Posts Tagged 'John 10:1-10'

For May 11, 2014: Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

The Reading            Acts 2:42-47

In last week’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter proclaimed Jesus in Jerusalem and thousands of people repented and were baptized. This week’s reading continues the story: signs and wonders abound, believers live and worship together, and everyone gladly and generously sees to everyone else’s needs.

The Response            Psalm 23

Psalm 23 resonates as both the soul’s response to God’s goodness and a foretelling of Jesus’ faithfulness to and beyond death. The shepherd’s rod helped him defend sheep from wolves and lions; the staff or shepherd’s crook served to guide the sheep. Anointing is a sign of the Lord’s chosen one.

The Epistle            1 Peter 2:19-25

The second chapter of the first letter of Peter is addressed to slaves: people who were accustomed to being beaten by their masters. Christians of the day were mostly marginalized people who had no control over their circumstances—but they could choose how to respond, and the epistle holds up Jesus as example.

The Gospel            John 10:1-10

Jesus’ disciples would have known that the sheepfold mentioned in John 10:1-10 was a walled enclosure into which all the flocks of a village were herded in the evening for protection; a shepherd would stretch himself out in the opening so that, through the night, no one could get in without his knowledge.



The fourth Sunday of Easter is known in some traditions as Good Shepherd Sunday; three of the four scripture texts contain references to sheep or shepherding. Psalm 23, of course, has the soul shepherded by the Lord; 1 Peter 2:25 contrasts a people straying like sheep with a people returned to the shepherd; John 10:1-10 develops the somewhat puzzling metaphor of Jesus as gate to the sheepfold, and other verses in John 10 proclaim Jesus as shepherd.

The exception to the rule of sheep in the texts is the reading from Acts. Perhaps, however, it can be read as a consequence of the other three. Psalm 23’s shepherd guides to good pasture, through death and beyond, and blesses the soul in the face of enemies. The slaves in 1 Peter’s audience—who can expect to be beaten for little to no reason—are bidden to bear it without complaint because they have returned to the shepherd who blesses them. In John, Jesus the sheepfold gate protects and ultimately lays down his life for the sheep—but also empowers the sheep to have life abundantly. Acts 2:42-47, for its part, surely shows what happens when God’s flock follows God in love: goods suffice, but more importantly love abounds in those who are willing to change their hearts and follow.

What if Jesus the shepherd calls us to be not just his sheep but also his fellow shepherds? What if each Christian is a gate through which God’s lost sheep can be gathered in love?


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