THE LAMB BECOMES THE SHEPHERD

This past Wednesday it was raining pretty hard where my granddaughter lives and she was kind of worried about it. “Maybe we should go to basement,” she told my wife. When she was asked why she said, “Last night some people were killed by a tornado.” She’d apparently overheard the evening news about the tornadoes in Texas and Mexico. Our granddaughter is four years old. I’m glad that she’s aware of what’s going on in the world, but it’s too bad that she has to realize that the world is a dangerous place. And it is.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday. Maybe the first thing we think of with that is the Twenty-third Psalm and “The Lord is my shepherd.” In two years out of three the lectionary gives us that psalm for this Sunday, but not this year. Still, it’s not far below the surface of our readings from revelation and John. “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” That echoes pretty unmistakably the psalm’s “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” So it’s not really cheating to kind of use Psalm 23 as a text. You know it, like the Lord’s Prayer.

Because that psalm is a favorite – think of how many funerals you’ve gone to where there’s a leaflet with, among other things, Psalm 23. It’s comforting because it suggests, calmness and reassurance. But if it were just “inspirational literature,” like a greeting card, it wouldn’t amount to much. There’s a lot more to it. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” It’s serious business, not just a religious pillow. And in the same spirit we have those words from Revelation about the martyrs, those who have been killed because of their commitment to Christ, those “who have come out of the great ordeal” and now sing God’s praises.

“Though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death ... .” It’s about something real. That valley is not remote. We walk through it all the time. There are tornadoes, and wars, and cancers, and crimes, and car accidents. We all walk that valley – some through deeper and darker parts than others. There are other deaths besides our final earthly end – the deaths of those we love, of friends, of relationships. Dreams and hopes can die. Some of our losses are small and some of them are huge. A divorce can have the emotional impact of death.

And I wonder if Jesus’ disciples thought of the Twenty-third Psalm on that silent, grim Sabbath after the cross. Their friend and teacher, the one they’d hoped was their king, lay in the grave. The one they’d put their hopes on, the bearer of God’s promise, was defeated and dead. Jesus really had walked “through the valley of the shadow of death” – it wasn’t just a Bible verse about someone from long ago. And Jesus had not died a calm, peaceful death, with green pastures and still waters. It was a terrible and frightening death.

Mary Magdalene and John and those other disciples had died inside. Friendship and dreams and hopes for the kingdom of God were dead. And for those who had run away in the Garden, and especially for Peter who had denied him, it was not only Jesus that they’d lost. They had also lost their self-respect. If anyone had recited the Twenty-third Psalm to them then, it would have seemed a mockery.

Easter means that the Twenty-third Psalm is true. God’s promise is real. Jesus went through the valley of the shadow of death and is lives. As we come to church Sunday after Sunday and year after year and here those phrases about “resurrection” and “he is risen,” we may have gotten so used to the idea we may not think about what a huge reversal, a huge change from our usual ways of thinking, it represents. The resurrection of Jesus means that the world has been turned upside down. The one who was dead is alive. The executed criminal is king. Our text from revelation puts it another way, with a new twist on that familiar psalm: The Lamb becomes its shepherd: “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

But now see who the Good Shepherd is. He is more than just that well-known picture of the man carrying a lamb on his shoulders. The Good Shepherd is the one who knows the valley of death because he has been through the deepest part of it and is alive now. So it is not an empty promise when he says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.” This is not just a religious pillow because it is the crucified and risen Lord who says these words.

There is no promise here that we will never have trouble or die. For some there will be tornadoes. “Though I walk through the valley ... . ” It’s going to happen. That host arrayed in white has “come out of the great ordeal.” The promise is rather that the one who has been through the deepest part of valley, who has endured the greatest ordeal and is alive and has conquered, will keep us in our journey, even through death.

How are we kept in his care? He tells us, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.” It is Jesus Christ who is the Good Shepherd, not simply a generic idea of God or my personal idea of spirituality. We are to hear his voice, that of Jesus Christ as Holy Scripture bears witness to him, the one whom the church confesses as Son of God and savior.