Preached on Sunday, April 26, 2015 at the Church of the Holy Trinity on the Upper East Side. The Scripture readings that today's sermon is based on can be found by clicking here.
It was, after all, an instrument of torture and death. And as we were saying last week, death on a cross was particularly offensive to observant Jews in the ancient world, as it would be to almost everyone today. So, it is rare indeed to find artistic representations of the cross, and especially, images of Christ on the cross, in our very earliest art and architecture.
But what you do find, over and over again, in house churches, in the catacombs in Rome, in mosaics and floor tiles, in murals painted on walls and formed into statues, are representations of the Good Shepherd. It seems that in our earliest days, when we wanted to represent our faith, when we wanted to depict our Savior, we most often pictured him as the Good Shepherd. The image, like our images of the crucifixion, became somewhat standardized, and seemed to follow a common format, more or less. Most often, the Good Shepherd would be depicted as a youngish man, standing upright, with a lamb draped over his shoulders, grasping both for and hind legs, bearing the lost lamb home to the flock.
It’s not surprising that this image should permeate the early Christian consciousness. The Israelites were a pastoral people, and shepherds were everywhere in everyday life -- and in Scripture. Patriarchs and prophets like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Amos, and perhaps most famously, David were all shepherds. Interestingly, the Quran says that all the true prophets of God were first shepherds, as was Mohammed. For those who knew Jesus, heard him preach and teach, sheep and shepherds were a commonality of life, well known to all.
Sheep aren’t the easiest animals to keep. They prefer the rougher forage found on hillsides and mountainsides, more so than the tender grasses of lowland fields. They’re likely to get stuck in crags and fall into ravines in search of their favorite forage. And they’re hard on plant life, slicing off the plants they eat near the root -- so their grazing lands take longer to recover before another flock can graze them.
They are skittish, scared of predators, as the gospel today indicates. They’re easily scattered, whether in the search of food or safety, and the shepherd must go to great lengths, over rugged terrain, to gather them in, as all those Good Shepherd images imply.
So, suffice it to say, sheep are hard animals to manage. No wonder then, that the herder with less of an investment in the flock might abandon his charges when faced with difficulties. In fact, shepherds were somewhat notorious in Jesus’s day and since. For one thing, they spent a great deal of time away from other people, driving the sheep farther and farther away from civilizing influences in search of new grazing lands. Not a lot of opportunities to bathe or wash one’s clothes out on the mountainsides. No other company but equally rough-necked herders like yourself.
We can say, then, that herders of sheep have a rough life, and make a rough lot, uncouth perhaps if not uncivilized, with nothing but rapacious sheep, rough fellows and rugged terrain out of which to craft a life.
Not surprising then how insistent Jesus is in making clear that he’s not one of those unreliable ‘hired-hand’ shepherds. He is the Good Shepherd. He’s careful to make the distinction. He sets himself apart from the usual type of sheep herder.
So what makes a good shepherd? We might expect the Good Shepherd to take good care of the sheep, to be responsible, to do his job and do it well. But Jesus says there’s more to it than that. Jesus says that the Good Shepherd is one who lays down his life for the sheep. Gives up his own life for those hard to manage, wayward sheep.
That would have been an extraordinary sacrifice, a foolhardy one at the very least, for the average shepherd. But, of course, Jesus isn’t really talking about shepherds and sheep, not really. He’s talking about himself and he’s talking about us. He is our shepherd; and we are the sheep, we are the flock given him by the Father to tend.
And how like sheep we are… Desirous of the most hard to find, the most exotic, fodder, of course. Likely to take ourselves into real danger to sate our appetites, requiring rescue and redemption to restore us to the fold. Fearful and easily scattered when challenged, prone to flee anything that scares us; and needful of one to protect us and defend us, from the evil without, and from our own foolish ways. What shepherd would deign to lay down his very life for such a flock?
Jesus, the Good Shepherd… would and did… so that we might be saved from the repercussions of our worst behavior, freed from the consequences of the worst aspects of our nature. Saved from sin, and freed from death.
Amazing, isn’t it? Altogether astonishing when you consider it…
And what is asked of us in return, in recognition of having been granted such a good and giving shepherd to watch over us? What might we do to be sheep worthy of such a shepherd?
Two things, our second reading from John’s first Epistle tells us. First of all, we should recognize the love that God has for us, the love inherent in the act of self-sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross. John says that we should know love by that act; that the cross of Christ should be for us the definition of love, the very meaning of love.
And secondly, that we should pattern our lives in light of this love, in a reflection of this love. That we should ourselves love, “not in word or speech alone, but in truth and action.” Becoming ready, if need be, to lay down our lives for each other, as Jesus gave his life for us.
Now, it’s unlikely that you or I will be faced with such a challenge. Very unlikely indeed that we will be asked to give up our lives for another of our number. But we should acknowledge and affirm that the truest love that we have known is exactly that kind of sacrificial love.
So, surely, when asked, when given the opportunity, we can act in ways that demonstrate that that is our understanding of love. We should show forth by our actions that we know love is not just a feeling, or sweet words we might say. Love is not just a state of being, an emotion.
Love is a verb. It is truth and action, John says. Love is what we do. We measure love by what we give, not what we receive. We know our love is true, when it truly reflects, to whatever degree we muster, the love shown to us by Christ on the cross.
Such a good shepherd have we, one that would give his own life for such troublesome sheep. That is what has been given us, that is the breadth and depth of God’s love for us. What else could we need or desire?
Other than to recognize that God is love, and then to go forth to love and serve one another, in whatever way we can, in whatever pale reflection we can make of the great love shown to us in our creation, preservation and our redemption by Jesus Christ, the truly Good Shepherd of the sheep. +Amen.
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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