Sermon for The Third Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2026.
There is absolutely no other way to live forever, no other way to be united with God the Father, to escape death and enter, bodily, into the perfection of the new heavens and the new earth to come, apart from faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We must believe in Him. Take a look at our 1 Peter pericope, chapter 2, verses 24-25: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Jesus Christ was killed upon the Roman Cross to heal you. He was flogged before He was hung on that tree to bind up your wounds, to heal you of what kills man: sin. What does Jesus say in John 14:6? “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” We learn the same thing, that there is only one way to heaven, from Peter in Acts 4:12, when he was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Any notion that there’s an alternate road, a variant path, some other way to get to the new heavens and the new earth, that there can be a second flock of sheep, is sheared off and swept away by today’s Good Shepherd language of our Gospel and Old Testament readings. What did Jesus say in John 10:16? “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” A few verses before that, our Lord told us how He is the shepherd of the one flock. It’s what Peter said in the Epistle reading, John 10:11. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus was sacrificed for us. We stopped our Gospel reading at verse 16, but Jesus repeats His verse 11 proclamation in verse 17. “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.”
And He did take it back up again. The historical record shows this with certainty. We call most of those records Scripture because they are, indeed, inspired by the Holy Spirit, but even extra-biblical records from antiquity acknowledge the resurrection of Christ. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
In today’s Gospel text, Jesus clearly states that He is God. When He says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…” (John 10:14), He’s alluding to what we heard in Ezekiel 34: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God.” Declares Yahweh. (Ezekiel 34:15)
Now, if you listen to American Evangelical voices, and you shouldn’t, you might be tempted to connect Ezekiel’s prophecy to the modern nation of Israel and the war against Iran that’s going on right now. Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and tensions spiked, we’ve seen an uptick in the false teaching that modern Israel is central to reading the end times’ tea leaves. Many American Evangelicals want to justify our attack on Iran with the Bible, as if we’re helping God’s chosen people keep their promised land. They read current events into the Bible. The fancy word for this is eisegesis. It’s a no, no. The idea they present is that we can bomb any nation we want as long as it’s in support of Israel, after all, Ezekiel 34:13 says, “And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land.”
This prophecy, they say, was fulfilled in 1948 when the modern nation of Israel was formed. But that’s not true. This prophecy was fulfilled 538 years before the incarnation of Christ. 538 BC is when God brought His dispersed people back into the land He promised them under the leadership of Nehemiah. That’s the immediate fulfillment of the prophecy. And as we see with all Old Testament prophecies about Israel, they find their greater/ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. He is at the center of all Scripture. Not Bibi Netanyahu’s Christ-denying Jews. The Old Testament prophecies have nothing to do with unbelieving Jews today. They are the same as any other race of people who also deny Jesus.
Christian, don’t get sucked into the Biblically ignorant teachings of dispensationalists. They deny so many true teachings. The Old Covenant was concluded when the New One was established, the one we participate in every time we receive His Holy Supper: the New Testament of the cross of Christ. Remember the words of institution? What does Jesus say? “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” He doesn’t say, “This cup is the second covenant, an alternative covenant.” He doesn’t say belief in Me is one of two ways to be saved, the one for all of you who aren’t Jews, who don’t have a special place in God’s heart. No! The disciples were Jews, ethnically. Jesus tells them that He has fulfilled the Old Testament; it’s wrapped up. The New Testament has arrived. Jesus has come! Belief in the revealed Son of God is the only way to the Father. No longer are we to believe in the promise of a messiah, but to believe in the messiah who has come!
This simple, yet profound truth is vital to inheriting the Kingdom of God. Only by Christ’s wounds have you been healed. There is one flock, one shepherd—Jesus Christ, our one Lord. As His apostle puts it in Galatians 3:23-29, “…before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Christian, there is absolutely no other way to live forever, no other way to be united with God the Father, to escape death and enter, bodily, into the perfection of the new heavens and the new earth that are to come. Faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is the only way. Praise be to God!
Our Good Shepherd has saved you from your sins. Jesus has brought you into the one and only way of salvation. “…you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:25) Jesus laid down His life for you, that He might take it back up again, for you.
There is nothing left to be done, for Jesus has completed all that is necessary. He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Amen!
Rev. Tyrel Bramwell 
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