Psalm
23
1 The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down
in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
3 he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me;
your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table
before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.
1
Peter 2:19-25
19 For it is a credit to
you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you
endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you
endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. 21 For to
this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an
example, so that you should follow in his steps. 22 "He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth." 23 When he was abused, he did not
return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself
to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the
cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds
you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have
returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
He himself bore our sins
in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for
righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray
like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your
souls.
·
I know that since it’s
the Easter season, I should be focusing on the Resurrection and not the Cross.
This Sunday – Good Shepherd Sunday- almost requires me to speak about shepherds
and sheep. I’ve done that in the past, but to be honest, I’m not seeing my way
clear for this this week.
·
Instead I’m looking at
the first letter of Peter and the idea that Jesus’ wounds have healed us.
·
Healing and cure are not
the same thing. A “cure” means that the illness or wound is gone and will not
trouble us anymore. We can return to whatever we’ve been doing. Healing carries
with it something more. Healing changes us and we CANNOT return to what we’d been doing. Healing is more
universal and wider in scope. I believe that healing puts a changed us in a
changed world. What we suffer from might not be ‘cured’, but even in our
suffering, we can be healed and see things differently… and live differently.
·
The Cross and the
Resurrection cannot be separated. Good Friday and Easter Sunday are intimately
related and linked. To see one without the other leads to either despair or to
a “cheap” grace. A false view of Good Friday might show us a God who has failed
and who had given us false hope. A false view of Easter might show us a God who
has either faked death or who has “left the building” and abandoned us. Some
could even say that a false view of Easter leans on life without pain and a
disciple’s life that requires no healing and no conversion.
·
Actually Easter’s joy
come out of Good Friday’s terror. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ last words on the
Cross are “It is finished” and so in Peter’s words “by
his wounds you have been healed.”
·
When those days are seen
together (and remember that every Sunday is a little Easter), we can know that
our Shepherd is still with us, that by his wounds we are still healed, and that
even if we’ve gone “astray”, he calls us back to him and comforts and
continually heals us. By his wounds we are free from sin and can live for
righteousness. This is grace and the very life of God.
·
The author of the letter
says For
you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and
guardian of your souls. It’s possible that the community he was
writing to had experienced persecution and had either surrendered to it or
responded in a less than peaceful manner. (Peter does say to accept
mistreatment and pain as Jesus did, which may indicate persecution of some
type.) Someway or other, they were wounded and needed healing. In our own day,
we might not put up with such things… and that makes no difference to the
reading. Peter says the community has returned their healing shepherd.
·
No matter what, Jesus
remains our shepherd, the one who gave his life for his flock and who continues
to live for his flock - for us – sharing his life with us for our own lives and
for the sake of his righteousness. It is that righteousness that we live for
and live in. It is in his grace that we trust and hope, no matter what our
situation happen to be. In that we are healed.
·
In the midst of this
time lockdown for the health of the community, we remain sheep of Jesus’ flock,
under his healing care and in his healing arms. As the psalm says:
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I
fear no evil; for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
…
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord my whole life long.
No comments:
Post a Comment