Sermon preached by The Rev'd Susan Kraus

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 13, 2008 - 8:00 a.m.

 Holy Scripture offers us many images of God. Each conveys something of the nature of God, as we human beings can understand God. No single image is sufficient to encompass the nature of God – in fact, all the images we have, put together, are not sufficient to describe God. The images of God in the Bible include king, ruler, father, bridegroom, comforter, creator, liberator, law giver, and judge. Words, human language, to articulate human experience of the divine. Because the language is human, it is influenced by its place in history and culture. Some people find some of the images of God in the Bible offensive. Some find some of the images limited and restricted – for example, to refer to God as “father” but not as “mother.” It is, I think, worth the effort to consider and reflect upon the biblical images of God, to deepen our understanding of God and the human experience of God, and to discover which images speak most clearly to us.

 In today’s passage from the gospel of John we find Jesus using a “figure of speech” to describe himself and his role among his followers. The image is of the shepherd who calls and leads his flock of sheep. I love the image of Jesus as the shepherd. I went to General Theological Seminary in New York City. The chapel there is called the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Behind the altar is a very large white marble statue of Jesus with a lamb in his arms and a sheep gazing up at him from the ground. Whenever I gazed upon this statue, all I ever wanted was to be that lamb, held secure and safe in Jesus’ arms.

 Of course, Jesus did not originate the idea of God being like a shepherd. Think of the 23rd psalm, part of Jesus’ Jewish scriptural tradition. Here it is in the New Revised Standard Version:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

 No wonder this psalm is so dear to so many people. Here indeed is a good shepherd! And Jesus adds another action of the shepherd – the shepherd “calls his own sheep by name,” and “the sheep hear his voice,” “and the sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:3, 4). These verses always remind me of the account of the Risen Lord’s appearance to Mary Magdalene the first Easter morning. Mary is distressed because she cannot find the body of Jesus. She asks a man whom she believes to be the gardener if he knows where the body of Jesus might be. But it isn’t the gardener. It is Jesus. When he calls her name, “Mary!” she recognizes Jesus, and for Mary the world changes in an instant and forever.

 Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has called each of us to follow him. He may lead us through some rough terrain, “darkest valleys” as Psalm 23 describes, but we know that he has gone before us, that he will keep calling us so we know which way to go. And if we should stray so far off the path that we can no longer hear his voice, remember that this same Jesus told a parable about a shepherd who moved heaven and earth to find one lost sheep from a flock of one hundred sheep. We can trust this shepherd with our lives.

 Let me conclude with a collect from the Book of Common Prayer service for burial:   “The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant: Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight; through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (BCP, page 503).