The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B

Easter 4B April 25, 2021 A letter to Mims Gage Ochsner IV on the occasions of your baptism. Dear Gage, Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the day in the life of the church that we call Good Shepherd Sunday. Our readings focus on how Jesus is the good shepherd of his people, and coincidentally, it’s the exact same Sunday that your sister was baptized in this church three years ago. It is the day, when we are still celebrating from Easter, when we recognize the power that Jesus has in our lives: the power to lay down his life for us and to take it up; the power to know us each intimately and to call us each by name; the power to go before us into the big D death and all of the little deaths that we experience in this life and to lead us into the new life of resurrection, to feast at God’s heavenly banquet and to find new life in all the losses and failures of this life together. Today, your parents and your godparents are saying yes on your behalf. They are claiming your place as a sheep in Jesus’ flock, a lamb of his own redeeming. They are making promises on your behalf of how they will teach you to live your life; and then, when you are old enough, you will be able to make those promises for yourself. Those promises include that you will seek and serve Christ in all persons and love your neighbor as yourself; that you will persevere in resisting evil and repent and return to the lord; that you will continue in the apostles teaching, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers; that you will proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ, and that you will strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. That’s a lot of ask of any parents and any little person and really any one of us. But you won’t be alone on this journey. You’ll have the help and companionship of all us, your fellow sheep, along the way. And you will have Jesus, who will always be with you, knowing you, loving you, calling you, and keeping you. There may be times that you forget all of this, sweet Gage, and that is why we are here. For it is the work of all of us other sheep to help you remember. As we take communion beside you week after week, we will help you remember that you are God’s beloved; that nothing can separate you from the love of God through our good shepherd and friend, Jesus. I watched a video this week that starts with a fluffy sheep who has gotten itself stuck in a narrow crevice. I watched as the young shepherd wrestled the stuck sheep out of the crevice, and I watched as the sheep bounded joyfully down the side of the crevice and leapt right back in to the narrow crack just a few yards down the way from the where the shepherd still stood. In the video, you can see the shepherd sigh, and then begin moving toward the stuck sheep once again to try to fish it out. It’s easy to see the work that Jesus does as being similar to that shepherd—how he fishes us out of the narrow places in our lives where we often get stuck, sometimes over and over again. But it’s important to remember that Jesus also empowers his people to do that work for each other, to help each other get unstuck, to help each other remember who we are called to be and what we are called to do. It’s why we gather here (in person or virtually) week after week after week. Because we need each other. And so, Gage, if you take nothing else away from this day, I hope that you will know and remember, somewhere down deep in your little soul, that you are God’s beloved, known intimately, called by name, and deeply loved by Jesus, no matter how many times you get stuck. On this day and always you will be “marked as Christ’s own forever.” And we are grateful to be fellow sheep on this path with you. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+