Two levels of the Good Shepherd: 4th Sunday in Easter

Listen to the homily here.

Notes:

This weekend I would like to dive into Jesus’ teaching about being the Good Shepherd

·      There are two levels:

o   Literal and spiritual

Literal

·      We are like sheep

o   An image as a flock

o   A group that needs to be fed, led and protected

·      A hired man

o   He is having a job for his career

·      He is seeking his own life: “and whose sheep are not his own,
sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs awayand the wolf catches and scatters them.  This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep…”

o   And…A hired man, is not a shepherd

·      A wolfwho is looking for dinner

·      Shepherd: Jesus Christ

o   “A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

o   If a wolf attacks the sheep, he stands between him and the sheep

o   In this image, his possession, his life, his family, his produce

Spiritual

·      Jesus was teaching about how he would give his life for us

·      Actually, he said it five different times in this quick pericope, one above, and four more:

o   “I will lay down my life for the sheep…I lay down my life in order to take it up again…No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own…I have power to lay it down.”

·      And Jesus was facing not just our lives or our sinfulness, but evil itself

o   In Revelation 12, there was a passage of a young woman who had a child, and evil was trying to kill him

o   He did when he was 40 days in the desert

o   He did it in the Agony of the Garden, and perhaps on the cross

o   And then Jesus destroyed Satan himself

·      At the same time, many people in our culture do not believe in Satan

o   In fact, that is one of Satan’s tactics, that he is not believed

·      Satan does exist, and he is like “the wolf catches and scatters [the sheep].

o   Evil scatters us when gossip, judgment, slander, libel, pornography, etc.

o   And typically, he is doesn’t focus to brutal situations

§  As C.S. Lewis wrote in “Screwtape Letters” “Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.”

o   In the spiritual world, he is tempting us, trying to steal our souls

·      The Good News, Jesus destroyed Satan himself

Jesus is the Good Shepherd

·      We must always be with him

·      Psalm 23: “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 paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

Stay in God’s flock as He will continue to protect, feed and lead us…and we must stay with Him!