Easter 4 – 2021: Good Shepherd Sunday

Today is “Good Shepherd Sunday.”
However, if we're to fully grasp its significance, it is necessary to recall the one consistent, significant lesson of the last 3 Sundays.

The one important message of the last 3 Sunday's is that the resurrection of Jesus grants us the grace of living courageously - whatever our doubts, our fears and uncertainties.
• The terrified Mary of Magdala learnt it.
• The fearful disciples, hiding behind a locked door, learnt it.
• Doubting Thomas, our twin, learnt it.
• And last Sunday, we learnt that this is the same message for us, in all our nightmares.

It is against this background that we need to appreciate this Sunday's dedication as Good Shepherd Sunday.

The courage to proclaim the good news that God’s kingdom is near, regardless of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the backdrop for this Sunday.

The lesson is that the resurrection of Jesus gives us the boldness to cancel out the crucifixion in our lives. It tells us that beyond death (if you like, the rightful dues, the wages, of our sinful lives), we can still declare openly and without contradiction that God loved the world so much that He sent his Son, his one and only Son into it. “so that no one need be destroyed.”
In other words, God has ordained things this way: by simply believing in Jesus, anyone, anyone, can have a whole and lasting life.

It is for this reason that the Church set aside this particular Sunday, the 4th of the Easter Season, for us to focus on the idea of Jesus as a gentle shepherd seeking and carrying back home, the wayward sheep.

Many of us grow up carrying this image/picture of Jesus Christ walking among us as the faithful Shepher, in our minds all our life.
Judging from the popularity of Psalm 23, it is undoubtedly beneficial.

Of course, this idea asks us to see ourselves as Sheep. For where there is a Shepherd, there must be sheep.

The imagery of humans as sheep is meant to assure us that we are worthy of care.
It is most certainly not to brand us as stupid creatures.

Rather, it marks us out as precious to God That we are important enough not to be abandoned or deserted.

It says that our lives are significant and that someone is willing to be responsible for both how we get on in life and what we do with our life.

Indeed, today’s gospel reading goes to dramatic lengths to tell us that in Jesus, we do have a Good Shepherd.

We have a Shepherd who loves his sheep enough to keep them close, not just to him but also one another.

He not only travels with us as our guide, but he also asks us to stick close to one another. He commands us to love one another as he loves us.

Dolly the Sheep: no herd; all alone, all by itself. That’s not who we are called to be!

In other words, Jesus decrees that we must get to know, value, honour, protect and resource one another from the abundant riches of God’s storehouse.

We are to show, to our neighbours and all creation, the same generous measure of concern that Jesus offers to us.

We are reminded that the early church lived out this ‘new commandment’ in this way: “. . . the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power, the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was bestowed upon them all.”

Their witness (the early Church) teaches us to recognise the sheep of Jesus fold by their unity, willingness to share, and their unashamed proclamation of God’€™s victory over death.

Their message to us is twofold:

The first is that we must be a community united in openly proclaiming the good news of the resurrection (God’€™s victory over death).

Secondly, we must be a community that is willing to share what we have - with each other - so that all will have enough.

Now, that's not the same thing as saying, “If I’ve got a Tenner, it means you’ve got a fiver!”

It means that as followers of Jesus, our lives only have meaning because of what we invest in other people and what other people invest in us!

We depend on them, and they on us.

Jesus puts it in this way: “There is no greater love to give than to lay down your life for your friends.”

That is why the greatest danger for a sheep is to go off alone.
It's a difficult thing to choose to have no friends.

To have no obligations to others is a dangerous way to live.

If we doubt that, let me remind us of this past week’s stillborn Super League misadventure. 12 Clubs alone and not a care for anyone else.

But we were all witnesses to what the determined courage of one vulnerable Manager, a terrified Captain and a ragtag army of fans achieved against the ‘Might of billionaire owners.’

It is to this kind of determined courage that the Good Shepherd Sunday calls us!

In the face of claims that our confidence in a crucified Jesus is misplaced; and criticisms that the death, the wages of sin is fixed for us, the Church calls us back to take on the courage to champion the great ideals of God's kingdom.

My friend's, we are called to no small thing.

Think about this: imagine for just a proverbial second, just what courage it must have taken for God to live as a mere human being.

The witness of Mary of Magdala, of Peter, Thomas, Nicodemus, etc., is that the Resurrection affords us the courage to live like that! That’s the scale of our challenge. But in it is also the hope of our success.

We can live courageously because the resurrection of Jesus assures us that “fear, doubt, nightmares, uncertainty, and even death, no longer have power or dominion over us.

The power that Jesus trusted to see him through the passion of holy week, the terror and death of Good Friday is the very force of God. It is God's hand of Providence. And because God's providence is available to us, we need not fear the illusion of loss.

Because God, in John 3.16, has promised us eternal life, not death, we need not fear the only real threat can be set against any living being.

Besides, we need not fear the opinion of men when our mission is to remind people of the presence of the Risen and Triumphant Christ in their midst.

And we have the Passion of Christ itself as our most vital testimony to the victory of God’s love over death (the same wages of sin).

Yes, John 3.16 describes God's love for the world as not as ‘so much!’ But we must never forget that it was not deployed to kill and to destroy. Instead, God set his Love up as reason enough for him to die for us.
He set it up for us in the person of the Good Shepherd gently seeking and carrying back home you and me - the wayward sheep.

So in the spirit of the Early Christians, this morning, let us dare to stand on our faith in the midst of the faithless and all that hounds us. Let us do so knowing that the good Shepherd will look out for and rescue us.

Moreover that as he does so, no earthly power or force can pare us from Jesus’ grasp.

This is why we can boldly declare that no death (no wages of sin) that a band of humans can ever impose will overcome the hold of Christ as it touches, heals, strengthens and transforms a broken human spirit.

We can trust in God to encourage and empower us to speak the truth of the Easter faith, about every damaged and errant life, for it is written: “And now, Lord, look at their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you reach out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed in the name of your holy servant Jesus.”