Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2004 Acts 13:14, 43-52 Revelation 7:9, 14b-17 John 10:27-30	Listen to Audio

The “Good Shepherd” is a familiar and much-loved image of Jesus. Some of the favorite pictures of Jesus as Good Shepherd can only be described as “nice” or “sweet” or “comforting.” Yet, as Jesus speaks of himself, the idea of the “Good Shepherd” is a challenging, even uncomfortable one: the Good Shepherd who sacrifices his life for his sheep, and calls his followers to do the same.

I have two personal favorite images of Jesus as Good Shepherd. One is a recent painting that hangs in our rectory chapel. It is very much a part of my prayer every morning – including my daily prayer for you, and for me that I may be faithful each day to the Lord’s call to be your shepherd in his name. This is a very simple picture, even somewhat crudely painted, but the face of Jesus in the picture, and especially the eyes, convey an impression of deep suffering and infinite compassion. Exactly the same picture as painted in words by the Gospels.

My other favorite is the statue of Jesus the Good Shepherd in the Vatican Museum in Rome. It’s a well-preserved marble statue that was carved less than two centuries after Jesus, making it one of the oldest images of Jesus that we have. It was found in the catacombs in the eighteen hundreds, and doesn’t look anything like the Good Shepherd we are used to seeing on holy cards or prayer books. In fact, the statue seems to be modeled after a Roman god, Apollo perhaps, except that its symbolism is unmistakably Christian. Christ is a muscular, beardless young man, in a knee-length garment tied at the waist, with a utility bag slung from his shoulder. He is carrying a lamb draped across his shoulders. The lamb appears to be looking at Jesus’ face with a sense of confidence, while Jesus himself is looking outward, as if caring for his other sheep as well – the viewer: you and me.

Both images are on the home page of our parish website, if you’d like to check them out. In the light of these images of the Good Shepherd, I’d like to make two points derived from our readings today.

The first is that, in today’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes both his power and protection: his own sheep who know him and hear his voice, he will “give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” He goes onto say that no one can take them out of his hand. This means that there is danger of perishing, there is danger of being snatched out his hand the way a wolf snatches a lamb out of its fold to get a tasty dinner.

Salvation is a central concept of our Christian faith, yet we often use that word without a sense of what we are being saved from. The meaning of original sin is that, left to ourselves, we are in Satan’s domain; we are subject to great evil that we can do nothing about. Jesus is the only one who can. Perhaps if we recognized more clearly the depth and the extent of the evil we have been saved from, the power of Satan’s realm, we would understand the greatness of God’s love manifested in Jesus’ care for us, and we would be more ready to hear his voice.

And that leads to my second point: last week in the Gospel, we heard Jesus three time responding to Simon Peter’s profession of love with the words, “Feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep.” Jesus speaks these words to us as well as to Simon Peter. Often, Jesus made it clear that his followers must show their love by being like him. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he said at one time. “Give freely as you have freely received,” he said at another. It’s unmistakable, love must be shown in action.

As we are aware of Jesus’ loving care for us as our Good Shepherd, so each of us, in one way or another, must be for others what he is for us.

St. Gregory the Great became one of the successors of Peter as Bishop of Rome and therefore Pope in 590 AD, and is frequently described as a true shepherd, caring for the poor and strengthening the faith of his people. In a homily he gave to his people he once said: “Ask yourselves whether you belong to his flock, whether you know him, whether the light of his truth shines in your minds. I assure you that it is not by faith that you will come to know him, but by love; not by mere conviction, but by action.”

May these words continue to come alive among us even today.

© Thomas Welbers 2004

Here are some useful links, which provide material for the study of these liturgical readings, and reflections on their message:

The Text This Week, Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Daily Word of Life

The Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University

Lectionary Resource for Catholics