Fourth Sunday of Easter: April 29, 2007.

Acts 9:36-43

Psalm 23

Revelation 7:9-17

John 10:22-30

The church has long observed one of the Sundays in the Easter season as Good Shepherd Sunday. Traditionally, it was the Second Sunday after Easter [sic], "Misericordias Domini." Since the advent of the three-year lectionary it has become this, the middle Sunday of the season. In either event, the emphasis on this theme preserves an important image, especially given its usage in today's well-known psalm. The challenges to the preacher include clarification of what the Bible means by God (or Christ) as "shepherd," a task that inevitably entails "making strange" some very familiar and beloved texts. It is also incumbent on the preacher to make manifest what this image has to do with Easter.

Perhaps one should start with the psalm, however infrequently it may serve as the text for the sermon. Volumes have been written in an effort to acquaint moderns with the realities of ovine husbandry. For present purposes, the emphasis falls not on the sheep but the shepherd. One simply must keep in mind that in the ancient Near East, since at least the time of Sargon the Great of Akkad (ca. 2300 B.C.), "shepherd" had been a royal title, implying both care and control of the ruled (see Jer 23:1-8 and Ezekiel 34 for OT examples). The point is that to say "The LORD is my shepherd" is to call to mind power far more than gentleness. The same "rod" (Heb. shebet) that comforts in Ps 23:4 can also "shepherd" much more forcefully in Ps 2:9 (reading tir'em with LXX rather than MT tero'em, "smash"). The meek-faced "Good Shepherd" of much Christian iconography is the product of romantic imagination, not historical reality or careful exegesis.

We turn, then, to the readings for the day. No surprise, the passage from John 10 comes from the "I am the good shepherd" chapter of that book (v. 11). Actually, however, it does not come from Jesus' speech but relates an incident that followed soon thereafter. The setting is Hanukkah (the text's "festival of the Dedication"), which recalled the deliverance of Jerusalem from the brutal Syrian Hellenizer Antiochus IV Epiphanes by forces led by Judas Maccabee in 165 B.C. Like Passover, which celebrated Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the history behind the festival stood in painful contrast to the present reality of Roman occupation. Therefore, the challenge to Jesus to say openly whether or not he was the Messiah could simply be understood in the context of raw patriotic emotion. However, as one of my seminary professors suggested, there may be more to it than that. The account of the rededication of the temple in 1 Maccabees 4 describes a problem presented by the altar, which the Syrians had defiled with a "desolating sacrilege" (1 Macc 1:54): "They deliberated what to do about the altar of burnt offering, which had been profaned.... So they tore down the altar, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until a prophet should come to tell what to do with them" (4:44-46).

It may well be that, in fact, it was this issue that provoked the challenge to Jesus, "If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). But are these words intended as a trap or as encouragement? In part, the answer depends on how one understands "if" (Gk. ei). It could be a straightforward conditional, suggesting an effort to induce a response that could be cited as seditious, but it could also shade into a postulate, with the effect of "since" (cf. v. 35; see BDAG, p. 219, for discussion). Moreover, usually "the Jews" (John's oft-discussed hoi Ioudaioi) are Jesus' opponents in John's Gospel. Yet this particular account follows immediately upon an instance of division in their ranks: "the Jews were divided because of these words [viz., the 'Good Shepherd' discourse]" (v. 19). The immediate context therefore suggests that some hearts may have been inclining in Jesus' direction (and even in the case of diehard opponents, there is always the possibility of Johannine dramatic irony).

In sum, whether v. 24 is heard with malice or with hope, Jesus' response shifts the burden back onto the inquisitors. Unlike Mark's Jesus, in John Jesus has made no secret of his identity from the start: "I have told you" (v. 25). Jesus has spoken by his works as well as his words (v. 25; Gk. erga, certainly including the "signs," semeia, to be climaxed in the next chapter by the raising of Lazarus). Those who hear and believe are Jesus' "sheep," and he is already giving them eternal life (Gk. present tense didomi). In brief, Jesus is described as incorporating his flock into the resurrection, even before he himself has experienced it. The gift is guaranteed by the Father, with whom Jesus is "one [thing]" (Gk. hen, neuter; see R. Brown's commentary [Anchor Bible 29; Doubleday, 1966] for a pithy discussion of the significance of this word in later Trinitarian debates).

The First Reading continues the series from Acts, coming from later in the same chapter as last week's account of the conversion of St. Paul. There are no literal references to sheep or shepherds in this text, and one must take care not to go into the hotel furniture business with Procrustes. The connection with Easter is clear enough, however. Peter's words "Tabitha, get up" (v. 40) recall the very sound of Jesus' raising of Jairus' daughter ("Talitha, cum"; Mark 5:41) as well as Jesus' own resurrection, because Peter's verb, anistemi, is the same one used often in reference to it. As in the Markan account, there is a bilingual aspect built into the text, with a Greek translation provided for Jesus' words (in Mark) and Tabitha's name (in Acts)--a subtle reminder of the multicultural nature of the church, even in its days as a Jewish "Jesus movement" (cf. Acts 6:1). If one is to reach for a connection to this Sunday's theme, it is finally not that far a stretch: The actions of both Tabitha/Dorcas and Peter remind us that the Good Shepherd often cares for his flock through others and that he has a special place in his heart for those who are of low degree and in need.

The passage from Revelation, like the First Reading, moves on from last week's, in this case by taking us from the opening words of praise for the Lamb to renewed worship between the breaking of the sixth and seventh (and final) seals on the scroll. In brief, the reading would reassure those caught in the calm (or not-so-calm) before the storm. This passage makes explicit what is implicit in John's Gospel--that the Pascal Lamb has become the Good Shepherd (v. 17). Indeed, the same verse confirms that the book's repeated references "to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb" (e.g., v. 10) are, in fact, to one entity, "the Lamb at the center of the throne" (cf. hen in John 10:30).

As usual in Revelation, Old Testament references and allusions abound. The promise of protection from hunger, thirst, sun, and scorching heat paraphrases exilic Isaiah's words of comfort (49:10), while the assurance of wiping away tears recalls Isaiah's "little apocalypse" and specifically the immediately preceding words therein, "he will swallow up death forever" (25:8). In the midst of these comes the first act of the Lamb/shepherd, "he will guide them to springs of the water of life" (including sweet water, not salty tears). We have come full circle, back to the psalm: "he leads me beside still waters" (Ps 23:2; cf. John 4:10).

"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" (v. 13). One of the elders asks this rhetorical question of the seer. That is, who is the "their" of "their shepherd" in v. 17? It is an innumerable, oecumenical host (v. 9; contra those who would take the 144,000 of vv. 4-8 literalistically). They participate in a Palm Sunday that has no Passion Week to follow. The multitude consists of those who have come through death and fates worse than death ("the great ordeal") and who have now washed and whitened their robes in a baptism of blood--of the Lamb. (Speaking of "great reversals," one of the worst known staining agents becomes the finest of all detergents in God's economy!) Their two acclamations to God and the Lamb basically echo the two in last week's Second Reading, only reversing their order and substituting "thanksgiving" for "wealth" (vv. 10-12; cf. 5:12f.). After all of the privation and exposure, the white-robed martyrs of the Te Deum worship 24/7 in the temple, while God shelters (lit., "tabernacles") them forever. History has not yet played itself out to the end, yet already they are victors. Just like the faithful of all times and places. GCH