Worship Notes Good Shepherd Sunday May 11

Worship Notes

The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

May 11, 2014

The Season

We are half way through our fifty days of Easter, singing throughout the season, “Alleluia! Christ is risen! Alleluia!” If we had put away our Alleluias for forty days during Lent—and we did—we more than make up for it during the season of the Sundays of Easter! While the last remnants of the Easter baskets have long disappeared, our joyful Alleluias are still with us.

In Word

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is always “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Jesus is our Good Shepherd.

As noted last Sunday in the Worship Notes, we take our First Lesson from Acts rather than from the Old Testament throughout the Sundays of Easter. On the first three Sundays, we heard the Apostle Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit after the event of Pentecost, preaching Jesus as the crucified Messiah, whom God raised up. Today we see a glimpse of the result of Peter’s powerful preaching in the description of the activities of the followers of Jesus: they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . . and had all things in common . . . and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people” (Acts 2:42-46). This snapshot has defined the Church throughout the centuries.

Psalm 23 is always sung on Good Shepherd Sunday, regardless of the cycle of year A, B, or C in the lectionary. The Lord, our Shepherd, is always with us: the words “. . . for you are with me . . .” locate the precise midpoint in the psalm.

The Apostle Peter remembered that Jesus had claimed, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Peter writes in our Second Lesson, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). Peter himself had “gone astray,” having denied Jesus three times, and yet Jesus sought him out, commissioning Peter, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17b). Evidently, those who stray are in good company and may even receive a commission!

While Jesus makes the astonishing claim, “I am the good shepherd,” in verse 11 of chapter 10 of John, today our Gospel reading stops with verse 10. Jesus claims, “I am the gate for the sheep. . . . Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture” (vss. 7b, 9b). Jesus, as the “gate,” denies entry to the “thief” who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (vs. 10a). Jesus, on the other hand, insists, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (vs. 10b). Whether “gate” or “shepherd,” Jesus has the wellbeing of his sheep first and foremost in his mind. He has laid down his life for them—for us!  

In Song

“Have No Fear, Little Flock” (ELW 764) takes its first stanza from Luke 12:32, while the remaining stanzas were penned by Marjorie Jillson, who struggled throughout her adult life with thyroid disease and died in 2010. These remarkably cheerful verses come from her personal experience: “What I learned from my own illness is that God will restore you, even if your body has to die first.” Her Patterns of Light is a collection of poems with the conviction that “we belong to God.”