Easter 4
April 21, 2024
We know love by this, that he
laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one
another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and
sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children,
let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this
we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him
whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he
knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have
boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we
obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that
we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another,
just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him,
and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit
that he has given us.
Today is “Good Shepherd Sunday.” That’s the nickname for the Sunday four weeks after Easter. The church leans in to consider the care and guidance of the Lord. Scripture lessons are selected because they resonate with the theme.
You could have guessed the Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd.” That ancient poem is engraved on a lot of our hearts. Even though few of us have ever kept sheep or encountered a sheep herder, we can understand what a shepherd does. He provides safety for the flock. He leads the sheep to abundant pastures where they will find plenty to eat. If the animals steer off course or nimble themselves out of bounds, he takes the shepherd’s staff and gives them a tap on the hindquarters to keep them from going further astray.
It’s a glimpse of the kind of God we have discovered. God provided. God guides. God knows where the green pastures and still waters are. God steers us where we most need to go. The shepherd embodies goodness and mercy.
Not only that, but God also stays with us, no matter what happens. The presence of goodness accompanies us even if the path is steep and the way is hard. In his little book on the 23rd Psalm, Rabbi Harold Kushner reminded us:
To say, ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ is to say that we live in an unpredictable, often terrifying world, ever mindful of all the bad things that might happen to us and to those around us. …But despite it all, we can get up every morning to face the world because we know there is Someone in that world who cares about us and tries to keep us safe. To philosophers and theologians, God may be the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover. But to people like us, what is most important about God is that He is the Presence that makes the world seem less frightening.
As Kushner says, “The primary message of the Twenty-third Psalm is not that bad things will never happen to us. It is that we do not have to face bad things alone, ‘for Thou art with me.”[1]
Jesus knew these words, of course. He knew the psalms, prayed the psalms, recited the psalms. So much so that they shaped his perception of his own identity. For Good Shepherd Sunday, we overhear his words as recorded in the tenth chapter of John: “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and they know me.” There is a connection between Jesus and his flock. They recognize his voice. He calls them by name.
And he cares about them – actively, aggressively, faithfully. “I’m not a hired hand,” he says. “I don’t quit my job and run away at the first sign of trouble. If a wolf approaches, snarling, licking his chops in hunger, the hired hand disappears, saving his own skin. But not the Good Shepherd. He stands his ground on behalf of the sheep.
It’s like that moment in C.S. Lewis’ little book, The Screwtape Letters. In those imaginary letters, a senior devil gives advice to a junior devil on the subtleties and best practices for tempting people. The goal, he counsels, is not wickedness but indifference. The point is not to convince them to do evil, but to convince them to do nothing at all. Keep the prospect comfortable. Don’t let him think about anything of importance. Encourage him to make plans for lunch.
Then comes the definitive job description: “I, the devil, will always see to it that there are bad people. Your job, my dear Wormwood, is to provide me with the people who do not care.”[2] Jesus says there are plenty of those. Their care is only a day job, a part-time gig. They are in it only for the money. But the Good Shepherd? His duty defines who he is. His compassion compels him to care.
Speaking of himself, Jesus says, “The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” He must have meant it, because he says it five times in that brief passage we heard from the Gospel of John. This “laying down” is intentional. It’s his choice. It’s his purpose. Jesus reveals something essential about God. God comes to us with self-giving love, never playing it safe, never holding back, always more concerned about the flock than his own personal safety.
Some years ago, one of my friends told me about the memoir of Ivan Doig, called, “This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind.” Doig grew up on a sheep farm on the Montana plains, the only child of a widowed ranch foreman. He recalled a time when an unreasonably cold July rainstorm threatened to wipe out his father’s entire flock of newly shorn sheep. In frantic desperation, Ivan, his father, his grandmother, and the sheep dogs did everything they could to round up the terrified animals and head them toward a ravine.
“In a cold driving
rain” (he writes), “hundreds of trapped ewes would destroy themselves” and
trample their own lambs. Even worse, the prairie wind could blast open the gate
and release the huge flock into unprotected territory. Doig writes:
What we faced, if we could not bring the band under control, was a rapid, steady push toward the steady devastation of our sheep – they were aimed like an avalanche to the cliffs. One way alone offered any chance: try to funnel them along the bottom of the single big coulee. To do so we would have to fight the sheep sideways along the punishing storm. And so, we fought, running, raging, hurling the dogs and ourselves at the waves of sheep, flogging with the gunny sacks, shaking the wire rings of cans. We were like skirmishers against a running army.[3]
Nothing sweet or docile about those shepherds! They did everything possible to stop the stampede and corral them to safety. It was only after the incident that Ivan realized he could have lost his life while saving the animals.
“I lay down my life,” says Jesus the Good Shepherd. “Nobody makes me do it. Nobody pays me to do it. I lay it down for others because that’s who I am.”
Just a few chapters later, Simon Peter bursts with bravado, “Lord, I will lay down my life for you!” Jesus turns to look at him. “Really, Peter? Are you going to lay your life for me? Truly I tell you, you’re going to chicken out and run away before the rooster crows.”[4] And that’s exactly what happened. Not Peter’s best moment, nor ours. Yet it distinguishes who Jesus is and what he has done, for Peter and for the rest of us.
“For this reason, the
Father loves me,” says Jesus, “because I lay down my life in order to take it
up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own
accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I
have received this command from my Father.”[5]
Now, these are the days after Easter. He’s talking about his death and resurrection. Laying it down, taking it up again. As the Gospel of John remembers these words, maybe as long as sixty years after Jesus said them, he recognizes that this has been the shape of Christ’s entire ministry.
He set aside his rightful glory with the Father to
come down here.
He emptied himself into acts of service, healing the
sick, welcoming the outcast.
He told the truth about the grace of God, even if people
couldn’t comprehend it.
He knelt on the last evening of his life and washed
the dirty feet of his friends.
Then he went out, carrying his own cross, giving his
life to take away the sins of the world.
Then he took up his life again and breathed his Spirit
upon us.
One act after another, he laid down his life. For us, for Simon Peter, for Pontius Pilate, for all.
Then he said, “There
is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my
friends if you love one another.” With this, his self-giving life is turned
into Gospel ethics. For in the third text for today, a preacher from the early
church tells it to us straight:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
We continue the good news of Easter by doing what Jesus has done. We give ourselves to the needs of the world, beginning with the needs of the neighborhood. We refuse to sit on our hands when children are hungry. We don’t walk away when others have no place safe to sleep. We puncture the all-too-present temptation to indifference. We leave behind our own comfort when others have needs.
And I have to say, this has been our growing edge. A church like this, with such talented people, in the middle of a community of education and affluence, it would be very easy for us to sit in a circle and smile at one another. Yet there’s a constant nudge – call it an Easter nudge – to open our hands to others, all in the name of Jesus, whose hands were opened – and wounded – on account of us. We lay down our lives for one another. Let that be the motto for these days after Easter, because all our days are lived after Easter.
So, what are we going to do? Stitch quilts for the homeless. Collect groceries for the hungry. Sit with the sick. Make banquets for the bereaved. Deliver supper to those home from surgery. Phone those who are left out and overlooked. Muck out the houses of those who were flooded. Prepare turkey sandwiches for anybody who need one. Raise a lot of money for a teen homeless shelter, perhaps befriend the kids and affirm their value. It’s called laying down our lives, laying down our lives in the name of Jesus. That’s our mission.
In fact, let me tell you a story. I stopped in a little place to buy a sandwich. I was wearing a coat and tie, and most men don’t do that. The guy behind the counter looked me over, then said, “What do you do?” I’m a pastor.
“Where’s your church?” Up on the hill.
“Oh, is that a church?” Yes.
“What’s it called?” It’s the Presbyterian church.
He paused, looked at me, and said, “Oh, that’s the
church that does stuff for other people.” Not bad.
[1] Harold S. Kushner, The Lord is My Shepherd, Healing Wisdom of the
Twenty-Third Psalm (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) 15.
[2] As reported by Rev. Roger Howard,
in a paper presented to the Homiletical Feast for May 14, 2000.
[3] Ivan Doig, This House of Sky:
Landscapes of a Western Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978)
217ff.
[4] John 13:37-38.
[5] John 10:17-18.
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