Gospel Reflection Sunday April 21st 2024 – Fourth Sunday of Easter

By Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection for Sunday April 21st 2024 | Fourth Sunday of Easter

“Sheep are not only dependent creatures; singularly unintelligent, prone to wandering and unable to find their way to a shepherd even when he is in sight.”

This was written by an animal behaviourist about thirty years ago. Luckily sheep cannot read because if they did, they would probably have risen-up in righteous anger at this grossly unfair depiction of their intelligence. More modern research shows sheep to be quite intelligent animals, capable of recognising each other and capable of recognising human faces for up to two years. They have a highly organised social structure with a real an accepted hierarchy. The idea that sheep follow blindly after the one who is in front is far from true. Rather the sheep in front is the trusted leader who can determine the way to grass and water in open, inhospitable ground.

I have no doubt that all of the figures who populate the Old and New Testament of the Bible would laugh at the opening quote. In biblical times sheep were hugely important to the survival and economy of semi-nomadic people. The shepherd who was responsible for protecting and leading the flocks from one pasture to the next was a respected member of society.

Interestingly, the three men we consider to be the founders of the ‘Chosen People of Israel’ were shepherds before they heard God’s call to them. Abraham, who was told by a ‘new’ God to leave his land, his flocks and his people and go to a land that God would show him, trusted what he heard and with his wife Sarah and his son Isaac, left everything to follow this God. It was on this trust that the ‘People of Israel’ was born.

Moses was the one who gave the Chosen People an identity and a belief in themselves. He brought them from slavery in Egypt, through times of trial and suffering in the desert, before pointing them to their ‘Promised Land’.

David was their greatest King, settling them in their new land, making them into a strong military Kingdom, respected and feared by neighbouring tribes.

All three of them were taken from their flocks of sheep and entrusted with leading God’s people. There is a hugely rich imagery of shepherd and flock developed in the books of the Bible. Probably the best remembered and most often quoted verses in the Bible come from Psalm 23, a psalm attributed to David.  

“The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Fresh and green are the pastures where he gives me repose; near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirit.” (Psalm 23:1-2)

These verses give us a gentle and caring image of God as shepherd leading us, his flock, to a place of food, water and rest.

By the time of Jesus, sheep had become less important to a mostly crop-growing people. Indeed, flocks of sheep were considered something of a nuisance, often trampling and eating the young crops.

Shepherds had now also lost the respect their job once had. They were considered ‘sinners’ and ranked with other rejected groups like tax collectors.

And yet, it was shepherds who were first told of the birth of Jesus. When the Heavens opened and angels brought “tidings of great joy” to the world, it was to shepherds they spoke. This was not accidental. Jesus, born in poverty and destined to bring the Kingdom of God into the world, first announced his birth to others who were ‘poor’ (shepherds) and then to Kings who welcomed him as a King (the ‘wise men’ or the Magi)

We can be certain that Jesus, like all Jews of the time, was well aware of this rich tapestry of images running through the Old Testament. In today’s Gospel, when Jesus talks about ‘good’ shepherds and ‘hired hands’ he is borrowing his words directly from the great Prophets of the Bible – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos etc..

In the Old Testament the ‘good’ shepherd has certain qualities that set him apart. Firstly, he cares for every one of the sheep entrusted to him. If one is lost, he searches for it and does not rest until he finds it. His commitment to his sheep is absolute and unchanging. Coming from this quality of ‘care’ we find that the ‘good’ shepherd protects his sheep. When they face danger of any kind the shepherd protects them, even going so far as to risk his own life to do so. Finally, we learn that the ‘good’ shepherd leads his sheep with care and thoughtfulness, sometimes carrying lambs who are tired or weak. Today, our image of a shepherd is likely to be a person walking behind the flock, driving them ahead of him, often with the help of a dog. In biblical times it was quite the reverse. The shepherd walked in front of his sheep, watching for wild animals and also knowing the way to grass and water. Sheep wandered in vast, open areas of semi-desert, with few physical features or trails to follow.

All of these qualities of a ‘good’ shepherd are present in the Old Testament, as is the prediction that sometime in the future God would send a ‘new’ shepherd to guide his people. This new and great shepherd would be anointed by God and his coming would usher-in the eternal Kingdom of God. This awaited shepherd was often referred to as the ‘Messiah’. The Prophet Isaiah talks of this coming shepherd in simple terms, “Like a shepherd he will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs, And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.”

When we read today’s Gospel we must remember that we are joining a group of Christians living a hundred years after Jesus death and resurrection. By the time John’s Gospel was written the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead was accepted and believed by all converts joining the young Church.

The question was no longer ‘did he rise from the dead?’ but had become, ‘we know he rose from the dead, so who exactly was he?’ As they reflect an awesome, incredible, staggering possibility is dawning on them: “Is it conceivable that the Jesus who was our friend, who walked and talked with us for three years, was actually God?” For Jewish people, whose respect for God is so great that they dare not even call him by his name, the enormity of this possibility cannot be overstated.

To help their reflection, the small communities of believers shared together their memories of Jesus, sifting through his words and actions, wondering if they might have missed clues he gave them about himself.

It is in this context that we can imagine the first Christians replaying the various memories they had of what he said to them about being a shepherd.

When a person we love dies, we keep that person’s memory alive by telling stories and remembering things he or she said or did while with us. Doing this not only keeps the person alive to us but often things the person said or did take on a significance or show a wisdom that we somehow missed at the time.

What John is doing in this section of his Gospel is pulling together many of the ‘shepherd stories’ of Jesus, teasing out what Jesus was telling them about himself and his relationship with God. This is why, in many ways, today’s Gospel reads a bit like a machine-gun, scattering bullets in many directions, single one-sentence thoughts which by themselves mean very little, but when added together create a bigger, clearer picture.

Isn’t this how memories work? One person recalls a story that was told “Do you remember the story Jesus told when he compared himself to a shepherd?” and another person takes it up and adds to it, “I remember he talked about good shepherds and bad shepherds who run away as soon as danger comes…… and he said that a good shepherd will even die for his sheep.”

They think about that for a while in silence, then someone says, “I wonder was he talking about himself and us?…… like dying on the cross for us….like a shepherd dying for his sheep…?”  They let that settle, and gradually they begin to piece together the clues Jesus was giving them about himself and why he came.

Finally someone says, “…When he was talking about being a good shepherd do any of you remember him saying that everything he was doing came directly from the his Father, who sent him into the world?..”  In the silence that follows an amazing thought surfaces in their minds: Is it possibly that he was telling us that he was God?

Just as the Gospels allow us to see the journey of the first disciples to belief in the Resurrection – through the doubts of Thomas, the fear of those hiding in the locked room, the denials of Peter, etc. – so too the Gospels share with us how the disciples, gradually and often with difficulty, moved towards understanding the greatest mystery of all; that Jesus, who died on the cross and was raised again, was, in  fact, God as well as man.

This is a unique belief – one no other religion even made; that God, Creator of everything that is, at a moment in time, chose to come among us as one of us, lived with us, died for us, and rose again from the dead to show us how much we are loved and valued by God.

All of the stories of sheep and flocks, of wolves and hired hands, of good and bad shepherds, trace for us the gradual movement within the early Church from “He is risen from the dead”, to, “Who is he, who has risen from the dead?”

Who is he, who has risen from the dead? Jesus of Nazareth, the Good Shepherd, sent by the Father to love, protect and lead his people.

Who is he who has risen from the dead? Jesus of Nazareth, our God-is-with-us.  

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

Gospel Sunday April 21st 2024, Fourth Sunday of Easter | John 10:11-18

The good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep