Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Lectionary: 279

 

I am the good shepherd,

and I know mine and mine know me,

just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;

and I will lay down my life for the sheep.

The third Sunday of Easter might be called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” for every years the gospels offer us the metaphor of Jesus as our shepherd. We hear more about the Shepherd on the Mondays and Tuesdays of this third Easter week.

John 10:14-15 describe the intense, personal bonds between the sheep and their shepherd, and between the Father and the Son. They know one another. This knowledge is unto death. As Jesus says, “I will lay down my life for the sheep.”

Parents, and perhaps most adults, are familiar with this impulse. Mothers and fathers of small children can easily imagine taking great risk to save the lives of their children. Adults who have no children have also been known to die in the attempt to save a child. If it’s not exactly instinct, we share that feeling for children.

This gospel tells us that Grace – that is, the Holy Spirit – directs and governs that impulse in the life of Christians. As the Father and the Son are bonded by the Holy Spirit, so are we bonded to Jesus and to one another.

If I cannot see myself jumping in front of a train to save the life of a fellow Christian, I should be at least willing to serve others. The Spirit urges often me to set aside resentments, hesitations, and provisos and Just Do It!

Cloistered monks and nuns tell us of the daily challenge of kindness. Vowed to live the rest of their lives within a small world of home and garden, sharing household chores, prayers, and (perhaps) a fund-raising operation of some sort, they can get on one another’s nerves even in silence. A tic, habitual gesture, or odd characteristic can drive close companions up the wall. If that mannerism was charming at one time, it’s maddening  now! I met one monk who spoke frankly of “hatred” for a ne’er-do-well who finally left the monastery after twenty years. 

Not many old monks or nuns report that it gets easier. In silence and continual prayer, they learn to surrender everything to God, allowing the irritability to pass as they beg God to help them forgive their enemies.

Christians turn to God daily and many times a day. No doubt, that prayers comes with a sense of humor since, as young whippersnappers, we expected more patience in our maturity and senescence.

Our confidence is in the Father of Jesus; he would not suffer Our Good Shepherd to be dead more than three days. We have every confidence that the One who was sent to gather us into his risen body, will call us back to life.