Good Shepherd Sunday – A Preacher’s Ponderings

To lay down one’s life

Fourth Sunday of Easter; 21 April 2024; Easter 4B (RCL); Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18.

A guiding metaphor of the Johannine literature is the metaphor of laying down one’s life. The Greek idiom is not straightforward. A literal translation would be “to place one’s soul over” one’s friends. When 1 John says, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us,” it is using this same metaphor: “he placed his soul over us.” The Greek is τίθειν τἠν ψυχἠν ὑπέρ – tithein ten psychen hyper, to place the soul over, or above, or on behalf of.

The open door

Fourth Sunday of Easter; Easter 4A (RCL); Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10.

This Sunday is familiarly know as Good Shepherd Sunday, and the Gospel reading is always from the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel. Some years, we actually hear the portion of the chapter in which Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” Not this year. This year, Jesus says, “I am the door.”

Testimony of works

12 May 2019
Fourth Sunday of Easter
(Good Shepherd Sunday)
Easter 4C (RCL)
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30

The Gospel reading for this Sunday comes from that section of John’s Gospel often called the Good Shepherd Discourse. In the discourse, Jesus speaks one of the great I AM statements: I AM the Good Shepherd. In the passage we will hear on Sunday, he does not use this phrase, but says only, “You do not trust me because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice.” Continue reading “Testimony of works”