Easter 4, May 7 2017
Acts 2:14a,36-41; 1 Pet 2:20b-25; John 10:1-10
Brookdale
Up until last week, the Sunday readings were all about Easter. Today’s readings change the focus, and we start to look toward Pentecost, which celebrates the birth of the church. In the first reading, Peter tells the people that God has made Jesus, who we crucified, “both Lord and Christ.” “Lord” means “master,” or today we might say “the boss.” He is the one who has authority to command us. And “Christ,” as we know, means the anointed one; in Israel, traditionally, that meant the king. But in today’s readings Christ is a shepherd.
It’s a great metaphor. “The Lord is my shepherd.” God is master and boss—not like a tyrant, but like a shepherd who takes care of his flock, which means us. The psalm mentions that the shepherd’s rod and staff. The rod was a kind of cudgel, which the shepherd could use to bash snakes or fend off predators. Shepherds could throw the rod with great accuracy at a wolf or other predator who threatened the sheep. So the rod is for protection. The staff is for guidance. Sheep are not very smart. They can’t even find food and water by themselves. The shepherd used his staff to guide the sheep away from danger and towards pasture. He could even grab a sheep with the hooked end of the staff to help pull it out of trouble.
Psalm 23 likens God to a shepherd who guides and protects Israel. After the monarchy was established in Israel, the king was viewed as the shepherd who guided Israel, while God guided and protected the king. And of course, the king was the anointed one, the Messiah.
The old kings of Israel lived in palaces and led armies. Today’s Gospel reading proclaims that Jesus is our Messiah, but he is not a king who sits on a throne or lives in a palace. He lives with the smell of the sheep, in the words of Pope Francis. He knows his sheep and calls us by name. He leads us; he even went first through the valley of the shadow of death, so we would fear no evil.
Jesus also calls himself “the gate for the sheep.” I never used to understand that. How can a person be a gate? Then I found out more about sheepherding. Close to a village, sheep in biblical times slept in a sheepfold, which was an open area surrounded by stone walls and a gate, which might be locked or guarded. Often several flocks would share the enclosure. In the morning each shepherd would call his sheep to lead them to pasture. Each flock recognized the voice of its own shepherd and followed only him.
Often shepherds took their flocks far afield in search of pasture, like the shepherds to whom the angels announced the birth of Jesus. Far from home, the enclosure would be a makeshift stone fence enclosing a small area, and the gate would just be an opening in the fence. The shepherd would personally sleep in the opening—he would be the gate. That way, he would wake up if a wolf or a thief tried to get in. The shepherd put himself and his own safety on the line for his sheep.
All of us in the church, and in particular all of here this morning, have serious problems in our lives. But we can take comfort from the fact that the Lord is our shepherd, who has called us by name. Even when we walk in the dark valley, we do not need to be afraid, because we are following Jesus, our shepherd, who has gone before us to show the way and is with us now. His promise is that the way leads to Easter and life.