Fourth Sunday of Easter

Good Shepherd Sunday

Lectionary: 51

My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,
and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.
The Father and I are one.”

 L ike attracts like! It's often said and it's a reliable principle of human life. We find people like us, we like them, and they like us. The attraction may be only momentary, as differences can appear immediately; but it may be lifelong. Many people keep in touch with grade school pals into their senior years. 

Despite the innate freedom which resembles God's own generous freedom, we exhibit a herding or flocking instinct like nearly all animals of the earth, sea, and sky. We like to work and be together. Some paleontologists believe that our instinct for working together separated us from other early human creatures: Neanderthals, the Indonesian hobbit-size people, Homo erectus and Homo naledi. That instinct for cooperation gave us an advantage which grew exponentially as we learned to hunt, cook, and build shelters. Not only do many hands make light the work, many minds think creatively and develop better ways to do everything. 

Suddenly, in the past 10,000 years infrastructures appeared and became essential to everything we know and expect of life. We built cities and languages and standard operating procedures, functioning governments and bureaucracies. We now live in an Anthropocene era and have recreated the world in our own image and likeness.

The Spirit of God walked with Abraham's migration from family and homeland in "Ur of the Chaldees;" and has accompanied that evolving story from the beginning. Salvation History appears in human history. Despite our internecine wars, savage abuse of the weaker among us, and vile contempt for migrants, the Lord has never abandoned the exiles of Eden. In the Passion of Christ we discover how God has not only covered over that incomprehensible history of evil, he has atoned for the damage, and healed the wounds of everyone who would be healed. By his wounds, we are healed. 

In fact, our Salvation will be far more than a restoration of Eden and our place in it. Everyone who is willing to go with the Lord through his passion and death will enjoy the Communion of the Trinity. 

On this fourth Sunday of Easter, we celebrate the Good Shepherd who himself is the sacrificial lamb and the sacrificing priest. His altar is the cross and his God is the Father who commissioned him to be both lamb and priest. And then the same Father restored him to life, and gave him back to us as entirely human but, having died, unimaginably happier, and more beautiful, with an infinite authority to heal, comfort, reassure, and guide us. The Lord can restore us to our original innocence – that innocence we remember from the day we made our first communion – and then bless us with far more satisfaction and pleasure in his company, and with one another. 

He requires only our willingness to trust him, for not even God has the authority to reverse our refusal. Because the human being is essentially free, the god that would destroy human freedom would destroy us; and the Father of Jesus Christ does not do that in this world or the next.  

Nor would such a god be worthy of our love. People can say they love their oppressors – the autocrats who rule North Korea and Russia – the tyrants who conspire against every democracy. By the millions they shout their passionate love for their Supreme Leader and Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, or Idi Amin. They may weep copious tears when their corrupt governments collapse and their corpses are dragged through the streets, but when their sanity returns along with a breath of freedom and expectation of reasonable prosperity, they remember their fanatic loyalty only as mass delusion. 

The people of Jerusalem, remembering how they demanded the death of Jesus, may have felt that same regret, remorse, and relief as they heard the Apostles announce his resurrection. If they still feared the authorities they flocked to the disciples who healed the sick and forgave sins with the Lord’s own carefree abandon. Something new, incomprehensible, and wonderful was happening and they would not be deprived of it. 

The Shepherd was calling his sheep and the sheep knew their shepherd, because he had been like a lamb led to slaughter. He had not opened his mouth to complain or blame anyone. He had not, like the hypocrites, insisted on his innocence – although he was innocent. 

…it was our pain that he bore,

our sufferings he endured.

We had all gone astray like sheep,

all following our own way;

But the LORD laid upon him

the guilt of us all.

Like a lamb led to slaughter

or a sheep silent before shearers,

he did not open his mouth.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole,

by his wounds we were healed.

For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne

will shepherd them

and lead them to springs of life-giving water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Today, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we thank God for the Holy Spirit, that flocking instinct, that gives us the good sense to follow the Lamb wherever he goes. For he alone, above all the dictators, presidents, kings, senators, and Congress persons, is worthy of our trust.