Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Easter 2010
Isaiah 53: 1-12; John 10: 27-30
Acts 13: 14, 43-52; Rev 7:9, 14b-17
Colossians 1:15-24, Romans 8:28-39
24 April 2010

by Eleanor Suther, OSB

“Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom, alleluia!”

This has always been my least favorite of the Easter invitatories. It seemed to me to be oddly out of place. I had thought its quiet, comforting tones would fit more appropriately in November—for all Saints or All Souls Day, or one of those last days of the liturgical year. It is, after all, from the last judgment scene in Matthew 25. But as I prepared my reflection for tonight, I realized that Matthew 25 is about those sheep whom the shepherd has separated from the goats. These are the sheep who have heard the shepherd’s voice in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, the needy. They have heard the shepherd’s voice and have followed him.

Today’s texts play back and forth between the assurance of the shepherd’s love—“I know them and they follow me” (John 10:27) and the challenge of following that call from the Suffering Servant who lays down his life for the sheep.

“Like sheep we had all gone astray each following our own way, but God laid on him all our guilt…Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearer he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:6-7)

In the first reading for tomorrow’s Eucharist we hear about Paul and Barnabas, who have heard the shepherd’s voice and, filled with the joy of the Spirit, go to Antioch to share the good news with their fellow Jews. But while many of the Jews came to listen to them, and some followed, Paul and Barnabas also met strong opposition. And Paul and Barnabas heard in that experience, the Shepherd’s voice calling them to preach to the Gentiles, who hear the word and respond in the joy of the Spirit.

The reading from Revelation is also an end-time image. We see the huge crowd which no one could count, who have survived the great trial and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The Lamb on the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life giving water…and will wipe away their tears…”

This crowd, which no one can count, from every tribe, language and nation echoes another them from Good Shepherd Sunday—the call of the Shepherd to be in communion with one another and with God. When I was a child, I understood “one flock and one shepherd” to mean that one day all those other Christians would see the error of their ways and come back to the one true church, the Roman Catholic church. As I have grown in my understanding of ecumenism, I have come to understand that Christian unity is a task for all of us, to work toward unity beyond our differences—to honor the work of the Spirit in all the Christian Churches and ecclesial communities.

But today’s texts also point toward a unity of all humankind, even of cosmic unity. The blessed sheep who are invited to the kingdom have not even realized that it was Christ they were feeding in the hungry, Christ to whom they were ministering in the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, the needy. “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked or imprisoned?” The reading for Morning Prayer takes up the theme of cosmic unity; “Christ is the image of the unseen God, the firstborn of all creation…He is before all and all things hold together in Him.”

Which leads us back to the Gospel. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.” What holds everything together is that personal relationship that fill us with the joy of the Spirit, that helps us to hear his voice in the poor and the needy, that upholds and supports us through every difficulty.

An image that sums this up for me comes from a book called “The Turtle on the Fencepost: Little Lessons of Large Importance,” by Alan Emery. I found this summary on the website of St. Paul’s Ministries (www.saintpaulministries.net)

Emery tells of a night he spent on the Texas plains with a shepherd who was keeping two thousand sheep. The shepherd prepared a bonfire for cooking supper and providing warmth. The sheep dogs lay down near the fire as the stars filled the sky. Suddenly Emery heard the unmistakable cry of a coyote and an answering cry from the other side of the range. The dogs weren’t patrolling at the moment and the coyotes seemed to know it. Rising quickly, the shepherd tossed a few more logs on the fire; and in this light Emery looked up at the sheep and saw thousands of little lights.

I realized, he said, that these were reflections of the fire in the eyes of the sheep. In the midst of the danger, the sheep were not looking out into the darkness, but were keeping their eyes turned toward the Shepherd. (Allen C. Emery, A Turtle on the Fencepost, Word Books, 1979, p. 53)

In the midst of the trials of our life, as we seek to listen to the voice of the shepherd and to follow wherever he calls, we must not look toward the darkness and the danger, but keep our eyes on Jesus, our Good Shepherd. And then we will see the light of Christ shining all around us, in ourselves and in one another. Together we can follow the shepherd as we hear his call in the poor and the needy, as we strive to bring reconciliation, justice and peace to our world. Neither hardship nor distress, or persecution nor famine or nakedness or peril or the sword will be able to separate us from the love of Christ. (Rom. 8:35)

And we can be confident that we will hear the Shepherd’s voice, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom, alleluia.”

© 2010 Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas