Pastor Christa von Zychlin

Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Hartland, WI  53029

5^th Sunday of Easter + Confirmation Sunday

May 2, 2004

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Grace & peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this 4^th Sun/Sat of Easter, and this Confirmation weekend where the 5 young people you just saw will be standing up before God’s altar, saying:

YES Jesus Christ is the Truth,

YES Jesus Christ died for my sins

YES I turn to to Christ as my Lord and Savior

To these 5 teenagers, very personally, but also to each one of us here this morning, Jesus speaks the words of this days’ Gospel:  “My sheep know my voice, and I know them… and No one can snatch them out of my hand.”

Knowing Jesus’ voice, though, means we need to put ourselves in places where we can HEAR Jesus’ voice.  Where we can Hear God’s Word for our lives.

Just this past week, your own Pastor Wayne was looking through the paper and his heart was strangely warmed to come
across a study that said women use more words than men
in a given day.

Excited to prove to his wife (me) that he has been right
all along when he accuses me (if you can imagine this)  of talking too much, he showed me this little article:
He read "On the average Men use about 15,000 words per day, while
women use 30,000. What do you think of that?"

Well I  thought about it for at least a second and then said
”well… that’s because we women have to repeat
everything we say."

And then my beloved husband, who’d buried his nose back in the newspaper, said, "Were you talking to me?”

Contrast that with Jesus who says, “My sheep know my voice, and I know them.  And they follow me.” 

Unlike certain family members with other near and dear family members, Jesus’ sheep keep putting themselves in places where they are near and can hear Jesus’ words. 

We don’t have a lot of experience with sheep in our household, but we do share our home with one of God’s creatures, a dog named Maggie.  You know the old saying about how dogs are very close to God, because “dog” is “god” spelled backwards, kinda hokey, but hey, there’s something to that, as our whole family marvels at the way our dog constantly wants to be where we are.  If we’re inside, she wants to be inside, if we’re outside, she wants to be outside, if the kids are on the floor watching TV, she wants to be on the floor, if the boys start wrestling, she jumps right in and wants to wrestle along with them.  She always wants to be part of the pack, and be where the action is.                 

 I think that’s how Jesus’ sheep are:  They want to follow him, and be near him so they can be part of his pack,  his flock, the Church with a large “C”, the baptized who claim his name.

Today at the 10:30 service this church is going to give each of the confirmands a little gift:  closest thing to lambs I could find…little white  puppy dogs… I hope they will remember, how God’s creatures listen for his voice. And want to be with Him.  And maybe they’ll remember how there’s one poet who calls Jesus not the Good Shepherd, but the Hound of Heaven, who will not, will not be kept from doggedly following after his beloved.

Back in the year 1988, five families brought their children forward to the baptismal font.  And they were beautiful children, cuter than puppies, each one I’m sure.  I know that our own son, Soren on Easter Sunday 1988 was a fine speciman of a baby, perfectly cute, perfectly chubby perfectly bald, and he had just begun sleeping through the night, exactly on schedule 6 weeks after his birth.  So on Easter Sunday for Soren, May 8^th for Lindsey, May 15^th for Elizabeth, July 10^th for Crystal, and last by no means least, November 28^th for Matthew, each beautiful beloved little baby was surrounded by family and the church with a little c, the local church building & community they happened to be baptized at,  and they were washed into Christ’s own family, the Church with a big C. which includes all the baptized of all kinds of Christian churches everywhere.

We’ve seen the pictures, and we know these guys were cute, innocent, …and didn’t we each have our hopes and dreams for them.

And now it’s about 16 years later,  it’s the year 2004, and these same families surround these guys.  Only it’s not exactly the same families, is it?  Just think of the changes in your own family, each of you,  since 1988.  What did your family look like back then?  Some of you younger ones weren’t even around, were you?  There’ve been some deaths, haven’t there?  In Soren’s few baptismal pictures it’s his grandpas who are holding him, and they’ve both passed on.    There’ve been some divorces, and family ruptures, haven’t there, so the same people aren’t standing side by side the way they were, back then.  There’ve been, more happily, some births, siblings and little cousins, and some marriages, new aunts and uncles welcomed into your families… all of your families. We’ve all changed a lot since 1988! And the church buildings with a small c that you were baptized in, none of you were baptized here in this building at this font.

And boy have these kids changed. Fifteen and sixteen year olds!  They’ve gotten a lot more ornery since they were nuzzling infants at the font.  They’ve sprouted a few pimples, they have expanded their vocabulary, sometimes in unhappy ways, they’ve lost that baby innocence, sometimes made their earthly parents really really mad! They’ve gotten smart, they now know more than their parents on some subjects, and they’ve each got moments (Moments at least!) where they blow us away, their parents, their mentors, their family, their Sunday school teachers, their church, moments at least where they blow us away with their insight, their compassion, their honesty, their questions, their investigations… their search for the truth: Who is Jesus?  Can I trust myself to Him, to his voice and to his word?

The families have changed, the church buildings have changed, the kids have sure changed.  But the Church with a big “C” is the same.  All God’s baptized, including those who have passed on.  And most importantly, God is the same.

And God is not done with these kids (or any of us)   yet. We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again, confirmation is NOT graduation.  We’ll be asking these confirmation students to keep on putting themselves in a place where they will hear Jesus words.  Come to Church with a big “C” that Church in all places, where God’s pack gets together to hear again Jesus word for our lives, to eat again, the bread and the wine that feeds us.    We need these kids and they need us.

Today is Confirmation Day  and 5 young people will be standing before God’s altar, and  then these kids will receive – for themselves in a new way, for the Church with a big C it’s  the thousands of years old ancient way of prayer and the laying on of hands,

Through the rite of confirmation, these five will receive a gift:  the gift  of grace to know that the same Almighty God who did the unthinkable, allowed his own child to die a horrible & bloody  death, also raised that same son up again, so that each one of these five: Matthew, Soren, Crystal, Lindsey, and Elizabeth, along with each one of us, could become eternal  children of that same Almighty God. 

To these 5 teenagers, very personally, but also to each one of us here this morning, Jesus speaks the eternal words of this days’ Gospel:  “My sheep know my voice, and I know them… and No one can snatch them out of my hand.”  Wow.  What a gift.  What a God.  What a confirmation.  Amen.

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