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Christ is risen. He has risen indeed, alleluia.
Dear Carrie, Sarah, William, dear brother pastors, especially Circuit Visitor Brinstead, dear family and friends of the pastor-elect, Ross Davis, dear saints of God of St. Paul Lutheran Church, dear friends of Jesus, and dear brother Ross, grace to you, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ross, I am proud of you for your work, for your study, for your care for the Lord and his word and his people, for your long-suffering, enduring one or maybe two vicar jokes, for your patience with me, for your commitment to pray for the Lord’s people, to listen to the Lord’s people, to listen to the word of God, to bring the two together in your care for the Lord’s people. I’m proud of you.
And one of the things that I’m most proud of today is that I’ll call you a brother in the office and a coworker in Christ’s vineyard. But I have news for you. This pulpit is only big enough for one good pastor, and that is not you, and that is not Pastor LeBlanc, and that is certainly not me. Jesus says to you and to me and to all of us today, he says, “I am the Good Shepherd,” and that word shepherd is the word pastor.
And that is important for all of us to know, that there is in all the history of the world—from Adam until the last day—there is only one good pastor, and his name is Jesus. And this is his pulpit, and this is his table, and this is his word, and this is his house, and these are his people, and these are his servants for your good. I want to think about that today, that Jesus is the good pastor, and maybe make five small points about it. The first is this, and I hope this is comforting. Well, five— we’ll see if there are more when we get to the end; I’m gonna see how you’re looking. We’ll start with five.
The first is that there’s some comfort in this humility of knowing that you are not the good pastor. In fact, I think the Lord has arranged this, especially dear brothers in Christ, I think the Lord has arranged his office in such a way that nobody can be good at it. To be good at studying these old, dusty theological books and also to be up on the most current news. To be good at sitting with people and talking one-on-one and hearing their stories and then to be good at standing in front of crowds and talking to them. To be good at sitting with committees and thinking about what’s going to be happening in the future, and then to be sitting with the homebound and hearing stories of the past.
To be planning and administrating and thinking about all of these things, and then to make sure that you have time to sit and study and pray. There might be a few things that a few pastors are good at, but I promise you that there is not a single pastor who is good at all of it. And so the Lord takes that idea away from us by reminding us that the ministry is his ministry, that the church is his church, and that the people are his people.
That’s the word that the Lord uses all the time when he describes the church. He puts that little word in front of it, “my.” I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it. I will care for my people. I call my sheep by name, and they hear me and they follow me. The church belongs to Jesus and the ministry belongs to his. Remember how Paul preached it like this. When he gathered up the—I think it’s an ordination sermon. When he gathered up all the seminarians for their ordination in Miletus in Acts chapter 20, and he said, “Shepherd the flock of God which he purchased with his own blood.”
So we look at the task with awe and with wonder. You say, “Lord, how could I possibly do it? How could I possibly be worthy of such a high and holy calling?” The Lord Jesus says, “First, you can’t.” But then he says—and this is the second point—”I’m giving it to you as a gift.” Paul writes to Timothy, “He who desires the office of overseer desires a beautiful thing.” This office is, in fact, a gift to stand in front of the Lord’s people and to have the audacity to open the Bible and to open your mouth and to put before them his holy and precious word. You would never, ever dare to do something so bold unless the Lord has called you into the office, and that’s what he’s doing today, calling you into the office.
The one who loves you, the one who died for you, the one who forgives you all of your sins, the one who’s opened eternal life to you, the one who doesn’t look at you with anger or disappointment or frustration, but the one who smiles on you. Jesus, who loves you, who’s given himself to you, also who’s given you even more than you could ask for or imagine. He’s given you Carrie as your wife and Sarah and William as your children and your family and everything else. Now he gives as a gift this to you, the office of holy ministry. He puts his words in your mouth.
And dear saints, let us not miss this, too. That the Lord gives the office of holy ministry, he gives pastors to the church because he loves you. He wants you to know something that you could never know unless it was preached to you with the authority of the word and the Spirit, and that thing is this: that God is not mad at you. That God is not holding your sins against you. That God is not frustrated with you, but that he loves you. That all of your sins are forgiven. That the gates of heaven are thrown open by his mercy in Christ. And so the Lord gives you the gift of the office, Ross, because he loves you. And he gives you to this congregation because he loves them, more than you could ask for or imagine. Because the Lord wants to put into your ears and into your hearts every single day nothing but the promise of the full forgiveness of all of your sins and each of your sins and every one of your sins and even that sin that it is forgiven.
Jesus is the good pastor, and he is the one who sends mediocre pastors to shepherd his flock. Now here’s the third point: the devil hates this. The devil comes to steal and kill and destroy. The devil—Jesus describes the devil like a bird who’s trying to pluck up the seed of the word before it ever gets planted in the ear and the heart. The devil hates this day, Ross. He hates you, and he hates that stole that’s gonna be put on you, and he hates this pulpit, and he hates the word that you’re going to preach, and the forgiveness that you’re gonna pronounce, and the body and blood that you’re gonna consecrate and give to the Lord’s people, and the souls that you’re gonna comfort, and the consciences that you’re gonna clean. The devil hates all of it, and he has mustered all of his energy, all of his thought, all of his malice to prevent any of these good, blessed things from Jesus from happening.
I remember when we went to the seminary, I told Carrie, “I never knew what the devil was like or what it was like to be attacked by the devil until I arrived here at the seminary.” And then a few years later, when we were in the parish, I said, “Wait a minute, let me redact that statement. I never knew what it was like to be attacked by the devil until I was ordained and placed into the holy office.”
Remember how Luther says that baptism makes a target on our hearts and our heads for the devil. So does ordination. It makes you a target of the devil’s malice. But this is the fourth thing, that God does not leave you to fight this battle on your own. And that is really the work that we’re all gathered here for today. It’s why the pastors have come. It’s why we’ve grabbed our red stoles and decked out the church in red, because in a few minutes we’re going to lay hands on your head and pray that the Holy Spirit would come upon you, because the Lord has promised that the Spirit will always accompany the Word.
Now this is an amazing thing for all of us in all of our vocations, that God gives to us the Holy Spirit for strength to do well what he has called us to do. We have to remember this because you remember this story about the family that was sitting in the back during the ordination? And the candidate stood up, and the pastor put his hands—the bishop put his hands on the one to be ordained and prayed that God would send the Holy Spirit. And the boy leaned over to his dad and said, “I think we should have got a pastor who had the Holy Spirit already.”
“Hey, he’s just now getting the Spirit?” No, God the Holy Spirit dwells with all of us through our baptism. The water and the Spirit, that is how we are born again. No one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit dwells in all of the Lord’s people, but the Holy Spirit comes upon us particularly and especially for the gifts that he calls us to give us, the gifts that we need for the callings that he gives. When the Lord calls, he also provides his Spirit.
And especially when he calls a man into the office of the Word, the Holy Spirit comes to give you strength—strength to confess, strength to preach, strength to pray, strength to hold your tongue when it’s time to be patient, strength to speak when you would otherwise be afraid to speak, strength to stand before the Lord’s people and to hold up the mirror of God’s law so that they would see—and this is one of the difficulties of preaching—because you know that you are the greatest of all sinners; I know it too. And how dare I stand and preach the law to the Lord’s people? Who am I, a hypocrite, to say that God requires this kind of righteousness?
But the Holy Spirit gives you the strength not only to look in the mirror of the law but to show the mirror of the law to the Lord’s people so that they can see their own desperate need for Christ the Savior, their own rebellion against God and his word, and then the Holy Spirit opens your mouth to utter words that would never be uttered unless he gave the strength to do it—that those sins are forgiven, that the law has been covered by the blood of Christ, that God does not hold us to be guilty.
And this is the fifth point: that in this office, because it belongs to Jesus and because he’s given it to you, you can be unafraid. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be afraid of, for you to live is Christ, for you to die is gain, and now you are his man, with his word, the double-edged sword of law and gospel, to bring the light and the glory of his kindness before the world. And that will be indicated in a few minutes when you are vested with a stole. This is a yoke and a burden, but because it comes from Jesus, it is a light yoke and an easy burden. It’s one of comfort.
I was there, Ross, when you were retiring from the military. In fact, I was there the day you became a colonel and you were promoted and you were given stripes that day. I was there when you were given the office of Admiral of the Texas Navy. That was pretty good, too. It’s a great privilege of mine to be here on this day when you are given the office of the Holy Ministry, and you are now vested with a stole, but I tell you there will be a day coming when you—and this is true for all of us—there’s a day coming when you’ll stand before the Lord, and you will take off your stole and you’ll put it to the side. And you will take every sermon that you’ve written, and you will put it away. Every Bible study that you’ve taught, all the stripes and honors that you were given in all of your careers, all the degrees that you’ve earned, you will put those aside. That’s the judgment day.
And all these works which God has given, they’re great. But on that last day, you will stand before the Lord not with that red stole in your hand, not with any of your works in your hand. You’ll stand before the Lord with a couple drops of water and a couple drops of blood. Because even though you will be today a pastor, you are first and foremost a Christian. You are baptized. You are covered with the blood of Jesus. And that is your claim on him and his claim on you. Your sins are forgiven. The Lord Jesus loves you. Dear Saints, the Lord Jesus loves you.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Amen.