• Acts of the Apostles 9: 36-43

The miracles did not stop with the execution of Jesus; they multiplied in the church!  That is Luke’s message.  Raymond Brown writes that Luke’s message is illustrated clearly in Peter’s raising Tabitha/Dorcas from the dead.  Brown writes: “Previously we have seen that in the name of Jesus Peter could heal and preach, [chapter 2 through 50 of the Acts].”  Acts now reiterates the parallelism between the accounts of Jesus’ miracles in his gospel with stories of the same miracles in the church.  Specifically, Brown notes, “Even more closely the revivification of Tabitha resembles Jesus’ action in raising the daughter of Jarius (Luke 8: 49-56).”  Luke wants his reader to understand clearly, “No power has been withheld from the church, not even the power over death itself.”   (Once and Coming Spirit at Pentecost, p. 55)

• Psalm 23

Likening God to a shepherd in a cultural dependent on sheep in so many ways is not surprising.  Still today this most beloved psalm retains its power to convey the Lord’s tenderness and protection, even in the “valley of the shadow of death” with such concrete, vivid images.

• Revelation to John 7: 9-17

John the Divine’s attention in his extraordinary vision now turns to “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”  Robed in white and waving palm branches, they join in worship “before the throne and before the Lamb.”  Surrounding the throne is a complex hierarchy of figures and creatures all engaged in continuous worship.  Who makes up  this vast throng of worshipers?  They are the ones who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Therefore, they have access to the throne and are entitled to the ancient promises (Isaiah 49:10) of God’s protection, comfort, and bliss.  “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd….”

• John 10: 22-30

The Jewish tradition of understanding the Lord’s relationship to Israel as a shepherd to his flock is venerable and powerful throughout the Hebrew scriptures.  One of the reasons given is that the Israelites were despised by the Egyptians because they were shepherds, (Genesis 46:34).  Yet, the two most important leaders, Moses and David, were shepherds.  Matthew, Luke and John continue and expand this tradition in their gospels as they interpret the significance of Jesus, the Christ.  One Hanukkah, John writes, Jesus was walking in the portico of the Temple when he was confronted by “the Jews” who once again tried to get Jesus to answer their question directly: Are you the Messiah?  Jesus responded that he will repeat what he has said before when they asked him the same question, My actions speak for themselves.  Those who follow me, Jesus continued, are just like sheep who follow the familiar, trusted voice of their shepherd.  “I give them eternal life and they will never perish.”  “…[T]he Father and I are one,” therefore, they will not, indeed they cannot, be snatched away from my care and protection.

Today’s appointed gospel makes a claim that requires special attention; today’s readings make a real-time claim that brings that claim into the immediate present.

John’s gospel includes this chance encounter between Jesus and other devout Jews present at the Temple at Hanukkah.  They point blank ask Jesus if he is the Messiah; Jesus responds but enigmatically.  Look at what I do, see the results and decide for yourselves, he tells them.  In his response, the burden of an answer shifts from Jesus to provide clear, irrefutable, air-tight ‘evidence’ to his inquisitors to weigh what they see and hear for themselves and make their own personal decision about him.  Those who have made their decision about him are like sheep who trust the familiar voice of their shepherd, Jesus says, implying that for those who do not follow him his voice just does not register as meaningful or important.  Because “the Father and I are one,” Jesus continues, my followers are mine now and for “eternal life.”

John the Divine discovers that in her liturgy, preaching and acts of mercy, the church on earth joins in the never-ending praise of God always underway in heaven.  Luke/Acts makes the explicit claim that the trans-formative works of God through Christ are not just similar, but the same as those done by the church!

Paul Ricoeur insisted that as a philosopher he could not validate religious claims, but as a philosopher he could not ignore religious claims, especially the grandest claim of the church– the Resurrection.  Under the influence of the ‘theologian of hope’ Jorgen Multmann, Ricoeur understood the power of the Resurrection as “not only a manifestation of the sacred as was the case with pagan epiphanies…” but far more consequently for humankind as “an event that opens a new future…. ”    It even supersedes the incarnation, Ricoeur writes, which makes claims about the divine in the past in contrast to the resurrection which “liberate[s] the preaching of the ‘one who comes.’ ”  At the conclusion of this essay, to which he gave the title “Spero ut intelligum” (I hope in order to understand), Ricoeur offers a list of conclusions.  

Because the Resurrection turns our attention to the future and enables genuine hope, Ricoeur writes, it establishes a “new law, the law of superabundance, the superabundance of sense over non-sense.”   Recall that in today’s gospel Jesus has already acknowledged that some hear and follow his voice while others simply do not hear it or cannot make ‘sense’ of it.  At first this “new law” of superabundance based on hope enabled by the claim of Resurrection can seem “irrational,” but it can also blossom into an alternative knowledge or logic that makes real ‘sense’.  (pp 207-216)

Every Sunday is Easter.  Every Sunday is the church’s God-given privilege to declare and to make real the implications of the Resurrection– hope reigns!  This declaration is startlingly realistic in all aspects of human endeavors and action.  This is not glib optimism, it is dogged persistence, sometimes against all ‘reasonable’ odds.  This song may not resonate with all, but it is pitch-perfect echo of the worship around the throne of the Lamb and it is music to the ears of those who follow the Good Shepherd.

Nicholas Lash writes:

“…”Jesus’ resurrection and… Easter hope… attempts to state that the story of human history is ultimately to be told in terms not of death, but of life, not of chaos, but of God’s unconquerably effective love.”  “It follows that, if the doctrine of the resurrection is [taken to be true], then nothing whatsoever, no circumstance, no suffering, no cracking of chaos of sanity and dignity, no betrayal, no oppression, no collapse of sense, structure or relationship, can justify despair, can justify the admission that, at the end of the day, the darkness has the last word.  Those who know this know, I think, all that it is yet possible for us to know of what ‘resurrection’ means.”  (Theology on the Way to Emmaus, pp 184-185)