Devotions for the Fourth Week of Easter

Monday of Easter IV – Prayer of the Week

Almighty God, merciful Father, since You have wakened from death the Shepherd of Your sheep, grant us Your Holy Spirit that when we hear the voice of our Shepherd we may know Him who calls us each by name and follow where He leads; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. This is one of our earliest depictions of Jesus. It is from the tombs outside of Rome called the Catacombs. They were not really where Christians hid from persecution as you may have learned. They were just cemeteries where Christians buried their loved ones. They adorned them with pictures of Jesus, much like cemeteries today have crosses and sometimes images of lambs, lilies, or other symbols. This image does not quite fit our picture of what Jesus is supposed to look like. This is a youth, a rather stereotypical shepherding type in the ancient world. He has a lamb over his shoulder. It is the Good Shepherd depicted here. But he does not have the familiar beard and what my Sunday School curriculum imagined to be the dress of a first century rabbi. He looks like he might fit into a Roman scene painted in Pompeii or one of the recently excavated villa mosaics in England. But we do not really know what Jesus looked like and we really do not know exactly what he will look like on that last day. But he assures us that we will know him. We will recognize the voice, not the face so much. Shepherds will tell you that sheep do not see so well, but they do have good hearing. He has been talking to you in sermons, scripture, forgiveness wherever you experience it, and in any who loved you in His name. This week we celebrate the fact that God has raised our Good Shepherd from death and given him to us. We are able to hear his voice in all sorts of places. We will know him on that last day when he calls the dead to life. We will hear and recognize him. It will be glorious and good.

Tuesday of Easter IV – Acts 4:1-12

 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2  greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3  And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4  But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. 5  On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, 6  with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7  And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” 8  Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, 9  if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10  let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. 11  This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12  And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” When I was a child, my father served rural parishes in the Midwest. Our family cat died and one of the kindly farmers in the congregation offered to give us a pair of young cats who taken up residence in his barn. With eager expectation my younger brother and I received a box containing our new pets. With fond memories of our recently departed and somewhat elderly cat, we opened the box and were greeted by a pair of hissing, spitting, yowling, and slashing monsters. Our attempts at domestication were cut short when the two beasts bolted past us out the door and into the relative wilds of the neighbor’s cornfield. My parents, my brother and I were somewhat stunned by what had just transpired. Certainly, our expectations had been shattered. We were unprepared for the feral animals which the farmer had brought to us. I think the poor high priest in today’s story must have felt the same way. They arrested some country bumpkins from Galilee. Luke tells us that they were “annoyed.” That is what happens when the powerful come upon their inferiors doing something they do not like. They get annoyed. These were poor people, unschooled blue-collar sorts of guys. I do not think Caiaphas was ready for the hammer that Peter was about to drop on him. But that is what the Holy Spirit can do. A few weeks earlier Peter had been hiding in fear of these very men. We read that story just two weeks ago in the second week of Easter. But Jesus breathed on them, gave them the Holy Spirit, and they were changed people. Shepherds lead sheep to green pastures and cool waters. They take them from one place to another. Do you see what the Shepherd has done to Peter? Being a sheep in the flock of God is not a static thing. He takes us to new places. He leads us. A couple of months after we witnessed the two cats bolting into the neighbor’s field, we saw a flash of yellow in our barn. It was one of our feral run-aways. We were milking a cow at the time and had excess milk. With a little dairy-based bribery, patience, and gentleness, we eventually came to have one of the best of pets. On fresh milk and the mice in our barn he grew to be an enormous cat, but he also learned to be gentle and loved a good scratch behind the ears. Jesus loves us unconditionally, but he does not leave us in the condition in which he finds us. He leads you and me to lives of courageous witness, strong love. Did you notice what Peter said at the end of his message? Jesus is the way of salvation for all – even high priests who killed him.

Wednesday of Easter IV – Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2      He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

3      He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

    for his name’s sake.

4  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

    I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

    your rod and your staff,

    they comfort me.

5  You prepare a table before me

    in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

    my cup overflows.

6  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

    all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD

    forever.

I regularly would come to her house. She did not get out much anymore. She was in her 90’s by this point. I brought her communion and shared what I was preaching on this next Sunday, but I think I also brought her a few minutes of someone to talk to, fellowship. Her little house was well kept. Her family helped her with that. She was loved and in reasonable health. But she was pretty much stuck at home by a body which was not able to do what she wanted to do. We talked. We talked about a lot of things. She listened to the news and did a little reading. Her eyes bothered her if she read too much. We often spoke of the past. She knew that her life stretched out behind her far more than it did before her. She was not unhappy about that. I always left her house with the sense that this had been time well spent. On her living room wall was a picture of Jesus with a lamb over his shoulder and sheep around his knees. He was smiling. The words of this psalm were there too. She read it every day, she told me. I am honored to have been a little part of Jesus shepherding this woman and many others whom I have had the privilege of visiting and seeing. It is the hardest part of these days of pandemic. I can call and I can write these devotions. I wish I could sit down and just talk, face to face, without a mask, perhaps we would have a cup of coffee together. I could tell them about my garden, and they could tell me what their grandkids are up to. We would pray together. Read some Scripture, a favorite passage of theirs or perhaps something we were reading this Sunday. We would commune. I would lay my hand on theirs, or perhaps their forehead, and I would bless them. I am not Jesus only shepherd. He bears this responsibility finally. I am but the one he has sent this time and place. He has resources and means which far exceed my own. I pray for the folks who cannot get out at all and whose lives have grown very small. Join me in praying for them. Give them a call if you know someone like that. Check in on them. Be a bit of Christ’s shepherding work today.

Thursday of Easter IV – I John 3:16-24

16  By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17  But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 19  By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20  for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21  Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22  and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23  And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24  Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. “I won’t be a hypocrite!” The words were spit out at the old man. Clearly the young man thought that the old man was indeed a hypocrite. The elder thought about this for a moment. He remembered when he had said words very similar to member of the preceding generation, just about 30 years before this young man had said this to him. He had spoken them to his father. He regretted them now. Wished that his father were still alive to talk again about how foolish he had been. He sighed and tried once more. “Loving someone who has hurt you is not hypocrisy. In fact, only loving people for whom you feel love is nothing other than self-interest and self-service. True love is showing kindness and mercy to the folks who do not deserve it.” This is a truth which every person must learn at some time. While feelings are strong, they are not reality. There are people for whom I feel some truly terrible things. Some of them may even deserve what I feel. But they are God’s beloved people too. Jesus died for them just as much as he died for me. That is reality. Jesus on a cross, bleeding, dying, for the sins of the world. True love will mean that if they are hungry, I feed them. If they are lonely, I will sit with them for a while. If they are hurting, I comfort them. That is not hypocrisy. That is love. I cannot gin up the nice feelings I would like to have for people. God does not ask me to. He commands me to love, that is serve and attend to the needs of my neighbor, no matter how I feel about it. Love is an action I take, a real thing, a thing done in truth and in deeds. It does not always feel good. Do it anyway.

Friday of Easter IV – John 10:11-18

11  I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12  He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13  He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14  I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16  And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17  For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” A few weeks ago, a team in a submersible vessel identified the wreckage of the USS Johnson at a depth of over 21,000 feet off the coast of the Philippines. The destroyer came to rest on the sea floor because on Oct 25, 1944 its commander, Ernest E. Evans, and his crew did something remarkable. They were a small group of ships tasked with protecting the flank of a large group of unarmed supply and troop transports which were supporting MacArthur’s landing in the Philippines. Unexpectedly a large Japanese force appeared. Realizing that his little flotilla was all that was between the two groups of ships, Cmdr. Evans led a charge of small destroyers against much larger and better armed Japanese ships. Normally a destroyer would flee before such a potent enemy force. But Evans knew that fleeing would expose thousands of lives and jeopardize the re-taking of the Philippines. Knowing what would happen, he turned his little ship into the teeth of that much larger force. He did not win. His ship was crippled and eventually sunk. But the Japanese commander, having been met with such resistance turned around and sailed away. Jesus, who was fully human, laid down his life. I think we tend to focus on the divinity of Jesus and hear the next lines imagining that this was easier for Jesus because he was God after all. Do we think that this dying thing was simply a temporary inconvenience for Jesus? Jesus is human. It was a human being who was betrayed, tried, crucified, and died. You are a human. You can map your feelings about that onto him legitimately. Jesus trusts the Father to rescue him from the death he must die. Jesus is clear about how this happened. The Father loved him into that mission, charged him with this task. Loved by the Father, Jesus turned into the teeth of the Roman Empire and the Jerusalem leaders who would put him to cruel death. Jesus looked at you and me and the rest of humanity. He turned and saw the savage beast who would consume us all. He did not shrink back but was the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. As John Chrysostom said, death took what it could see but what it could not see was its undoing. It consumed earth and was itself consumed by heaven. The photos show the prow of the USS Johnson sticking up from the seabed, its numbers, 557, still brilliant against the dark hull. Thousands of men came home to their families after the war because of the sacrifice of Evans and his crew. We turn to the cross, stark against the sky, the shepherd has laid down his life for the sheep.