This Sunday is sometimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Jesus is called the “gate” of the sheep in this week’s gospel. The risen Christ opens the way to abundant life. But what is meant by abundant life? Some Christians interpret an abundant life to mean the “good life” of many fine things, but Jesus and the writer of Psalm 23 imagine an abundant life not in material terms but in relational terms. The Good Shepherd anoints our heads with oil and guides us beside the still waters of our baptism. Each Sunday he spreads a feast before us amid the world’s violence and war. We go forth to be signs of the resurrection and extend God’s tender care to all creation.
Throughout the season of Lent we have reflected on God’s Costly Grace, guided by the work of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who coined the phrases “costly grace” and “cheap grace,” encouraging Christians to a life of costly discipleship in response to the great cost of Christ’s death on Good Friday. “Above all, this grace is costly because it cost God the life of his Son… and it is grace because it gives us the only true life” (Bonhoeffer). We live in the fulness of this life of grace throughout the fifty days of the Easter Season.
image: Sheep grazing, Northern Territory, Australia by khalid ghawas/500px. Copyright © Getty Images Plus via Getty Images. Used by permission