“The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” Jesus used this phrase many times in His teaching and preaching, with the images of seeds and growth as one of His common metaphors. From the seemingly miraculous action of a tiny seed with tremendous growth, to what the Lord speaks in a beautiful promise of a divine planting and producing He Himself will provide for His people, we are today drawn to the Scriptures, the faith He has planted and grown in us through His Spirit, and the ultimate fulfillment found in Jesus Christ alone. May God grant seed, nurture, growth, and good fruit to each of us as we worship Him today.

The Festival of the Holy Trinity gives us an opportunity to stretch our faith. At its center is a careful delineation of doctrine. At the heart of the liturgy is the Athanasian Creed, which is challenging not only for its length but for its content as well. As he writes to Titus, Paul has special words of encouragement, writing, “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Through the Lessons we hear and the Creed we speak, we faithfully join in expressing the doctrine that is our heritage.

In the Nicene Creed we confess, “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.” This Third Person of the Trinity whom we celebrate today “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” With the Father and the Son He is both worshiped and glorified. This is God who has spoken by His prophets as today through Ezekiel He declares, “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:13–14).

This He has done in the hearts of everyone who has heard His saving Word, from Adam and Eve to you. To emphasize the universality of God’s desire, today we recall that post-resurrection Day of Pentecost, when no barriers of language could hinder God’s work.

Jesus tells us that this Spirit He sends is from the Father. The Spirit comes to witness about Jesus and His work of salvation for all. That witness consists of both the truth about sin and about the Savior, Law and Gospel, to bring us to repentance and enliven our faith repeatedly, day by day as we live in His presence and the grace of God.

This Sunday in the Church Year is often called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The appointed Psalm for the day is Psalm 23, which is among the most well-known psalms. The Gospel from John 10 records Jesus revealing Himself as the Good Shepherd. While fewer and fewer people are familiar with what it is like to take care of sheep, this metaphor of God’s protection and provision has become a great source of comfort and hope. God grant that you find such blessed comfort as you dwell securely here in the house of the Lord.

READINGS

We may have a tendency to think of repentance as a painful thing, as something to dread and avoid at all costs. After all, repentance means admitting we were wrong. It may be embarrassment, guilt, shame, or pride that makes repentance difficult. Yet you have probably experienced the joy of repentance as well, the relief of confessing your sins, the wonder of grace that flows to us in forgiveness. You may be holding on to a dark secret or a stubborn grudge. Bring your heavy burdens to the Lord today. He has forgiven you and has called you His beloved child.

Thomas is seldom remembered for anything other than his doubt. In our quest to find relatable biblical characters, we often leave Thomas as a man who needed evidence—proof. We may miss his bold confession: “My Lord and my God!” While the other ten disciples had seen Jesus eight days earlier, none of them confessed as Thomas did. And none of them believed until Jesus appeared to them and spoke His Word to them. Focus today not on Thomas’s doubt but rather on his confession of faith.

Christ is risen! It’s hard to imagine someone who was killed on Friday rising to live again on Sunday. It has happened only once and is what we celebrate today: Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus didn’t keep His resurrection a secret. He appeared to many people. He appeared to Mary, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to Peter and the apostles, to His brother James, to more than five hundred people, and lastly to the apostle Paul. We believe Jesus rose from the dead because He said He would, because the Scriptures said He would, and because He appeared to many. Today we celebrate Jesus resurrection, His appearance.

Palms and passion hardly seem to fit together but in Jesus they do. The palms welcomed Jesus to the triumph of suffering that paid the full price of our sin, and the hosannas cried out to Him who exchanged His life for death that we might live. There are no palms and hosannas that do not end in the cross, and there is no passion that does not lead us to faith and to rejoice in what His suffering accomplished. Our Lord came to the cross not as an unwilling victim but as the One who alone surrendered His life into death. We do not come to the Lord under coercion or as people compelled but at the bidding of the Gospel and by the power of the Holy Spirit! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

As we draw closer to Holy Week, we may find ourselves dumbfounded by how dense the disciples seem to be! Again and again, they don’t understand just exactly who Jesus is or why He has come. As they travel up to Jerusalem, Jesus can’t be much more explicit about His mission than He is in today’s Gospel. He says, “The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise” (Mark 10:33b–34). Despite these specifics provided by Jesus, we see in the days to come that the disciples still don’t get it! But before we are too hard on these followers of Jesus, we examine ourselves and see that we don’t always take Jesus’ words and promises to heart in our own lives. Thanks be to God that Jesus still came, died, and rose for dense disciples like us!