This is the 4th Sunday of the Easter Season is called Good Shepherd Sunday. It is fairly obvious that the reason for this refers to our readings today which recall that great image to our minds. It is an image that appears frequently throughout the Bible – beginning with Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David in the Old Testament and references by Jesus Himself.
Christ – the Good Shepherd. Christ – who represents God’s love in action, reaching out to us, caring for us, leading us (when we will co-operate) and caring for us even when we turn our spiritual backs on Him. Truly, the image of the Good Shepherd is essential yo our Easter faith.
To see our lives in their reality and to share our insights with others is to make the Easter faith the kind of force which Jesus intends His good news to have. Just as a stone dropped in a body of water sends ripples in an ever-widening circle, so we, on Good Shepherd Sunday, pray and give in order that our faith and confidence may reach the hearts and souls of others.
The keynote of the Gospel is the gift of freedom to the men and women in whose hearts the crucified Christ – no, Risen Christ – becomes a decisive factor. This is the meaning of the promise of the promise of new life – the freedom that comes through the Easter message. The Christian faith is not about rigidity or oppression, but the freedom to be the people God intended us to be.
God – in the tradition of the Good Shepherd – lets us wander away, hoping despair will turn us around. But God never gives up! He hems us in. He foils our best-laid plans. He frustrates our hopes. He waits until we know that nothing will ease our pain, nothing will make life worth living, except God’s presence in our lives. And that’s the best news – when we turn to Him, He is there to greet and welcome us. Truth is – He’s been there all along! God is never surprised by anything to do. But what He sees only draws out His love for each of us. There is no more profound lesson from the Good Shepherd than this – God is the one thing we need.
In the end, the Easter message is about our quality of life. It is quality of life that Jesus was born to bring to us. It is the quality of life that He taught and lived during His earthly ministry. It is quality of life that He rose from the grave to make available to all “sorts and conditions” of people. Jesus set Himself between evil and doom and came away victorious.
Like the Good Shepherd, He had intimate knowledge of His flock – you and me – because He lived among them. He lives as one who served. No one was too high or too low to escape the touch of the Master’s hand. He knows our confusion, our fears, our loneliness because He has gone before us.
Even in all of this, God does not say we will be happy. God does not say life will be easy. God does not say life will be fair. God does not say that we will never see the “dark night of the soul.” What the Easter message does say is that we will live through it and we will not be alone in our struggles. In and through the Resurrection, our faith promises that there will always be hope.
It is this hope that we offer to a confused and seeking world. Good Shepherd Sunday lets us see that we must not only follow the Good Shepherd, but we must become Good Shepherds ourselves. In the parable in today’s reading (John 10:11-18), the “flock” is the Church – that’s each of us. And we are taken back to our Baptismal Promises when we are reminded that there is “one flock; one Shepherd.” Even though we are individuals and many members, we are members one of another in and through the fellowship of the Church.
We watch the Easter season pass and become aware of how easy it is to let is slip away. And we need to ask ourselves what it means to be “Easter People.” How do we take the image of the Good Shepherd and put it alongside the Easter message? Simply this:
We begin to say and to live “the Lord is my shepherd. I’m part of the flock, but I’m still one of a kind and I’m supposed to live every day aware of the awesome, amazing, life-giving power of the Resurrection.” I believe that living Easter every day is our mission as followers of Jesus Christ. The Church exists only for that purpose – to be the body, hands and feet of Christ right here and right now. The Church comes into being only for the purpose of serving as God’s people in the world as Good Shepherds.
We come to Church to be nourished, sustained, to be encouraged and empowered to “be Christ” to each other and to the world outside the doors of this place. This is the faith that saves.
Source: © The Rev. Peter Groschner, April 18, 2018. John 10:11-18. Reprinted with permission from the author.