Fourth Sunday of Easter 2022

Acts 9.36–43

Psalm 23

Revelation 7.9–17

John 10.22–30

I think one of the low points of singing at school for me was singing the May Day song Nymphs and Shepherds come away, a poem by Thomas Shadwell, set to music by Henry Purcell. It wasn’t just that the tune was hard to learn (it was) but that the words were so prissy and unreal. I associated shepherds with the hills and valleys of South Wales, and knew their life was a hard one. Not the romantic idyll portrayed by so many neoclassical pictures in the National Gallery with a ruined temple in the background, sheep peacefully feeding in the middle distance and shepherds and pretty girls having a picnic in the foreground. Something is equally wrong with most of the mental pictures we conjure up when Jesus is described as ‘The Good Shepherd’. We have a good example in a stained glass window in the South Porch here at Christ Church. A rather noble and very white European looking shepherd holds in his arm a fluffy lamb. It’s an image that makes us feel, I’d suggest, a bit warm and gooey. We want to say  ‘Ah, that’s nice’. We are the lamb, and we’re help gently and lovingly in Christ’s arms. It’s an appealing picture to hold onto, and it has merit, of course. We should remember however, that one of the earliest pictures of God as a shepherd (we’ve read it today, Psalm 23) comes about because King David who wrote it started life as a shepherd, but what he is remembered for is not cuddling up to cute lambs, but for his skills as a warrior and a leader of warriors. We think of shepherds and we think of peaceful scenes. King David, I’d say, understood his duty as a shepherd of his people as the duty to protect them with his warfighting skills and to lead them into battle. A Shepherd is a warlike image, as much as a peaceful one. The novel C.S. Forrester must have realised as much when he wrote his novel The Good Shepherd about a warship on convoy duty in the Atlantic in the 2nd World War. The ship and its ship’s company shepherded a flock of merchant ships, but the situation was far from peaceful. At any moment a straggler could become the target of an enemy submarine and exploded in a ball of fire.

Jesus is saying much the same in today’s Gospel reading when he describes himself as the Good Shepherd and then goes on to say that What his Father has given him is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. What God the Father has given him is a mission, to save human beings from their sin and from sin’s power. What God the GFather has also given him is us, and together this mission and the men and women that mission will save are more important to him than anything else, and no one is going to snatch either the mission or the people away from him. Jesus has waged war on sin and  has won the great battle of the cross. Psalm 127 describes that moment being like when a man who is trapping birds has his snares broken. The snare is broken and we have escaped. It’s the decisive moment of the war on sin, but it doesn’t stop our ancient enemy snatching whatever advantage he can from the hands of Jesus the conqueror. It is as if the devil knows he cannot win pitched battles. For him they are all lost in the moment of the cross, but he can get back at us, and at Jesus and at God, by a campaign of insurgency or terrorism.  And that’s the background for the story of Tabitha or Dorcas from the Book of Acts.

I have loved this story since I was a choirboy in Llandaff Cathedral. During sermons my mind would wander and one of the places where my eyes would turn was to another stained glass window, showing Dorcas or Tabitha. She was clearly a wonderful, clever and kind-hearted woman. The grief of the widows she supported with her sewing is clearly deeply felt. They want to show the beautiful garments she had made for them, or maybe she showed them how to make them so they could support themselves with the skill. Again, here comes that warm gooey feeling again, we want to say ‘Ah, that’s nice’, wouldn’t it be nice if a nice person like that could be restored so she could go on doing nice things for other people? I’m pretty convinced this is not the point of the story at all. Instead, what has happened here is an injustice. Dorcas, one of Jesus’s followers, one of his faithful has indeed been snatched from his hand. It shouldn’t have happened, because Jesus has won this war with sin and death, yet the battle may be one, but our old enemy’s struggle against us grinds on, and Dorcas is singled out as a target for the devil’s acts of rebellion against God, and down she goes. Everyone is shocked, tearful, deep in mourning for her and fearful for what it means, that death and sin still have power, still can defeat us when we least expect it.  It is an injustice, and Peter who has replaced Jesus as the Shepherd is expected to do something about this injustice, to prove that God has really won the victory and that this squirmish should demonstrate the devil’s power, but in fact expose his weakness. So St Peter prays for Dorcas, and then tells her to get up, and presumably to get on with the works of mercy that she had been doing before she died.

If we are reminded of Jesus recalling the little girl from death, or calling Lazarus from his grave, we are meant to be. The little maid was restored to life, and I hope she lived a long and happy life before she died naturally. It’s the same with Lazarus. This is not the resurrection, he will die again, and then in God’s time he will experience the Resurrection, on the last day. But these miracles of life being restored are foretastes of resurrection for Dorcas, for Lazarus, for the little girl raised from their death beds. They prove that God is in control, that he has won the battle, that the Resurrection is his to grant to those who have believed in his name. They are a foretaste or downpayment of Resurrection for the Dorcas, Lazarus and the little girl just as Jesus being raised from the dead is a guarantee or downpayment of our our own resurrection.

‘God is in control, even if you might think otherwise’ is the subtext of all our readings today. The one reading I’ve left out until now is really the clincher. Jesus is described here not as the Shepherd, but as the Lamb. Oh oh, here we go again, those warm gooey feelings. Lambs are soft and fluffy, gentle and playful. But this is a lamb like we have never seen one before, a lamb who is a warrior who has led his people in battle, a lamb who has shed his own blood in battle as any great leader must be prepared to do, and made his followers white and pure with his blood. This is a lamb takes the side of the other lambs and sheep, because he has been one too, hye has been part of the human flock, but this is Christ our Passover Lamb who is now glorified with God, and leads and governs us as our Good Shepherd. In his care we will be loved, fed, directed and protected. Thanks be to God, Amen