4 th Sunday of Easter – B

When my family moved to Virginia in 1978, we became members of Good Shepherd Parish in Mount Vernon , and so for the past 25 years or more, the image of Jesus as a Good Shepherd has held a very special place in my heart.

Some people are a little uncomfortable with the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, because the consequence of that image is to regard us, the members of the Church, as sheep, and sheep are, after all, animals whose intelligence and whose hygiene are both questionable, to say the least.

In a world, too, in which leadership is admired, and following is sometimes criticized, especially when followers do so uncritically, the image of ourselves as sheep again is not very appealing.

But I believe that the image of the Good Shepherd is a beautiful image for us to contemplate, both as an image of who Jesus is for us and of who we are meant to be for others.

Jesus speaks of Himself as a Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. Jesus laid down His life for us in an ultimate way in His death on the cross – a death He suffered willingly for us, as He said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own, … and I will take it up again.”

But Jesus laid His life down for us in other ways besides His death on the cross. In His tireless work, His preaching, teaching, healing, and forgiving, in His willingness to suffer misunderstanding and even persecution, in His patience and generosity with His time and energy, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, laid down His life for His sheep.

In our Baptism, and in our particular vocations, we too are all called to imitate the example of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and lay down our lives for others. As priests serving in parishes, as religious living in communities and serving in apostolates, as married people helping their spouses and their children to grow in holiness, as widows, divorced people, and single people who have never been married sharing life and love with relatives, neighbors, and friends, we have a variety of opportunities to lay down our lives for others.

We lay down our lives for others when may make a special effort to remember in our prayers the people who have asked us to pray for them and the people we have promised to pray for. We lay down our lives for others when we are patient, generous, and selfless in sharing our time, our energy, and our attention with others, especially those who are most in need of these gifts. We lay down our lives for others when we persevere through misunderstanding and sometimes even rejection for the sake of bearing witness to our faith and leading others to a deeper knowledge and love of Jesus and His gospel.

There are times when we would have to admit that our own human weaknesses, our frailty, our sinfulness make us good candidates to be known as the sheep of the flock of Jesus.

But during this Easter season when we reflect on how we continue the work of the risen Lord in the midst of our Church today, it is also possible for us to see how we can live lives that reflect the love of the Good Shepherd in our relationships with others.

Let us give thanks that our risen Lord Jesus is indeed a Good Shepherd to us.

Let us not be afraid to admit the faults and failings that make the image of sheep an appropriate one to describe our relationship to Him.

Let us also be grateful that we have been called in Baptism and in our own particular vacations to share the love of the Good Shepherd with others, especially in all that we do to lay down our lives, and share our time and talent, our attention and love with those who are most in need of these gifts which we and the Good Shepherd have to share with them.

Thomas P. Ferguson
May 7, 2006