And We, Like Sheep…: 25 April, 2021
So familiar are we in the church with Jesus as Good Shepherd—however remote from real life the bucolic imagery of sheep and shepherds may be for most of us—that it is easy to miss the utterly radical implications of Jesus claiming for himself this moniker. “Good Shepherd” is God language in the Hebrew Bible, one of the most frequent metaphors for God used in Scripture. To find Jesus invoking the title for himself is blasphemous from a traditional Jewish point of view. –– John Rollefson
John 10:11-18
Israel had a special fondness for the seminomadic life of herdsmen. It is not surprising that they imaged God as the ideal shepherd of the people. It is not surprising that John’s Jesus, whose discourses highlight his role in God’s design for humanity, would apply the image of shepherd to himself. . . . It seems likely that John understood the hired hands to be the religious authorities in Jerusalem who were compromised by alliances with the Romans. Much in today’s society functions in ways similar to the wolf and hired hand.
The message here is that Jesus deeply loves his own (Israel) as well as the gentiles (the sheep not of this fold). It speaks of the universal significance of the life that Jesus laid down by his crucifixion in fulfillment of God’s design. It also speaks of God’s love for the shepherd who freely gives his life and then takes it up again to continue as the shepherd who guides his flocks. This is a passage that speaks to Jesus’s abiding guidance of his followers. –– Regina A. Boisclair
1 John 3:16-24
Just as Christ laid down his life, his followers must also lay down their lives for one another. God will abandon those who are able that fail to assist other believers in need. This is a call to love with deeds, not well-wishing words. This selection claims that one knows one belongs to God when one’s heart does not accuse one of sin. It maintains that the Spirit discloses God’s assurance to those who keep the commands, believe in Jesus, and live with love for others. –– Regina A. Boisclair
Acts 4:5-12
Once again the reading features one of Peter’s speeches from Acts. The selection in the Revised Common Lectionary situates the speech before the Sanhedrin. It followed a night when Peter was under custody of the temple leaders who were disturbed by Peter’s speech to a crowd. That speech was the Gospel proclaimed last Sunday. Both lectionaries report that Peter was filled with the Spirit when he addressed the leaders, elders, scribes, and high priests regarding the healing at the gates of the temple (Acts 3:1–8).
In his account Peter claims the man was saved in the name of Jesus, whom they had crucified, and that God had raised Jesus from the dead. He identifies Jesus as the rejected stone that became the cornerstone—a citation from Psalm 118:22 that was a popular Christological image in the early church. The identification of healing with salvation is significant in a passage that does not explicitly associate its soteriological insight with the crucifixion. –– Regina A. Boisclair
John Rollefson, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has served congregations in Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.
Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.
Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008): 127-135.