6-14-2026

“ROYAL AND HOLY PRIESTS”

Text: Matthew 9:35-10:8– Pentecost 3

Sunday June 14th, 2026

Trinity – Creston/Mount Ayr

         Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

         Our text for this Third Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel Lesson from Matthew that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray:  Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to enable us to stay to remain where you promise to be in your baptism, unchanging word, and supper.  Remaining in your gifts we are prepared to share your love with patience and compassion.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

As I began to study the texts and prepare for today’s service, right there near the beginning of today’s Gospel is Jesus asking us to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 

I thought to myself, “What better way to describe each of us as a laborer in God’s harvest?”  How thoughtful of the Holy Spirit to guide me even when I didn’t know it.

So, Jesus asks us to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest – pastors, missionaries, teachers, all of us who confess the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom to the people of this world.

Today’s Gospel also tells us why the world needs laborers who confess their faith.  Today’s Gospel says, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” 

Sheep cannot long survive without the care of a shepherd.  Sheep without a shepherd are some the most helpless creatures on earth.  They can easily fall sick.  They can easily become injured.  They are easy prey for predators.

Furthermore, their lives have no meaning – no goal – no purpose.  They are born.  They eat.  They sleep.  They pass their gene pool on to the next generation and then they die. 

What more is the purpose of any creature – what more is the purpose of even the human being IF we have no shepherd?  What a sad life we have IF this world is all there is and there is nothing more.

Most human beings know better.  We are born with a desire for the spiritual – or at least with a desire for our lives to have meaning.  Look at all the art that searches for a deeper meaning to life – paintings – sculptures – songs – books – movies – and so forth. 

There are religions all over the world that offer to help us learn what there is beyond this world.  Every human being knows that something is missing and they go and search to find it.

There are several possible outcomes of this search.  Some search for a while and then give up and decide to get on with their lives as best they can; they take up diversionary activities to take their mind off of their dissatisfaction. 

Others incorrectly believe that they have actually found the answer; they too take up some sort of activity to help them fulfill the the requirements of that answer.  Finally, the truly honest seeker continues to search indefinitely – finding nothing that satisfies the need for meaning.

In the end, all three of these searches lead to intense activity that accomplishes nothing.  We are like little pet rodents running on wheels – expending a lot of energy, but not going anywhere. 

Or as Lewis Carroll had the Queen say to Alice, “It takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” 

No merely human search can ever find the true meaning of life.  The only thing that a mere human search can find is eternal separation from God.

That is what Jesus saw when He looked out at the crowd.  People endlessly searching for something they can never find.  That is the reason his heart went out to them with such deep compassion. 

He saw the meaningless struggle of their struggle for meaning.

Jesus knows the meaning of life.  He was there when God breathed the breath of life into Adam.  As the Word who was with God and is God – as the Word through whom God the Father created all things, He knew of the perfect, immortal relationship that God had with man at the beginning. 

He knew of the intimate love that God had for man in Eden and the perfect relationship that came from that love.

Jesus also knew that Adam and Eve destroyed that relationship with their sin.  They took their eyes off their relationship with God and focused on their own selfish desires.  They could never again focus on God with their own resources.

Jesus knew that no human being, no matter how diligent, could ever find a way to heal that relationship.  And even if a human did find a way, no mere human had the resources to follow that way. 

Mere human beings can only find ways to increase their distance from God’s love.

That is the reason that Jesus stepped forward from His heavenly throne.  That is the reason that He took humanity onto Himself.  He became something infinitely greater than a mere human being.  He became the God-man Christ Jesus.

He became true man to take our place under God’s law and fulfill it perfectly.  He also took our place as the target of God’s justice against our sin with His suffering and death on the cross. 

As the Son of God, the ransom of His life, suffering, and death was enough to redeem the whole world from sin.  As true God, He defeated sin, death and the power of the devil.

With His resurrection on the third day, He proclaimed the restoration of our relationship with God.  He proclaimed His victory and He validated everything that He taught during his ministry. 

His resurrection provides the assurance that the true meaning of life is ours once again.  His resurrection promises that we too will one day rise from death to live with Him forever.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus looked at the crowds around Him and He also looked beyond them to the hungry souls of all time.  He saw a vast harvest of souls ready for redemption. 

Even as He instructed His disciples to pray for laborers to work in that harvest, He prepared His disciples to carry on that labor.  He called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.

Jesus passed His mission on to the Twelve Disciples.  He taught them about the true meaning of life – Who He truly was and how He would save the world from sin.  Then He prepared them to carry this teaching to others.  He gave them the privilege of working in His harvest. 

The harvest continues to this day and God has had His laborers in every generation.  He has thrown them into His harvest and passed the Good News of Jesus Christ to generation after generation.

When I was young and nearly everyone went to a church of some sort, I tended to think of the harvest as something that people did in far away lands like China, Africa, the Philippines, and many other places. 

How marvelous it is that the Church of God continues to spread and grow in those far away lands, but there is also a harvest right here.

Jesus sent out the twelve instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 

Jesus did not send these twelve to some far away land on that day.  He sent them to their neighbors, the lost sheep of Israel – the sheep without a shepherd.  Yes, the day would come when Jesus would say, [Matthew 28:19] “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” and God calls some to work in nations that are far away. 

He also calls some to labor in the harvest nearby.  He even calls some, like each of us in the various vocations that we serve to labor in the harvest.

Let us give thanks this day for the laborers that the Lord of the Harvest has sent into His harvest and let us continue to pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” 

Then even more people can hear the good news that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, that He redeemed us from sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, and that we shall be with Him forever even as He has risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.  Amen

Now may the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior...Amen.