The Good Shepherd and the sheep

 

Christ as the Good Shepherd …
a mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna
(Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 11th May 2025, the 4th of Easter

‘My sheep hear my voice’, says Jesus, ‘I know them and they follow me’.

Now, I don’t have much personal experience of sheep, but one day as a child I helped my Grandfather move a flock to fresh grazing. It wasn’t easy – the sheep took every opportunity to get away through gaps and over ditches as we drove them down the public road. We got them all there in the end, but I’ve never forgotten how wilful sheep can be.

One Sunday, years ago, I was preaching about the Good Shepherd, and I remembered this experience. I expressed surprise that in Jesus’s time shepherds could expect their sheep to follow them. Surely shepherds then must have had a different relationship with their sheep than they do today, I said. After the service a wise and experienced farmer came up to me and said slyly, ‘My sheep follow me’. I asked him how he did it, and he replied, ‘I walk in front of them with a bucket of sheep nuts – they’re intelligent animals, they recognise me, and they know very well what the bucket means’. I learned a good lesson about leadership that day.

John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus said, ‘I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.’ (John 10:14)

Those who heard him couldn’t agree whether Jesus was the long expected Messiah, or not. Some thought he must be mad, but others pointed to his miraculous deeds, such as causing the blind to see, which was just the kind of thing they expected of the Messiah.

Jesus returns to this shepherd theme in today’s reading from John’s Gospel (10:22-30). He is walking in the temple, sheltering in the portico of Solomon from the winter weather, during the festival of the Dedication. This festival commemorates the re-dedication of the temple 200 years before, after the great Jewish leader John Hyrcanus had defeated the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV, who had desecrated it. In Hebrew the festival is called Hanukkah, and Jews still celebrate it around Christmas time – this is why some people, particularly in America, prefer to say ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Happy Christmas’.

A crowd gathers around Jesus, asking him to put an end to the debate about his identity, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus knows that many in the crowd are looking for a Messiah who is a great military leader, someone like John Hyrcanus, someone who will liberate them from Roman oppression and re-establish the kingdom of Judah, someone who will make Judea great again. But this is not the kind of Messiah that Jesus knows himself to be. He surely also knows that many in the crowd hate him, and hope he will incriminate himself as a subversive, so they can get rid of him.

So Jesus does not answer directly. Instead he says, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.’ Jesus is pointing them to God, who he calls his Father. God works through me, says Jesus, I know those who believe in me, they listen to me and follow me. But you do not.

He continues, ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.’ Jesus is saying that he gives those who follow him eternal life, which is to know God, and he will keep them safe, because God has given them to him.

‘The Father and I are one’, he finishes. This last phrase infuriates the crowd. Jesus is claiming identity with God, which pious Jews see as blasphemy. In the following verses they get ready to stone him, but Jesus makes his escape and travels away from Judea, across the Jordan. His time has not yet come.

As Christians we believe Jesus when he says, ‘The Father and I are one’.

We believe that God the Father, God the Son, who is our Saviour Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons but one God.

We should take great comfort from Jesus’s words. We are his sheep, and as our shepherd he gives us eternal life and will keep us safe – nothing and nobody can take us away from him, just so long as we believe in him. As the 23^rd Psalm appointed for today puts it:

‘Though I walk in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.’

The truth is we are not alone. Jesus lives and Jesus is in and with us. And not just with you and me, here today, but with everyone who has ever believed, and will ever believe in him, from those first apostles and disciples like Peter and Tabitha we heard about in the 1st reading (Acts 9:36-43), down the centuries to us, and forward in time to Christians yet unborn. United with them, and led by Jesus our Good Shepherd, we make up the eternal church, militant here on earth and triumphant in heaven.

We should listen to the physicists and cosmologists, I think, and look beyond the four dimensions of space and time in which we live our little lives. Because God is not constrained by space and time. In God’s perspective all that is, and was, and is to come (Revelation 1:8), is simultaneously present. And that includes every one of Jesus’s disciples, dead, living, and yet unborn.

Whenever and wherever we live, we are all included in St John’s great vision of the eternal kingdom expressed in the poetry of today’s reading from Revelation (7:9-17). We all belong to that

‘great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white’.

Seen from God’s perspective, outside space and time, in a higher dimension, we stand with them

‘before the throne of God,

and worship him day and night within his temple,

and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter us.

We will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike us,

nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be our shepherd,

and he will guide us to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.’

Jesus is not just our Good Shepherd, but also the Lamb who laid down his life to bring us to eternal life.

I shall finish in prayer with the Collect of the Word set for today:

Gracious God,
you sent Jesus, the good shepherd,
to gather us together:
may we not wander from his flock,
but follow wherever he leads us
listening for his voice and staying near him,
until we are safely in your fold,
to live with you for ever;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

Walking in the light of the risen Christ

Christ in Glory, a tapestry by Graham Sutherland in Coventry Cathedral

A reflection given at Compline in Killodiernan Church on the Tuesday of Holy Week, 15th April 2025

The reading we’ve just heard from John’s Gospel (12:20-36) is about the glorification of the Son of Man. The dictionary definition of the word ‘glorification’ in the Cambridge Dictionary is ‘the act of praising and honouring God or a person’.

Jesus in the Gospels often uses the terms ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Son of God’ almost interchangeably, in ways that can be seen as referring to himself, without explicitly claiming to be divine. This is probably because observant Jews would see it as blasphemy, a capital offence for which he is not yet ready. He leaves it to others to make the connection.

Notice that in this reading he does not explicitly claim to be the Son of Man, only that ‘when (he) is lifted up from the earth, (he) will draw all people to himself’. Voices from the crowd listening to him clearly think that he is claiming to be the Son of Man. They ask, ‘How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’.

In reply, Jesus does not answer their question directly. He says to them, ‘The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’

Who or what is the light that Jesus is talking about? We know with hindsight that Jesus will soon be lifted up to die upon a cross. Is that when the light is no longer with his disciples? No, we believe that Jesus rose again from the dead on the first Easter day, and later the risen Christ promises he will never leave his disciples – that’s you and me. ‘Remember’, he tells us, ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). We are mortal, and our lives are short, but the light of Jesus, the glorified Son of Man, will remain with us to our dying moment. And he has left us his teaching to light the way for us, which he summarises as follows, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’ (Mark 1:14).

We believe as Christians that Jesus, the Son of God, is also the glorified Son of Man, and as the risen Christ, we believe he is also the light that shows us the way.

‘While (we) have the light, (let us) believe in the light, so that (we) may become children of light’.

Remove this cup from me

The Agony in the Garden, El Greco c.1590

A reflection on the Passion Gospel for Palm Sunday, 13th April 2025

That was a long reading (Luke 22:14-23:56), wasn’t it! But I am certain it is good for us to hear the whole story of Christ’s Passion from beginning to end at least once a year, so that we may better appreciate the enormity of those events.

You will be glad to know that I’m not going to preach an equally long sermon too! Instead, I ask you to reflect with me on Jesus’s prayer in the Mount of Olives:

‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’

Jesus is distressed and agitated. In his anguish, he is certain that what he is doing is the will of God, his loving Father. He knows the likely outcome – his execution as a dangerous agitator, perhaps even the agonising death of crucifixion.

And he does not want to die. He is a man in the full strength and vigour of his early 30s. He loves life. He loves his friends. And he loves his ministry to those who need healing and forgiveness. So he prays to his loving Father for himself, that his death may be averted - ‘remove this cup from me’.

But that is only half his prayer. Even more important for Jesus than his own distress at the prospect of death is that his loving Father’s will should be done. So he finishes his prayer with ‘yet, not my will but yours be done’.

This prayer of Jesus should be a model for our own prayers. When I desperately wish for something, it is right and proper for me to pray to God for it. If I cannot ask God for it, who can I ask? But I must never forget how much more important it is for God’s will to be done, than for my wish to be granted. So I should always finish a prayer for myself with Jesus’s words, ‘yet, not my will but yours be done’.

The purpose of Christian prayer is not to badger God into doing what we want, but to align our wishes with God’s will.

In the end, like Jesus, we must trust that our loving Father knows what is best for us. 

Confronting the evil cynicism of authoritarian rulers

The Sanhedrin plot to kill Jesus

A reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th March 2025

A brief reflection on that reading from John 11:45-57.

The context of the reading is this: Jesus has just brought his friend Lazarus back from the dead. Standing in front of his rock-cut tomb, ‘(Jesus) cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.’ Because of this, many people believed in Jesus, that he had the power to raise the dead. His following was growing. But others reported what Jesus was doing to the authorities.

We have just heard, in John’s words, how the leaders of the Jewish client state in Jerusalem responded to Jesus’s growing reputation and influence among the people. They called a council of the elders, the Sanhedrin, to decide what to do about Jesus. They feared they might lose their own power, that the Romans might be provoked to destroy the Temple and their Jewish state. The high priest Caiaphas takes charge. He declares, ‘“You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” … So from that day on they planned to put him to death.’

The Sanhedrin’s evil cynicism is breathtaking. They resolve to kill Jesus, an innocent man, not so much for the good of the nation, but because they fear he threatens their own power and privileges. The irony is that the Temple and the Jewish client state will indeed be destroyed by the Romans after a Jewish revolt a little over a generation later.

We see the same evil cynicism at work today, as authoritarian rulers seek to increase their power, and feather their own nests. We see it in Russia, where Putin’s regime marks  opponents for assassination, and hunts them down. We see it in the United States of America, where Trump vows retribution, and seeks vengeance on all who oppose him. And lest we think such things cannot happen in Ireland, remember the cynical murders of innocents carried out by paramilitary groups in the name of their cause.

News of the Sanhedrin’s plans spread and reached Jesus. We are told that he ‘no longer walked openly among the Jews’, but he sought refuge near the wilderness with his disciples. Jesus surely knows that the time is coming soon when he must go up to Jerusalem to confront the Sanhedrin. As Passover approaches everyone is wondering whether Jesus would show his face in Jerusalem, because the Sanhedrin ‘had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him’.

We know how it will end. Jesus’s friend and disciple Judas will betray him for 30 pieces of silver. Under arrest, Jesus will stand before that same Sanhedrin in a sham trial with a predetermined outcome. He will be condemned to death and die on a cross, guarded by Roman soldiers. But on the third day, Jesus will rise from the dead, defeating the evil cynicism of his time, and of all times. By imitating him, and with his help, we can and will defeat the evil cynicism we see today. We must take up our cross and follow him.

The Father, the Son, and us

Jesus speaks near theTreasury, JamesTissot1836–1902, Brooklyn Museum

 Reflection for Morning Worship with the Communion of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 11th March 2025

In the reading we’ve just heard (John5:19-29), Jesus gives us a profound description of his relationship with the God he calls his Father, and also with you and with me, his followers. I really can’t do justice to its depth and breadth in this brief reflection. So I shall confine myself to just a few points.

The background to the passage is this. Jesus has just healed a paralysed man on the Sabbath, which some perceived to be a breach of rigid Sabbath laws. When they protested, he told them, ‘My Father is still working, and I am still working’. They already hate him, but now they want ‘all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God’ (John 5:17-18)

Jesus boldly says this to those who want to do away with him. The Father loves the Son, and the Son does only what the Father does. The Son gives life, just as the Father gives Life. And the Father does not judge, but gives that power to the Son. Notice that Jesus does not explicitly call himself the Son of God – that would have been a red rag to his persecutors. But he does so implicitly, when he says, ‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life.’ How comforting that is to those of us who follow Jesus!

Jesus goes on to say, ‘For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man.’ The implications of this for us, his followers, who hear his word and believe in God the Father who sent him, are breath-taking. We will be judged not by some remote and awesome God who exercises the power of life or death on us, but by the Son of Man, the Son of Man who has lived like us on this earth, and knows us and our human frailties from the inside out. It is the Son of Man who grants us eternal life, and will judge us mercifully.

But that does not absolve us from the consequences of our actions. When we hear Jesus’s voice on the day of judgement, when we come out from our graves, ‘those who have done good’ will rise ‘to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.’

 

Transfiguration

The Broken Spectre

Address gien in Templederry Church and St Mary's Nenagh on Transfiguration Sunday, the last before Lent, on 2nd March 2025 

Mountain tops are special places, places where we feel awed by the immensity of God’s creation.

When the weather is good, the distant views reveal how puny we really are. When the clouds close in, we experience isolation from all that is familiar. And when the wind blows rain or hail or snow in our face, we understand our own frailty and vulnerability.

Like most of us, I suppose, I love walking and climbing in mountains, though I’m less able for it nowadays. I have vivid memories of many climbs. Climbing Keeper Hill as a child with my parents, each time I thought I was near the top another ridge revealed itself, until at the final summit half of Ireland was laid out in front of me. Climbing a peak called Le Dent du Chat near Annecy in France as a teenager, Mont Blanc and the snow peaks of the alps began to rise above the opposite ridge as I neared the top. And climbing Lugnaquilla by myself in my 40s - on a whim, unsuitably prepared – the cloud closed in after 5 minutes on the summit, and it grew cold, very cold – I was lucky to fall in with a soldier with a compass walking from the Glen of Imaal to Glenmalure, who showed me the right way down.

In today’s Gospel (Luke 9:28-43), Luke tells the story of Peter, James and John’s very special mountain top experience with Jesus.

High on the mountain, Peter, James and John see Jesus in a new light: ‘the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white’, we are told. Alongside him they see two men talking to him, whom they recognise as Moses and Elijah, the two preeminent figures of Judaism, representing the Law and the Prophets.

Peter, always the impulsive one, says to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’. Peter does not want this emotional moment to end – such a human response!

Then the cloud closes in around them.  They are terrified. And they hear a voice saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the cloud clears, they look around, and they see only Jesus. They do not tell anyone about their experience until later.

Their experience, which we call the Transfiguration, reveals Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God. It must have been very important to them, because they remembered it and passed on their story after the Resurrection, so that it could be told to us not just by Luke, but also by Matthew and Mark.

There is a possible scientific explanation for what Peter, James and John saw.

High on a mountain, with cloud around, is precisely when we may encounter an optical effect called a ‘glory’. In this effect sunlight is scattered back from water droplets in a mist, as a glowing halo - the technical term for it is Mie scattering.

The most famous example is the ‘Brocken Spectre’, so named because of sightings on the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains in Germany. This appears when a low sun is behind a climber who is looking downwards into mist from a ridge or peak. The spectre is the shadow of the observer projected onto the mist, and it is surrounded by the glowing halo of a glory.

You might be lucky enough to see a glory yourselves, as I have. I saw it when I looked down from a plane at the shadow it cast on a cloud. The shadow was surrounded with a halo of light – this was the glory.

I imagine Peter and James and John close together on the mountain, with Jesus praying a little bit away, as the clouds swirl around them. Where Jesus has been standing, they each suddenly see a glowing figure – it’s a shadow, their own shadow, cast on a cloud, wrapped in a glory. And the two other shadows beside it are those of their companions, whom they take to be Moses and Elijah.

This possible scientific explanation of the Transfiguration should not disturb our faith.

I find that it helps me to believe that the Transfiguration really did take place. It was not invented by the Gospel writers to serve their own artistic or theological needs.

Their experience of hearing a voice from heaven also rings very true to me. When human beings suddenly realise something of vital importance, something which changes everything, we often talk of having a ‘flash of inspiration’ or ‘hearing a voice’. There are many such reports of deeply emotional religious experiences, not only within our own Christian tradition, but also from other faiths.

I believe that God is present in and works through the laws of the universe he created. The disciples accurately reported what they saw, even if they could not understand the physics. The true wonder and glory of the Transfiguration is how the subtle working out of the natural laws of God’s creation testify to its goodness, and God’s love for it, and for us.

If this explanation is correct, it should not change one whit our awe and wonder at God’s power and glory.

What matters, surely is what the Transfiguration reveals to Peter, James and John - and to us too - about the nature of Jesus and his relationship with God. They saw Jesus in a new light, as ‘the glory of the Lord’. The voice they heard told them to listen to him, and this they did.

I believe the Transfiguration was the moment on their long road when Peter, James and John realised their complete commitment to Jesus and his teaching. Starting from their call in Galilee, this road led them ultimately to Jerusalem, to the Cross, to the Resurrection, to the Ascension, and on to Pentecost, where they started to blossom as Christ’s Church.

And as Christians the Transfiguration should inspire each one of us to make our own commitment to follow Jesus as his disciples. Because ‘all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another’, in St Paul’s words (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I finish in prayer.

Holy God, mighty and immortal,

you are beyond our knowing,

yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ,

whose compassion illumines the world.

Transform us into the likeness of the love of Christ,

who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity,

the same Jesus Christ, our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Do you believe this? Yes, Lord. I believe!

A reflection given at the Service of Prayer for Christian Unity held by Nenagh Churches together on 28th February 2025 in St Mary's Church of Ireland, prepared by the Community of Bose, an ecumenical monastery  of brothers and sisters in northern Italy. It had been rescheduled from 24th January due to Storm Eowyn.

The service was led by Deborah O'Driscoll  of the Odhran Pastoral Area (RC). Lynn Kelly (CofI), Donal Mackey  (RC) and Clifford Guest (Methodist) read from John 11:17-27. Fr Pat Gilbert PP (RC) read from John 20:24-29. Joc Sanders (CofI) gave a brief reflection, and led the congregation in saying the Beatitudes. The light of Christ was taken from the Easter Candle to light candles held by the people, as all present said the ecumenical Nicene Creed, in this 1,700th anniversary year of the Council of Nicea. The people then brought the candles up to the chancel and placed them around a large cross. Rose Langley (CofI) and Siobhan Darby (RC) read  prayers from ancient authors. To send the people back into the world, Fr Vitalii Svyryd (Ukrainian Orthodox) read from 1 Peter 1:3–9. Music was provided by the Odhran Pastoral Choir.  

This will be quite a brief reflection on the words of scripture we have heard. Please help me by responding as loudly as you can when I ask you to!

When St Thomas saw the risen Jesus Christ with his own eyes, he confessed his faith in the words, “My Lord and my God!”. To which Jesus replied, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We have not seen Jesus in the flesh, as Thomas did, but we believe what Thomas confessed. From whatever Christian tradition we come, we believe. Why do we believe? Because, through the Holy Spirit, God our loving Father has revealed himself to us in the life and ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ. And God continues to reveal himself to us, this and every day. So, when the risen Jesus asks us, “Do you believe this?”, we can all respond like Martha, “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

“Do you believe this?”, says Jesus. Let us shout out the answer together, “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

Help me, please, by responding to Jesus as Martha did.

“Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

Let’s do it again, only louder!

“Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

We are blessed, blessed because we have not seen, yet we have come to believe!

Jesus began his ‘Sermon on the Mount’ by teaching his followers, those who believe in him, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10). They are a wonderful summary of the Christian values that we must seek to live by, if we wish to receive God’s blessings. They are, I suggest, a recipe for holy living.

I am a member of the Community of Brendan the Navigator. We are an evolving, dispersed community in the Church of Ireland, open to members from all Christian traditions across the island of Ireland. We say the Beatitudes together responsively every time we meet for worship, as we do every month in Killodiernan Church, Puckane. The Beatitudes are so easy to say, yet so very hard to live up to, aren’t they? Yet we will all be blessed to the extent that we do so. Surely one thing that should unite us all is a shared determination to live up to them.

So, together, let us proclaim the Beatitudes, responsively – you can find them on the back page of the service booklet:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, 

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.  

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

When Jesus says to us, “Do you believe this?” Let us respond “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

“Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord, I believe.”