I was recently reading
about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. Most of these
early American leaders were religious people, indeed they put “In God We
Trust,” on our bills, however at the
same time most of them embraced a theology that said God was very distant from
the individual. In other words: God created mankind and is available for major
emergencies, but He doesn’t get involved with an individual person’s problems
or even his or her life[1].
And you know it
is very easy for us to fall in the same way of thinking, especially when we
consider some of our Easter formulas. For example, we say, correctly, “Jesus
died on the cross to save mankind from sin.” Or, “He saved us from the power of
the devil.” True again. But if we stop there, we could easily become people worshiping
a distant but uninvolved God. Jesus does more than just care for mankind in
general. He cares for us as individuals. No one is insignificant to Him. There
is nothing about any of our lives, no situation, no event, no concern, no fear,
no joy that the Lord does not want to embrace. If we give it to Him, He makes
our needs His needs. He loves every part of each one of our lives.
And to remember
this very well, the liturgy presents this fourth Sunday of Easter the Gospel of
the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd cares
for each one of His Sheep. He lays down His life for His sheep; I mean Jesus
didn’t just die for mankind in general. No. He died for you and for me. He knows
His sheep: He knows you and He knows me, in fact, He knows us better than we
know ourselves. He knows everything that has affected our lives from the days
when we were in our mothers’ wombs.
And He saves us
from our sins. Each of us. When I come upon that expression, “He saves us from
our sins,” I’m tempted to limit this to something like “I can go to heaven because
of the Blood of Jesus.” And that is true. But
there is more, so much more: What would we be like without Jesus?
Ask yourselves
this question this morning, and be honest. At least I can imagine the things
that I would be doing. I consider the sins I commit now and am embarrassed to
realize that if this is how I behave when I have Jesus’ grace, how would I
behave if I didn’t treasure His grace? It
is scary! Left to our own devices, left to focusing on ourselves, life
becomes frightening.
Add to all this the
effects of our sins on us. Well, Christ the Good Shepherd saves us from these
too…
Somewhere in the
gospel our Lord told the parable of the
merchant who found the pearl of great price. Everything was sold to purchase
that pearl. Well, indeed we have found the pearl of great price. Or perhaps, to
put it better, the Pearl has found us. And now we, like the merchant, are
willing to do whatever we can to hold onto that Pearl. Are we really determined
to buy the pearl and take care of? Perhaps this is the fundamental question of
every Christian.
So, what is the
lesson that we take home today? Something very simple and very useful for
spiritual life: Jesus cares about each of us. He calls us by name and loves us.
If the Good Shepherd allows pain, suffering, the contradiction in our life ...
Is it because he wants us we seem to him? Does he want us to be purified?
This Sunday, the
Sunday of the Good Shepherd, we should be happy because the Church, like Israel
before it, has its promised Shepherd who leads it through dark valleys until it
enters “green pastures.” We may be like sheep feeding with eyes set on the
small plot of life before us, our minds hardly aware a world redeemed by Jesus
Christ. But the Good Shepherd is never far away. Though we do not see him, he
leads us — the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls ■
[1] Sunday 29th
April, 2012, 4th Sunday of Easter. W. Acts 4:8-12. The stone rejected by the
builders has become the cornerstone—Ps 117(118):1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28-29. 1
John 3:1-2. John 10:11-18.
