Sermon delivered Sunday, April 21, 2013 (Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. (Scripture: Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30)
Although today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, it might also appropriately be referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” On the fourth Sunday of Easter in every year of our three-year lectionary cycle, the readings emphasize the image of God as a shepherd. There is always a reading from chapter 10 of the Gospel of John, where Jesus talks about himself as the good shepherd, and the psalm is always Psalm 23, that most beloved of psalms that proclaims, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
So why do we have a “good shepherd” Sunday in the middle of Easter? The primary image of Easter is of Jesus as a lamb, not a shepherd – Christ the Passover lamb who was sacrificed for us – the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Isn’t it mixing metaphors to talk about Jesus as the shepherd in the season when we proclaim him as the lamb?
Perhaps, but paradox has always been at the heart of the Christian faith. The ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas or images in one’s mind at the same time is a particular skill necessary for the Christian life. We proclaim that God is one, but also say there are three persons in the Trinity. We say that Christ has defeated death and sin, and yet both death and sin are still all too prevalent in the world around us. So thinking of Jesus as both the lamb and the shepherd in the same season is right in line with the paradoxical nature of many of our Christian claims. In fact, this apparent mixing of metaphors can serve as an illustration one of the central Christian paradoxes: the claim that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human.
The image of Jesus as the shepherd emphasizes his divinity, while the image of Jesus as lamb emphasizes his humanity. As the shepherd, Jesus is wise and in control, guiding the sheep who otherwise would not know where to find food and water, and protecting them from the dangers of wolves and other predators. As the lamb, Jesus is vulnerable and powerless, experiencing the full depths of human pain and the power of evil as he dies on the cross. Perhaps we could say that on Good Friday, Jesus is the lamb, but after Easter, Jesus is the shepherd. After the Resurrection, we see that Jesus is indeed wise and in control, having overcome death itself to bring new life to “those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79). Having gone before us to prepare the way, the sheep-turned-shepherd now guides us through the pains of death into the well-springs of life.
You might have noticed, as you listened to the readings today, that some of them sounded familiar from their use in our burial liturgy. Psalm 23 is the most obvious one, but actually all of the passages we read from today except the one from Acts are included in our prayer book as appropriate scripture to be read at funerals. Psalm 23 talks about not fearing as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and the promise of dwelling in the house of the Lord forever. The Revelation to John offers a vision of departed souls who have come out of a “great ordeal” gathered before the throne of God and praising him, with the promise that they will no longer hunger and thirst, and that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17). And in the Gospel passage, Jesus talks about his promise to give those who follow him eternal life. All of these passages speak of death and Christian understandings of the afterlife, but they also share the common thread of the image of God or Jesus as a shepherd.
Why is it that the image of the Good Shepherd speaks to us so deeply in times of death and loss? Perhaps it is because it is comforting to remind ourselves that God is in control, that God guides and directs our lives even when we, like sheep, do not have the understanding to find our own way to the nourishment we need. It is comforting to know that even when it may seem to us that we are passing through a dangerous and threatening place, the shepherd knows where we are going and will guide us safely there.
But our understanding of God as our shepherd has an additional depth of meaning beyond the concept of a strong protector and guide. The passage from Revelation brings the two metaphors together when it asserts that “the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.” Because the Lord who is our shepherd has also been a sacrificial lamb, he knows intimately not only the streams of life, but also the valleys of death. The shepherd who guides us is also a sheep who has known what it is to be lost and to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
So when call upon the image of the Good Shepherd as we lay those we love to rest, we are not only invoking the protection and guidance of God, but the empathy of God. We are reminding ourselves at the same time of the omnipotence of God and the vulnerability of God. No matter what the circumstances of the death, whether it be a peaceful death at the end of a long life well lived or the shock of a life cut too short by illness or acts of violence like the bombings in Boston on Monday, the Good Shepherd we call on knows the full range of our human grief. He has been with us in the agony of the slaughtered lamb on Good Friday and he knows the way to the joy of the Resurrection. Because we have a shepherd who has traveled this path before, we can follow him confidently not just through the valley of the shadow of death, but through death itself.
This is why, even as our hearts ache with grief, we can say in the burial liturgy that “even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” We say “alleluia” because we put our trust in the promise of the Resurrection, the promise that, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). To sing “alleluia” even at the grave is a fiercely defiant cry of hope rooted in the full assurance that our shepherd knows what it is to be a sheep.
