Finding a Merciful Lord

No matter where he looked, or how often he prayed, or how many worship services he attended, the man simply could not find peace. He said that his “conscience could never achieve certainty but was always in doubt and said: “You have not done this correctly. You were not contrite enough. You omitted this in your confession.” The more he tried to please the Lord the more “uncertain, weak, and troubled” he became.  Was there nowhere he could go to find a God who forgave him, who loved him, who would show him mercy? 

Transcript

“For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” (Luke 2:11, 15)

No matter where he looked, or how often he prayed, or how many worship services he attended, the man simply could not find peace. He said that his “conscience could never achieve certainty but was always in doubt and said: “You have not done this correctly. You were not contrite enough. You omitted this in your confession.” The more he tried to please the Lord the more “uncertain, weak, and troubled” he became.  Was there nowhere he could go to find a God who forgave him, who loved him, who would show him mercy? The man cried out: “If I could believe that God was not angry with me, I would stand on my head for joy.” His name was Martin Luther. And despite being a devout Christian monk, he did not know where to find a merciful Lord.

Keeping watch over a flock of sheep outside the Jerusalem suburb of Bethlehem were a bedraggled group of sheepherders: shepherds. Like their ancient ancestors the patriarch Abraham, the Prophet Moses and King David, they were keeping an eye out at night for wolves or other predators who would try and take a sheep for themselves. The sheep were likely not theirs. They belonged to wealthy folks in town who wouldn’t dream of watching sheep themselves. 

Shepherds smelled. The sheep stunk. And besides, shepherds had to become ritually clean before they could come into the presence of God. Who wanted to be a shepherd? You didn’t want them too close to you. They were a bit like our military veterans. We love them, in the abstract. But they make us uncomfortable and we’d rather they didn’t inconvenience us too much or cost us anything. 

No doubt the shepherds had their own folk religion, their own hillside prayers for protection, their own way of following God. But did they expect great things from him, or just punishment? It was a hard life being a shepherd, and it’s hard to think of them as singing and dancing at how wonderful the Lord had been to them. 

Then, one night, they looked up to see a sky “clothed with more colours than the world can contain” in the words of Bruce Cockburn. There immediate reaction was not “finally the Lord is cutting us a break!” Their immediate reaction was terror. Their immediate thought was likely, “the hosts of God have shown up, and we are toast.” 

Then the angel spoke. “Do not be afraid! For I bring you good news of great joy.” And then the angel told them what old Martin Luther so wanted to know himself. He told them where to find a merciful Lord. “You will find him in the city of David, wrapped in rags, laying in straw.” The angel didn’t verbally spank them for not going to synagogue enough, for not paying attention to their ritual cleanliness. The angel didn’t show up and go, “Wow, thou really stinketh!” He said, “I’ve got great news. Your savior is born. He likes sheep and mangers. Go find him in Bethlehem.”

They hear the directions. And they go. 

What if they hadn’t? That’s a possibility, right? Zechariah didn’t believe Gabriel when he told him about the Lord’s mercy to him and Elizabeth – and indeed the whole nation. Herod didn’t believe the magi when they told him the King of the Jews had been born. Not going to Bethlehem would have been the easy choice for these bedraggled sheepherders. They would have looked at each other and said, “SOMEONE should go over to Bethlehem and see this thing which the Lord has made known.” 

But they heard the Lord’s promise, and they went. They went to Bethlehem to see a God, not of judgment, but of forgiveness and mercy. A savior born to them.
Do you know where to find a merciful Lord? Or are you, like Luther, wondering if the Lord will forever hold your sins against you? Wondering if your conscience can ever be made clear? Do you like so many try and find God in the places where you hope he might be, or do you go to the places where he has said to find him? Do you search your horoscope for some word about the future? Do you search deep inside yourself for some profound truth about your life, some meaning to your existence? Do you try and find him in nature, in food and drink, in friends only – like Luther – to be disappointed and disillusioned by all of them?

Luther rejoiced when he finally knew where to find a merciful Lord, rather than an ambiguous or absent God of fate and judgement. In fact he wrote “that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” It wasn’t hard to find. Because the baby laid in the manger speaks to us through the evangelists and apostles. He comes to us whenever we hear his Word: 

John 10:10–15 (ESV): 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

He washes us clean in the water of Baptism. He feeds us on his own body and blood. Each and every Sunday he speaks to you, through me, by his command, that your sins have been forgiven. Whatever God or gods you might run into out there, here you will only find the Lord who was announced by the angels to the shepherds, and laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Here you will only find forgiveness. And life. And freedom from Satan. Here you will find only a good shepherd, a merciful Lord. 

Let us then go to our Bethlehems to see this thing which the Lord has made know to us. That we have a saviour born to us who is Christ, the Lord.
Amen.