Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 25, 2021
Deacon Greg Alberts, St. Mary Parish, Mokena, IL
“I am the Good Shepherd, I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.”
The most fundamental desire of the human heart is to be known. This is definition of intimacy – to be known, deeply. The early Latin word is intimus, which translates inmost. To be known down to the very core. To know at that level is to love. That’s what it means to say that he knows the sheep.
And love is the avenue by which we become compelled to do good, even at our expense. To sacrifice. And in Jesus that love was made manifest to us most profoundly on the Cross. Earlier in John’s Gospel, right at the very beginning in fact, we hear, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory.”
It is the Cross, the Good Shepherd laying down his life, my people, that is the glory of Jesus. It is in the Sacrifice of our God on the Cross, which we re-present at the Altar of Sacrifice, that is his glory.
So, too, is the Cross the Glory of the Christian. Jesus does not simply take up his Cross and say, “Let’s go!” He also calls upon us to take up our own crosses. It is on the Cross that we see his glory, so too it is at the foot of the Cross that we see ours, in light of it.
But the Cross is scary. We don’t like to bear our crosses, because its hard, because its painful, because it costs us much.
But we are not alone. Jesus accomplished a solidarity with us that runs down to the very core of our being, the very experience of our existence.
Psalm 23 reads, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side.”
Just a few verses before the Gospel we heard today, Jesus says, “When the shepherd has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.”
This, I think, is the crown of the image of the Good Shepherd.
Have you ever seen a shepherd doing his thing? It’s actually fascinating. Sheep are extraordinarily dumb creatures. Absolutely just about brainless. They’ll walk right off a cliff if you let them. They’re just not very bright. They need a shepherd.
But these creatures are not only dumb, but they’re actually quite stubborn. An unfortunate combination we see quite a bit of in our own experience, making this image Jesus gives us all the more appropriate. But I digress.
Sheep will not respond or even look up at a voice they don’t recognize. If it’s not the voice of their shepherd, you could be God himself and that dumb thing is gonna walk right off that cliff.
I saw a video on YouTube proving this point and it was amazing when, after several unsuccessful attempted to call the sheep from pasture by onlookers, the shepherd himself goes to the fence of the pasture and calls out to them. And all of these sheep come running toward the shepherd.
It is because that voice reaches something in these creatures that affirms their following.
For us, the voice of the Good Shepherd, reaches down into the very depth of our being and actualizes our very existence, because it is by that very same voice that we came into being in the first place.
This is why encounter with God is so radical. The very same voice that called light into the void, that made the heavens and the earth, is the one that calls us to follow him. And it is a voice that reaches down into the depths. It is the voice that cries out and breaks the silent isolation of the wilderness, of depression and anxiety, of feelings of worthlessness, of rejection. It is the voice that breaks the bonds of sin and death, scatters the clouds brought about by a fallen world.
And it does this by beckoning us to him, carrying His own Cross, and encouraging us to take up our own and follow him to Glory, for though we walk in darkness, we fear no evil. Because it is the voice that fashioned us, it too is the voice that knows us, and calls to us in that place of deepest fulfillment.
He calls out to us, “I am the Good Shepherd, come after me to greener pastures.”
Father Alberts 