The Good Shepherd's Promise

Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

Psalm 23; John 10.11-18

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 23:30)

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Here at the mid-point of Eastertide, we make a transition. Leaving behind the accounts of Christ’s post-resurrection appearances and shifting our focus to some of Jesus’ teachings about what the reality of his resurrection means to us in our relationship with him and with God. We start off these teachings with some of the best known and most beloved scripture readings depicting that relationship: images of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Primarily the 23^rd Psalm and a portion of Jesus’ declaration of himself as the Good Shepherd from the Gospel according to John.

 

The 23^rd Psalm is one of the most well-known, if not THE most well-known of the Psalms. We hear this Psalm several times a year in Sunday worship, as well as it being the most commonly used Psalm at funerals. Largely because it provides words of comfort, as well as assurance of the love, mercy, and goodness of our Lord who shepherds us in life, as well as in death. Of course, being written prior to the birth of Jesus, the Lord who is identified as shepherd in the 23^rd Psalm is a reference to God and not to Jesus Christ per se. Although, in our Christian tradition and with our understanding of the trinitarian nature of God, we are able to expand our interpretation of this image of the Old Testament God to include Jesus.

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Woundedness

Third Sunday of Easter (Year B)

Luke 24.36b-48

St. Gregory’s, Long Beach

Live Streamed on Parish Facebook page (beginning at 19:30)

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

We are not even halfway through the season of Easter, in which we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, and yet today we hear the last of the post-resurrection appearances for the season. While there are seven weeks in Eastertide, we cannot really spend all our time focusing on Christ’s post-resurrection appearances. There are, after all, a limited number of these appearances and they are, for the most part, all the same—although each does have its own nuances. So, at some point, we have to move on. That being the case, the Gospel readings for the remaining Sundays in Eastertide will focus on Jesus’ teachings about our relationship with God, particularly in light of the mystery of the resurrection. Which makes this Sunday’s Gospel a bridge, of sorts. A bridge between Christ’s post-resurrection appearances and what the resurrection means for us—for those of us living post-resurrection. And something of how we experience this resurrected life.

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