted life without him and he’ll give it to them...forever. And while we wait for that day to occur, our responsibility is to continue to share his word which condemns sin in the sinner and announces forgiveness to the repentant.

Your Shepherd-King reigns! He tends his flock.

Our mistaken notions about our Shepherd-King’s kingdom, our impatience with evil, and our lack of concern for those still in the darkness of unbelief can combine to fill us with doubts about our Savior and life in his kingdom now. We want it to be different—better—than it is. We want it to be easy, glorious, and outwardly successful and admired. But the reality is that every day is a struggle for us and for God’s church. And at times it gets so difficult that we consider surrendering in the fight. But then along comes your Shepherd-King who assures us that he is still tending his flock. He does so through his word and sacrament, the very means through which he is present here with us today. He comes to us to bind up our wounds and to strengthen us. He will continue to do so until he returns, overthrows everyone and everything that opposes him and ushers us into his kingdom of eternal glory.

Lord Jesus, Shepherd-King, we know that your kingdom is not of this world. We wait eagerly for you to take us out of this world to your eternal kingdom! Amen.