4th Sunday of Easter April 21, 2024

Readings: Acts 4:8-12 ; 1John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

The gentle message of the Lord today is applicable to all, the rich and the poor, the well and the infirm, the young and the old, leaders and followers, saints and sinners. No one is to be excluded from Jesus’ sheepfold and all are lovingly invited to it. The shepherd knows his sheep, Jesus says, and he knows each of us. Nothing is hidden from God’s sight, so we can never pretend to be other that what we are: a flock that has been loved into being. As individuals, endowed with free will, we are capable of straying from the fold and seeking our own will rather than God’s. However, the good shepherd never leaves the flock untended, and is always seeking the return of the stray, finding the lost and the discouraged among the sheep.

Expressed another way, God continually gives grace so that we, the sheep of God’s flock, may truly adhere to the one thing necessary, that is, participation in God’s life, which Jesus came to give us to the full by dying a bitter death yet rising from the dead. “By his wounds you were healed,” says Saint Peter in his First Letter, chapter 2, verse 24. Could there be a richer consolation for our weary hearts?

Our Good Shepherd knows our needs, shares our experiences, and is in communion with his flock. Because of this, we have confidence that we are never left without the help of a loving and saving God. As a flock gathers around its shepherd, we are called to assemble in worship with our Good Shepherd, Jesus, who feeds us with the finest wheat, and pours himself out for us.

At the Eucharist we truly “taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” as the psalmist expressed it so well in Psalm 34(33):8, when we partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion. Jesus assures us, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).

Fr. Terry