FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY B

[cappie]

The word “shepherd” comes through strongly this morning. We hear the word a total of five times in the Gospel, and it’s a familiar image – Jesus as a shepherd is frequently depicted in scripture and art. Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd is the most familiar psalm,  

Most of us don’t regularly interact with sheep – certainly not as often as those who lived in Jesus’ time. When we think of the image, it’s likely one of a clean Jesus dressed in a white robe, carrying a lamb on his shoulders.  

The reality of sheep of course is quite different. For example – sheep are not easy to train. They are simple, gentle spirits who scare easily.   Their depth perception isn’t very good – so they often have to rely on someone showing them the way through a gate.  

Also, the picture we have in our minds of Jesus as the good shepherd often paints us as being good sheep. When Jesus is depicted carrying a lamb on his shoulders, I think it is likely that the lamb is bleating for dear life even wriggling around, trying to get free. Maybe if we’re honest with ourselves, we might find that closer to our own experiences, too. Maybe you like to believe that when Jesus carries you, you are well-behaved and soft  in reality, though, perhaps all of us bleat and wriggle a whole lot, finding it hard to give up control.

Though we know Jesus is the good shepherd, it can still be hard for us to fully trust him.  

 We lay down our lives when we put someone else’s needs above our own.  We lay down our lives when we say “yes” to service in some way, giving our time to a good cause. We lay down our lives, finally, when we give up control, when we stop wriggling and bleating and, instead, relax, trusting that God is taking us to a good, green pasture, that God is leading us beside still waters.

Laying down our lives is hard because it challenges our sense of ego. It requires us to know our place as the sheep, not the shepherd. Sometimes, when we ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” we put ourselves on par with God – forgetting that God is God and that we are not. We forget that God is good beyond our imagining, kind beyond our understanding, instead making the mistake of demystifying God, when sometimes being in awe of the mysterious Divine keeps us humble in our faith.

When Jesus lays down his life for us, He is full of humble service. The good shepherd doesn’t fight off the attackers; he doesn’t lock the sheep away, so as not to be harmed. The good shepherd travels alongside us, willing to accompany us, to lay down and behave like us, to face death, just so we would know we are not alone. Our shepherd is good, even though we might not be. We are sheep – neither fully good nor fully bad. Perhaps annoying at times, perhaps simple at times. But who we are pales in comparison to who God is.

Jesus is the good shepherd, and we are the sheep. We lay down our lives when we live into that relationship, when we trust that our shepherd sees things we do not, and knows things we do not, and has foresight that we do not. Our invitation this morning is, perhaps, to lay down those burdens we have been carrying, to lay down our lives, to remember that Jesus is our good shepherd, and we are all just sheep.

Through the ministry of the Church, the shepherd still speaks  and forgives sins, and makes His body and blood present, that all may know Him in the breaking of the bread. It is a mission that will continue until all the world is one flock under the one shepherd.

In laying down His life and taking it up again, Jesus made it possible for us to know God as He did—as sons and daughters of the Father who loves us. As we hear in today’s Secon Reading, He calls us His children,  

  This morning, be assured that Jesus is carrying us – carrying you – on his own shoulders. May that knowledge – may that assurance be a blessing.