The Second Sunday after Easter

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. ”

A former Bishop of London once wrote a series of reflections on the post-Easter Gospels that we are hearing today and that Christians have heard on these Sundays for eons, and he noted that one time in his ministry he knew a real-life shepherd, one of the very last in the United Kingdom, and the Shepherd gave the Bishop a shepherd’s crook to use in church – Bishop’s croziers being, after all, also modelled on the classic shepherd’s crook.

The Bishop asked the man how the crook was actually used in shepherding – that is, how does one actually make use of the staff with the sheep with its blunt rounded back, the hook, and the pointed end? To his surprise, the Shepherd replied, “I have no idea, I don’t use it for those things a’tall.” “Well then what do you use it for?” inquired the Bishop, “I lean on it.” He said that when he is with the sheep and in their midst and alongside them, when he is quiet and gentle towards them they will match his demeanour, they don’t really need correction. And so, the staff is for him, not them.

The image of the shepherd has, since long before the time of Christ, been a symbol or an image of good government; kingship was often talked about in terms of shepherding in Greece; Isaiah speaks prophetically of the Messiah when he says, “He shall lead his flock like a shepherd, and gather the lambs unto his bosom.” The shepherd was so often the kind of model or image used for earthly and heavenly government because, I think, what we might look for in a good leader is found in a good shepherd: a good shepherd is attentive and active in their care for the sheep, a good shepherd watches out for danger that the sheep may not see, the shepherd doesn’t punish but corrects with the crook, nudges in the right way, leads both by care and by authority.

Now like you, I’m sure, my mind has been very much taken up with the issue of government in recent weeks and even back into the Fall, and without commenting on any particular part of government or those who serve within it – which isn’t the point of this sermon – suffice it to say that I think we all can agree with Isaiah and with the ancient Greeks about why the shepherd is the image of government. Whomever it is we vote for or whomever it is we think should be in leadership, we vote or think that way because in some part we see in them the qualities that exemplify a good shepherd: caring, strong, corrective but not punitive and domineering, watching out for danger, acting in our interested, and so on. And even more than that we want leaders who want to lead; this is how Jesus compares himself as the Good Shepherd to the hired hand in the Gospel today.

The Shepherd is called to be shepherd, the shepherd loves the sheep for no other reason than that they are his, and he is theirs, and the follow him because of this love he has for them. Even though on could argue the shepherd may ultimately have his own needs in mind in selling the sheep or using the sheep for profit, it’s still in his best interest to nurture and care for them. But the hired hand is there only contractually; the hired hand has no real skin in the game, not the same love for the sheep. When trouble comes the hired hand runs away because the only thing to protect that’s his is his own life, but the shepherd puts himself between the wolf and the sheep.

This is why Jesus takes up this image of the shepherd so powerfully in the Gospel, when he says “I am the Good Shepherd” those around him who heard it would immediately think of Isaiah, they would recall the Psalms that paint God as a shepherd, they would think about the government – that is the providence and the authority – of God, and they would understand what Jesus is saying of himself. But Jesus goes further than Isaiah did or even the disciples might have thought when he speaks of how all-encompassing, how universal his kingship is, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” He is not just the Shepherd of Israel, he is the shepherd of all creation, of the entire universe.

That’s what we are, in essence, celebrating today – not only that familiar, warm, and comforting presence of Jesus as shepherd, the one who walks with us through dark valleys, who guides us along right pathways, the one who like the shepherd on the hillside knows his sheep individually, knows and cares for their needs, is tender with them and acts only in love and care towards them – this is indeed a part of Jesus the Shepherd – but we also celebrate that he is the good shepherd of all creation, we recognize and give thanks today for the providence of God. This providence, or love, or shepherd-like care was shown most poignantly and most clearly to us two weeks ago when the shepherd gave his life for the sheep.

This all-encompassing providence of God – which simply means the protective and loving shepherdlike care of God – is worthy of this day because it is the basis, the principle upon which our whole spiritual lives are founded: that the ultimate truth of things – the truth of everything – is God, and God is good, God is love. This goodness and this love – the love of God the shepherd – is what governs everything in creation, and it is a goodness and a love that was made manifest and shown to us in Jesus who embodies that goodness as kind and caring shepherd. The Easter season is the continued celebration of the fact that this goodness and love did what not hiered hand ever could, when it gave its life for us.

But it’s not just enough to celebrate it, it must be emulated as well. The Greek word for good in Good Shepherd is the Greek word ‘kalos’, a word that means good or perfect just as it might for us, but it can be used in another way. In Greek when you put kalos before someone’s job title, like shepherd or judge or general, it comes to mean model. As in, not only is this shepherd good, but this shepherd is the model shepherd, this is the shepherd we should try to emulate and be like. This is why, to go back to earthly governance, it’s good for political leaders to take Christ as their exemplar in leadership.

We are cared for by this shepherd but so are we to care for others with a love like this shepherd, with a forebearance and patience and tenderness, like the Good Shepherd. If we are one of the 99 who constantly goes astray but for whom the shepherd always comes looking, than so much more are we to seek out those whom we know to go astray from the way.

This is why we pray the words of the collect today – really, I think, what we’re praying for in particular this morning, “Almighty God who has given us thy only Son, Jesus Christ, to be a sacrifice for sin and an example of Godly life…” it begins, praying that we may always follow in the footsteps of our good shepherd.

Not only following his footsteps from behind as he leads us and defends us, but looking to that shepherd, that shepherd leaning upon his wooden staff, or the shepherd or hanging upon his wooden cross in the midst of his beloved flock as the example of our living and our loving.