Fourth Sunday of Easter – B

April 21, 2024

Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Our reading today is taken from the holy gospel according to John.

            Jesus said: "I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father."

The gospel of the Lord.

Homily

The principal image in this Sunday’s readings comes from the gospel, where Jesus proclaims: “I am the good shepherd.” This is one of the favorite images people have of Jesus and many homes have pictures or statues of Jesus as the good shepherd protecting his flock and holding a sheep in his arms or carrying it on his shoulders. But that peaceful image does not fit well with his pronouncement today: “A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus willingly gathers us together, but at great cost to himself. And we ourselves, as his flock, are not supposed to just sit passively under his protection, but are called to actively enter into the mission he received from God the Father.

That is the whole question of knowing, which in the scriptures goes beyond intellectual knowledge to include sharing of life. So, when Jesus says: “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father,” he is sharing his life with us so that we can enter into the same relationship with God that he has. And that, too, has its cost, because Jesus repeats: “and I will lay down my life for the sheep.” It is not enough to just follow after Jesus, we must also become like Jesus. 

We know Pope Francis’ famous phrase that the shepherd should smell like the sheep. Here Jesus almost turns that around; the sheep should smell like Jesus. Just as the Son of God took on our humanity in everything but sin., we need to become more and more like Jesus. 

We see that in the reading from Acts. Just as Jesus was hauled before the Jewish court to give an accounting of his preaching and miracles, now Peter is hauled before that same court, the Sanhedrin, to give an accounting of his healing of a cripple and subsequent preaching Jesus’ name. The same one who denied Jesus three times, now openly declares, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved," before the very ones who condemned Jesus to death.

In the inspiring words of his letter, John tells the believers that they are God’s children now, but more awaits them: “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as his is.” In the meantime, we are called to live, suffer and witness with and in Christ Jesus.

So that we don’t think of ourselves too special as Jesus’ flock, he also says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.” 

I pray that the joy and peace of our lives in Christ be an invitation to others to know and follow our Lord and Savior. May God bless you.

Fr. Karl E. Esker CSsR

Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Brooklyn, NY