Good Shepherd Sunday:  Easter 4a

This week we lay to rest one of our finest and then today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday.  If we feel things deeply, if we feel the sadness of real loss, we can’t help asking the question,

How can this shepherd be that good if we lose the ones we love?  How can this shepherd be that good, if tsunamis strike in the Indian Ocean and hurricanes devastate New Orleans.  How can our shepherd be that good when bad things happen to so many good people?  When you’re down and out and hope can’t be found,  sometimes we you can’t have hope but only the desire for hope. When I feel that way I turn to Chapter 5 of the book of revelation.  It talks about a scroll and inside that scroll are hidden the words of hope.  A powerful angel appears and shouts, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”  The question is asked but nobody answers. A search begins, high and low, to find the one who is worthy, and there is great and terrible sadness and hopelessness because we don’t see anyone to open the scroll of hope and to break its seals.  Then the angel breaks through the weeping and lost hope. He proclaims that there is one worthy, the Lion of Judah!  And we turn to look for this powerful creature. We’re looking for something or someone awesome and breathtaking, a lion wonderful and dreadful at the same time, maybe like Aslan the great and terrible Lion in the Narnia stories.  We are hoping for someone powerful, someone strong enough to restore our hope.  But the seer of Patmos tells us:

 

Then I turned and I saw a lamb standing that looked like it had been slain. 

 

We hoping for a lion, but the seer shows us a lamb.  We are hoping for great strength and power, but the seer shows us a lamb that is slain, a lamb that is slaughtered. We are hoping for the almighty one, the one worthy and able to explode the seals and unlock the treasures of lost hope and the seer shows us a lamb.  And not just a lamb but a lamb that has been sacrificed, a lamb that has been murdered and maimed and slaughtered.   But wait a minute, there’s another detail, a detail we could pass over so easily.   This lamb that has been slain is standing. The lamb that has been slaughtered is standing upright on its own four feet.  It’s not logical, it’s not rational, and it’s certainly not something that we hoped for; it’s the resurrection.  We want to hope, we want to know that whatever is precious to us will last.  We want to know that those who are dear to us endure.  We want good things for good people.  Our hope is a whisper.   The seer whispers in our ear that there is a slain lamb standing to remind us that one man did love us to the end.  Hope whispers that one man did bear all our grief and all our sorrows.  Hope whispers that one man did not return abuse for abuse, but entrusted his life purely to the Father.  Hope whispers He is risen indeed and this is enough for us.  The risen man we can trust.  The risen Lord we can follow.  This shepherd is the good shepherd because he is risen.  Because we hear this whisper, we can shout alleluia.

 

The resurrection is more than we hoped.  The message of the resurrection we never lose any one. Every thing that we hold dear, every thing we find beautiful, every love that has ever burned inside of us will never die.  Because he is risen, we can desire to hope and maybe even hope.  Because he is risen, he is in touch with us.  Because he knows our wounds, because he knows our loss, he also knows our desire for hope.  Because he is risen, he is our good shepherd, the one who leads us to hope and new life.  If the risen Lord leads us to the desire for hope, it is enough.  If the good shepherd leads us real hope it is a miracle to treasure.  Risen one, give us hope in you, and if not hope then at least the desire for hope.  You conquer our hearts, you bind our wounds.   Please give us some hope in you.  Amen.