4th Sunday of Easter

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday.  It’s kind of a midpoint in the Easter season. The past few weeks focused on the resurrection appearances of Jesus. But over the next several weeks we will continue to hear John’s Gospel, with Jesus’ last words to his disciples at the Last Supper, and then the Ascension and Pentecost. 

Today’s Gospel follows the miracle of the man born blind - which we heard on the 4th Sunday of Lent.  At the end of that passage, the Pharisees said to him, “Surely we are not also blind?” Today Jesus tells those blind Pharisees that they are also thieves and robbers. And after this passage, the audience says that Jesus is “possessed and out of his mind.”  

Good Shepherd Sunday usually brings up images of fashion-runway Jesus with perfect blow-dried hair and cute little, well-bathed lambs. So how does a story about sheep get Jesus in trouble? Jesus simply uses, as John calls it, a “figure of speech.” Jesus makes a comparison - it’s not exactly a parable. But it’s a comparison that’s meant to have a particular meaning. 

Jesus uses the image of a sheepfold - a little stone enclosure with one gate that would often be in the middle of a village -so the shepherds could bring their sheep there for the night. There would be a gatekeeper who would watch over the sheep for the night so that thieves or strangers wouldn't break in and steal the sheep. Sheep were a precious commodity and the lifeblood of ancient Israelite society. Thievery was not uncommon. Unlike the thief who would break in to steal and kill, the true shepherd would go in the morning to collect his sheep. He would “call out his own sheep by name” and then “lead them out of the sheepfold.” 

Shepherds had their own particular voices. They gave individual names to the sheep. So that even if the sheep were mixed in a sheepfold with other sheep from other shepherds, the particular sheep belonging to its true shepherd would know his voice and the shepherd would know their name. So that's what Jesus is describing in this figure of speech. 

Sounds simple enough, but it says that the Pharisees didn’t realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus has to explain it. First he compares himself to the gate through which the sheep will go out to find pasture. This pastureland is a symbol for eternal life, so the gate is a symbol for access to eternal life. Jesus is both the authentic shepherd who is going to lead the sheep out to pasture, and he is the gate, he is the way of access to eternal life. 

In this figure of speech, it sounds strange to say that everyone who came before was a thief and a robber - unless you know your Old Testament. Jesus is referring to a prophecy about bad shepherds from Ezekiel, where the prophet assures his audience - the exiles in Babylon - that God holds all of Jerusalem’s leaders responsible for what has happened to Jerusalem and that God will give Israel a new shepherd worthy of the title. 

Jesus boldly states that he is the gate to eternal life, and that he is the true shepherd who is going to lead them out into the pasture of eternal life. In Ezekiel, the image of the shepherd not only describes the future Messiah, but also describes God himself. In Ezekiel, God says that one day he's going to come as a shepherd and he's going to call out to the sheep, to bring them together and lead them to good pasture - to eternal life. 

So Jesus is applying the imagery from Ezekiel to himself. He is once again revealing that he is not just the Messiah, he's the divine son of God. He is God come in person to seek out and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to bring them into green pastures of eternal life. That's what the good Shepherd does. 

Our first reading today wasn’t from Ezekiel. It was the second part of Peter's homily for Pentecost. With Peter's first homily, he had 3000 conversions - that is one really, really good first homily. Peter points his audience to the sacraments. Baptism for us and for our children is when we get the name that the Good Shepherd will use to call all of us to be his sheep, to call us to eternal life. 

Our Psalm for today is about a shepherd - the Lord himself. In its original context, it is King David talking about the fact that God provides for him and cares for him. Jesus fulfills this prophesy as the good shepherd, and as the Lord whom has come to us in person. 

One of the incarcerated men I met at WCI years ago grew up on a farm, and his job as a kid was taking care of the sheep. When he came walking down the road after school, the sheep got all excited to see him. The kind of fence around the sheepfold had openings just big enough to stick their little heads through. He said it was nice to be welcomed home, but he then had to spend a bunch of time pulling the sheep out of the fence because they always got their little heads stuck in the fence. 

During this crazy pandemic, I hope we continue to respond to the grace given to us every day by our Good Shepherd - our God who came to us in person. By our Baptism he knows us and calls our name, and we promise to be his disciples. And even when we get our little heads stuck in the fence, he will be there with us through the sacraments, which I hope we will now value more than ever before. Amen? 

- Deacon Jack Schaefer