Fourth Sunday of Easter (2024)

WE SHALL SEE HIM AS HE IS!

Today is called Good Shepherd Sunday. Our Good Shepherd is here to bless us and our families. We thank God for our families. Our fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. This time of the year I remember my Mom and Dad, and if I listen carefully, I can still hear their voices: “Lunch is ready”; “Clean up your room”; “Eat your vegetables”; “It’s bedtime”; “Because I’m the mom.” There’s a lot of love in those words.

We have something in common. All of us have or had families like this. We thank God for the bond of families while on this earth, especially between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and cousins. It was God’s idea. And it was good!

But more, we are reminded in the Epistle lesson that we have another family, an eternal one, for our Epistle reading reminds us that we are “children of God.” That blessing hallows our family ties. We ask ourselves, “What is our goal as the family of God?” Where are we headed? In the words of our text, our goal may be “to see him as he is.”

Families face Great Challenges.

Families today are hurting.

The family is precious. It is challenged on every side. Our job and activities maybe pulling us in many different directions. We may feel like a circus juggler trying to keep all the balls in the air. Dad goes one way, Mother another, the children still another. We live in the same house, but we may seldom be together.

It’s hard to keep our family bond strong. The sheer busyness of modem life fragments us. We want our homes to be places of peace and tranquility, but too often they are places of frantic activity. The result: stress, tension, and conflict between parents, between children, between parents and children.

Great changes have taken place in our society that pull at the fabric of our family.

Years ago in Focus on the Family Magazine published an article by Kurt Bruner entitled, “Life in Fast Forward.” In it he notes the tremendous changes that have taken place since today’s parents were children. Since 1960, Bruner reports, divorce rates have quadrupled, there has been a 560 percent increase in violent crime, three times as many children live in single-parent homes, and teenage suicide has tripled. A George Barna poll reveals that nearly 70 percent of Americans believe there is no absolute truth. Bruner states, “Put simply, the level of competition for the hearts and minds of our children has risen dramatically” (Kurt Bruner, “Life in Fast Forward,” Focus on the Family Magazine, Feb. 1997, 11).

The ordinary family may have several relational problems—tensions on several fronts. There may be loneliness, isolation, and boredom. There may be health problems and financial difficulties.

To live in harmony is a daily challenge. In no other situation do we live so intimately and deeply as in a family.

We face the challenge of living in peace and harmony, of openness to discuss our problems, of humility to admit our weaknesses, of courage to take the first step out of a vicious cycle.

We pray for eyes to see when loved ones are hurting, for ears to listen patiently when they speak, for hearts filled with compassion.

In view of these challenges families need

The Good News of Love

We need the lavish love of the Father. This is why we have gathered here this morning. We need to hear “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are” (1 Jn 3:1).

God knows all our problems and all our failures and loves us nonetheless.

His love expressed to us in his Son is strong enough to forgive and transform (1 Jn 4:10). In the Gospel, Jesus announces, “I am the Good Shepherd” (Jn 10:11). Five times in a few verses he states, “I lay down my life.” He is our bleeding, redeeming, seeking, accepting, and transforming Shepherd. He calls us to himself. In him we have a new beginning. In Christ, past barriers and tensions are washed away (Eph 2:16). When we come to the Father and say, “Cleanse me, wash me, love me, give me a new heart for the sake of the Good Shepherd,” the heavenly Father embraces us and says, “I love you. You are my child. Live with my blessing.”

We need to hear good news that we belong to the family of God.

John says emphatically that we are called children of God. “And that is what we are!” We belong to God. We belong to his family. We belong to one another. We are his children.

In an impersonal age identified by Social Security numbers, telephone numbers, driver’s license numbers, and credit card numbers, know this truth: God knows your name. We are his children. We belong to his family by Baptism through faith in Christ Jesus.

As children of the Father we want to love and forgive one another.

Wired within us as a new creation is the desire to be reconciled to one another. We want to live together in harmony. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn 4:11).

Where there are offenses, let sins be forgiven. Where there are hurts, let wounds be soothed. Where there are divisions, let bridges be built. Where there are walls, let barriers be removed. God’s lavish love in his Son, the Good Shepherd, forgives us and enables us by his Spirit to love one another as he has loved us. Let us show love to one another more and more.

As the Christian family we have

The Common Goal—to see God.

1 John 3:2 (“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”) promises that in heaven we shall be like Christ. This assurance implies a vision that does more than excite us; rather, it turns us, changes us, transforms us. In the process of beholding, the beholder, becomes like the beheld. But the divine chemistry is not explained it is merely promised. How it works we don’t know. That it works we can be sure. A beautiful vision indeed!

To carry this thought of being like Christ, St. Paul writes to the Corinthian congregation that we are “being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory,” which is the work of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). And on the Last Day we will look at Jesus and see him truly as he is, and he “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21). It will be the vision of Christ that “bestows true bliss.” This is the destiny of every child of God. This is our goal as a family. It is a future vision that also looks back to remember Jesus’ loving sacrifice for us. It is a future vision that challenges us in the present to love as he loves.

The devil, however, wants to distract us from our goal. The devil would say, “Your goal should be to acquire more and more material things. Your goal is personal glory. Your goal is to be your own god and determine your own destiny” (see Mt 4:1–11). Your goal is to enjoy life now to the fullest. The goal of the devil is to drive us with hunger for more and more things.

But our real goal is “to see him—Jesus—as he is.” The goal of the Christian parent is that the family might be gathered together in the presence of Christ to say what the Lord says, “Here am I and the children God has given me” (Heb 2:13). What greater joy than to be in the presence of God? What greater motivation for showing love within our families?

We thank God for our family. We thank God that we belong to him, that He knows your name, and to his holy family by faith. May we look forward to the “beautiful vision” of seeing Christ. May that be our goal! And may we all be gathered in his presence “to see him as he is.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.