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SERMONS

Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2006

A number of years ago there was a great forest fire in Western Canada.

Homes and farms were left in ruins. A devastated farmer was walking through the remains, and there was nothing. Nothing left to look at, nothing to look forward to, nothing to do but to kick around the ashes of a life that had once been something.

The farmer came across a strange looking lump on the ground; he prodded it with a stick. It was a hen, burned to death. He flipped the hen over, and then suddenly, to his surprise, out scampered three chirping and golden baby chicks; little nuggets of gold in so much dust. This mother hen had died in the smoke and flames as she hovered over her babies that they might be protected.

"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

Jesus is telling his friends something about himself. When we look at the words closely, we see that our Lord is saying something about himself that also sounds like this: I am the beautiful shepherd. I am the fine shepherd. I am the noble shepherd. I am the useful shepherd. I am all these things; I am the good Shepherd because I lay down my life for the sheep.

Jesus is telling his friends that he is a different kind of shepherd than they have known, than they have read about in the Old Testament prophets.

Jesus is the shepherd that does not scatter. Rather, Jesus is the shepherd who gathers. He draws the flock toward him, and he protects them. He is the shepherd who risks his life so that others might find their own life.

He is the hen in the fire for us all.

Jesus' promise to be the good shepherd depends upon those who follow; upon those who would listen and hear his voice.

How well are we lead? How well do we follow?

There was a 16th Century priest and writer name Robert Burton who wrote a book called The Anatomy of Melancholy. It is an early description of what most of know as depression. He said that most of us, are nothing like sheep, rather we are like watermen, oarsmen in a boat, "who row one way and look another." Or people who drive cars looking one way and going another.

Sometimes our attention, our efforts, are divided. There are wolves in our midst.

Very often our Lord, the Good Shepherd, is saving us from wolves that we ourselves have invited into our lives. These are the times when ambition becomes something that is not healthy. Or, our pity is not so much a gift for others but reserved for ourselves. Anger and resentment become our most constant companions, but they will eventually become wolves that consume us and others.

There are also the moments when we are reminded with shocking clarity that for some good portion of our lives we actually only live for one thing, to have life go our own way.

And then there are the unexpected hurts and pains and struggles. Dangers we could not have foreseen, but which we must endure. There are the times we are frightened, we are scattered.

In the midst of our self-deception, or in the midst of the unexpected, Jesus comes to say, "you know you are mine, you know I have come for you, then follow me."

Following our Lord's voice is not the fulfillment of the promises that we have made to ourselves. We may have to enter some new and strange country following this shepherd. Our Good Shepherd does not promise that we will always travel in fascinating and beautiful places, or places that we might choose. There is no promise that the trouble and pain will not come.

The promise is that we will not face these alone. The promise is that the valley of the shadow of death, is just that; it is just a shadow. Our Good Shepherd is telling us often that we may look up in life and not know where we are, or what has happened, we may feel frightened, overwhelmed, but that when we are with him we are certainly never lost; he is our true north.

"Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."