Fourth Sunday of Easter
No story touches our hearts more than Jesus, the Good Shepherd. At times we feel Lost, broken, cowering. Yet, we, the lost sheep, may find ourselves healed, saved, freed from the onslaught of fear, feeling forsaken. Relief overwhelms us as Jesus delivers us from our captivity. As a soul enslaved in a prison, oppressed by the weight of our sin, abandoned in the clefts of the rocks, Jesus smashes the gates, reaching in and pulls us out of our misery. Yet, to understand the cost that the Good Shepherd willingly pays mystifies the mind.
The Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep, loves us greater than the totality of our sinfulness. In fact, his love is greater than the totality of all the sins of the whole world, for all time. In his love, He willingly sacrifices everything reconciling, reuniting, and resolving the most sensitive and shameful sufferings we may endure. The Good Shepherd fearlessly engages in the fray—the battle—against evil to free us from being forsaken.
His goodness recognizes our neediness, and in his sheer goodness, He reveals dauntless courage to find then save us. As the Good Shepherd, we are never abandoned, no matter how forsaken we may feel. The price of our salvation never costs too much because He wants to give us everything He has. He gifts us his totality: the infinite treasure of his love and goodness. If He, Jesus, declares Himself the Good Shepherd and willingly searches endlessly to makes us his own, despite the most difficult trials and challenges, ought not we trust in Him?
Ezekiel describes the inscrutable love the Good Shepherd has. In his prophetic voice, he exposes the bad shepherds who break trust. In contrast, the Good Shepherd earns our trust becoming the sheep gate protecting us from evil. Bad shepherds do not protect. They abuse and, in their authority, think they are privileged. They, entitled, demand from others what they themselves should give (Eze 34:4). Because of their corruption, the Good Shepherd intervenes. God sends his Son, the Good Shepherd Who “will search for my sheep, and will seek them out” (Eze 34:11). He will rescue, gather, and feed us as a good shepherd must. The Good Shepherd comes and gathers those scattered and shattered by the evils that plague our world. He has compassion upon our weakness, sickness, and brokenness because, as St. John tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8).
Jesus the Good Shepherd comes calling. His voice penetrates the superficiality of Satan’s power to shame us. With these simple words, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), Jesus’ voice breaks the bars and chains which imprison us in cells of humiliation and desperation. He remedies the poison infecting our hearts: envy, which comes from the evil one (Wis 2:24). He offers us the cure: Perfect Love (I John 4:18). In love, the Good Shepherd invites us to repent, that is acknowledge we are lost, forlorn because of the evils we face. We need healing. After we admit our need, opening our hearts to his perfect love, He strengthens us giving us his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, Who breathes divine love into our broken hearts.
Jesus’ death upon the cross reveals the intensity and severity of the obsession, oppression, and possession that evil holds upon us. Yet, as daunting as evil seems: Lucifer who tries to corrupt us, by dominating and manipulating with his voice, Jesus’ power is even more. He, upon the cross, destroys the source of our sin and the intense sorrows that follow.
Isaiah explains the cost God willingly pays to infuse his powerful, perfect love into our hearts. He, as the Good Shepherd, will be despised, rejected, become a man of suffering, and acquainted with infirmity. He will not be held in esteem but cursed and killed by his own people. The image of Jesus as the Davidic Shepherd who triumphantly enters Jerusalem as King of Jerusalem tragically changes because the prophecy of Good Shepherd unveils the other prophecy. Jesus is the Suffering Servant, Who lovingly
“has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities (Is 53:4–5).
God so humbled himself, emptying himself of any semblance of human likeness, being disfigured and defiled by his own people. Jesus completely shamed by the religious ruling class knew better than to let their shame and sin destroy Himself. He had the tenacity to absorb the buffets of their abuse, the strength to endure the pounding of their blows, and the foresight to see the purpose of his punishment. He was punished, not by God, but by the sum total of all sin of all of history because “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Is 53:11). His disfigurement is our transfigurement. Or Isaiah declares, “by his bruises we are healed” (Is 53:5; 1 Pet 2:24).
As his lost sheep, amazed and awed of his sacrificial love, we ought to look to Jesus to take away our shame, free us from our sorrows, and be freed from the shackles of our slavery. Restored, we recall, God keeps his covenant that He made with his people, forever. He never abandons us but is with us until the end of time, the good times and bad. The question arises, do we grasp the price Jesus willingly pays for our salvation? He does more than just lay down his life out of love for us. He embraces the totality of all sin, as displayed in the shameful crucifixion only to restore our righteousness.
Jesus, the Righteous One, did not return insult for insult, shame for shame, but offered forgiveness for the insults and divine dignity for satanic shame. Instead of confronting and challenging his persecutor, the evil one who comes to shame him, Jesus embraces his death, silently suffering. In this humility and docility, He destroyed evil at its source, the raw envy of the Evil One. In his death, He swallows this envy and achieves total victory for us(I Cor 15:54).
If Jesus Who is in the likeness of God becomes one like us though without sin, then we who are unlike God through sin become like God when we accept the power of his perfect love. Jesus restores forgiving us of all our sin and shame as He dies upon the cross. Sin and shame abolished, we see who we are. Who are we? We are sons and daughters of the Father. As St. John Paull II tells us, we are the sum total of the Father’s love.
The Father’s love pains to see us lost and forsaken. The remedy, as explained by this proverb tells us, God is impassible: He does not experience emotional pain as we do, but is not apathetic: He is able to empathize with our suffering. In his human nature, Jesus becomes like us a lost lamb who suffers. His sufferings, his passion and death, visualizes our sufferings. Dying the horrific death upon a cross: naked, humiliated, defiled; yet He willingly offered Himself as a sacrificial offering to restore our divine adoption.
Humbled by his love, we become lambs, docile to his loving Spirit. This Spirit leads us to the slaughter. Not the slaughter that condemns, but Christ’ Spirit slaughtering then healing our deepest
sorrows. He purges all that distorts us of our true beauty and goodness. This purging, painful as it is, restores our dignity. If accepted as his divine gift, the suffering we endure, which separates us from sin, reveals the truth of who we are: the image and likeness of our Father.
Lucifer, others, or even ourselves do not define our worth. Our dignity comes from Christ Who died for us to take away our sorrow and restore our divine adoption: no matter what we have done or what has been done to us. We are children of the Father. He and He alone affirms and confirms us.
Our Humanity so cherished, Jesus, the Good Shepherd humbles Himself to become like us in everything but sin so that everything that is shameful, sorrowful, and sinfulness in us may be cleansed. Cleansed, now we who were once fallen are now restored, filled with divine glory.
Our healing and protection is God’s desire. Our desire, then ought to be his desire for us. Our Father, as the psalmists says, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; . . . take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4-5). Divine love fulfills every human desire. Fulfilled, nothing separates us from his love and nothing will stop his mission because Jesus came that we “may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). How do we know this, Jesus confirms and affirms his love declaring: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn 10:10–11).