4th Sunday of Easter (Cycle B)

Acts 4:8-12                 1Jn 3:1-2                 Jn 10:11-18

A shepherd was tending his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a dust cloud approached at high speed, out of which emerged a shiny silver BMW. The driver, a young man in a well-dressed suit, poked his head out of the window and asked the shepherd, “Hey! If I can tell you how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?” The shepherd looked at the man, then glanced at his peacefully grazing flock and answered, “Sure.” The young man parked his car, plugged his microscopic cell phone into a laptop and briskly surfed to a GPS satellite navigation system on the internet and initiated a remote body-heat scan of the area. While the computer was occupied, he sent some e-mail via his BlackBerry and, after a few minutes, nodded solemnly at the responses. Finally, he printed a 150-page report on the little laser printer, turned to the shepherd, waving the sheaves of paper, and pronounced, “You have exactly 1,586 sheep.” “Impressive! One of my sheep is yours.” said the shepherd.

He watched the young man select an animal and how he bundled it into his car. Then the shepherd said: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?” Pleased to meet a fellow challenger, the young man replied “Yes.” “You are a consultant,” said the shepherd without hesitation. Being impressed, the young man said, “That's correct! How did you guess?” The shepherd replied “It was not a guess. You drove into my field uninvited. You asked me to pay you for information I already know, answered questions I have not asked, and you know nothing about my business. Now give me back my sheep.”

By the gestures of the young man, the shepherd assessed the profession of the young man. Still, generally speaking, a shepherd cannot be equaled to the informational knowledge of a professional or an expert. But the wisdom and experiential knowledge possessed by the ordinary shepherd is something unique and philanthropic in nature that speaks in volumes about the love and care, he has for his flock. The shepherd in the story was well aware that the young man being a consultant cannot give good care to the sheep which he gave as a prize for the challenge won by the young man. Therefore, he was particular to get his sheep back through his wisdom. A good shepherd would never entrust even single sheep of his flock into another’s care.

All of us love to be protected. All of us love to be under someone’s care and affection. This is an undeniable emotional need of every person. The imagery of the shepherd and the sheep, centrally brings this message of care and protection. There cannot be a better imagery to bring this message so sharp and touching. The significant point of this message is that the protection enjoyed by the sheep is at the risk and cost of the shepherd’s life. The shepherd is ready to face any risk in order to protect the sheep under his care. It manifests his genuine love towards his sheep. When Jesus expresses himself as the Good Shepherd, he tries to expose these characteristics in relation to each of us.

Let us have look at the characteristics of a shepherd who is good, in the light of today’s gospel. The following are the characteristics:

- A shepherd is one who loves his people genuinely and authentically without any pretension

- A shepherd is one who sacrifices for his peoples’ well-being even to the extent of giving his life
- A shepherd is one who will not run away when his life is endangered
- A shepherd is one who will face any reality for the sake of his flock
- A shepherd is one who knows his people individually and personally
- A shepherd is one who will relate with his people to the extent the people also knows the shepherd personally
- A shepherd is one who is not only concerned about his own flock but also the uncared that belongs to other flock
- A shepherd is one who is particular not to lose even single person from his flock
- A shepherd is one who sees to that the single lost is brought back into the herd
- A shepherd is one who protects each individual in the flock to the extent that no one snatches it away

So far, we have been reflecting only on who is a good shepherd. Jesus Christ not only presents the characteristics of a good shepherd, but also sharply denotes the character of the good sheep. Therefore, the question that comes to our mind is: Who is a good sheep? Jesus surprisingly points out only one characteristic of a good sheep.

A good sheep is one who listens and follows the voice of the shepherd and does not go by the voice of the stranger. The good sheep should have good acquaintance with the shepherd in order to always recognize the voice of the shepherd, otherwise it would be misled by a stranger’s voice. A personal rapport with the shepherd becomes inevitable here

There are two options of being misled. One, by mistakenly recognizing the stranger’s voice for the original shepherd. Secondly, by willingly being fascinated by the stranger’s voice and following him. In either option, the sheep is in a dangerous position. The first is a matter of unawareness but once awareness happens, it can be rectified. But the second is a matter of volition and voluntary willingness to be yielded to a new path. It is a matter of one’s discretion and decision. It is a matter of conviction and determination. The change of a determined mind is not so easy. Bringing back to earlier path, cannot happen suddenly but needs longer time. Sometimes, it would also result in vain. Rather the change of an unknowingly misled mind is easier to be brought back of the earlier path.

Today, the world is filled with so many teachings and philosophies. These are different voices of various shepherds. These voices promise various benefits like longer life, complete enjoyment, accumulation of wealth, highest fame and so on. But these cannot promise eternal life, but only the voice of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. The sad fact is that, the voice of Jesus is counted as one among many voices. To the world and others, the voice of Jesus may seem to be one among the many, but to us, that is the only voice to be followed. It is a matter of belief for all of us to rely only on it fully.

We are in the pathetic state of being confused by many voices calling us. Everything seems to convince us of various benefits. We need to have a proper discernment to rightly respond to our Good Shepherd, Christ’s voice alone. This is how we could prove ourselves to be the good sheep of the Good Shepherd. If our love for God is true, we would only hold to Christ’s voice. Let each of us take time to ponder over this question: Which voice I constantly heed to?

3rd Sunday of Easter (Cycle B)

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19                  1Jn 2:1-5                  Lk 24:35-48

Till date, the mystery remains about the missing aircraft Boeing 777-200ER which took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia destined to land in Beijing Capital International Airport in China on 8^th March 2014. The aircraft has not been recovered, and the cause of the disappearance remains unknown. Of all the aircraft accidents and crash so far happened, this incident remains the most mysterious and shocking. In the most advanced technological world, after all the professionals, experts and techies having invested their mind, time and energy; single evidence is unfound, undiscovered till date in this aircraft case.

The search for evidence is a curiosity of the human mind. The human mind stumbles and becomes restless when evidences are unfound. Several cases in the judiciary are unable to progress due to lack of evidences. So many investigations remain unanswered in various researches due to lack of proper evidences. As every human life has a purpose which gives meaning to one’s life, so also, evidences are important to establish a fact on this earth or to prove anything under the sun. To establish any truth or for any enquiry, evidences are crucial.

In temporal matters, especially in scientific field, experiments provide facts and evidences to prove a particular physical law. In the same temporal matter, with regard to any human incidents, the testimony about the event given by a person stand as a witness to prove the fact. In spiritual matters, evidences of temporal nature do not fit. Here is where our point of reflection for today begins. As evidences of temporal nature do not fit within spiritual matters, each of us should become live evidences. To put it in other words, we should become the witnesses for matters concerning Christian faith.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a very significant portion and foundation of Christian faith. The fact about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is all the more difficult to be proved to those who revolve around the scientific framework of mind. We live in an age of people surrounded by scientific framework of mind. In this background, the invitation given by Jesus in today’s gospel becomes vital for each of us as Christians. As He said to his disciples as we heard in today’s gospel, He says to each of us: You are witnesses (Lk 24:48). Witness is the catch word in today’s liturgy of the Word.

Jesus invites us to be witnesses to His resurrection. He does not ask us to be evidences for the supernatural event of His resurrection but to be witnesses of resurrected life, a new type of life that began after the resurrection of Christ. The glory, the abundance of life, the new hope, the communitarian mindset, altruistic attitude and so on are the elements of a resurrected life. The disciples of Jesus experienced these after our Lord’s resurrection. We need to become witnesses to these elements.

Today’s first reading from the Acts, presents St Peter as a powerful witness of Christ. From the gospels, we are quite aware of the personality, temperament and nature of Peter. He was a man who was so timid and confused. Though our Lord wanted to make Peter strong by naming him as Cephas, which means ‘Rock,’ still he was wavering and failed to have strong conviction. For those who are well aware of the nature of Peter, it is quite shocking and surprising to encounter a different Peter altogether in the first reading. St Peter boldly points to the Jews who killed Jesus and said: You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses (Acts 3:14,15). Here, Peter establishes himself as the witness of Christ. He makes an open confession. He makes this confession with clarity of mind unlike his earlier nature. The liturgy of the Word today, presents Peter as the model for us to be witnesses to Christ.

It is interesting to note that when Jesus was made to stand before Pontius Pilate for trial, he did not seek for any evidences or witnesses as support to prove his innocence in order to escape from the forthcoming sentence of crucifixion. Rather to be witnesses for His resurrection, He expected His disciples to be so. They too fulfilled His expectation. Now it is our turn to be so.

Generally speaking, credibility and authenticity is the mark of being a good witness. We should be realistic in being witnesses to Christ. It should not be unrealistic or artificial. It should show off very naturally from our true Christian way of living. A strong convinced Christian way of life will expose it naturally. Not much effort is needed.

An American teacher was employed in Japan on the understanding that during school hours he should not utter a word on the subject of Christianity. The engagement was faithfully kept, and he lived before his students the Christian life, but never spoke of it to them. Not a word was said to influence the young men committed to his care. But so beautiful was his character, and so blameless his example, that forty of the students, unknown to him, met in a grove and signed a secret covenant to follow Christian values. Twenty-five of them entered the Kyoto Christian Training School, and some of them became preachers of the Gospel which their teacher had unconsciously commended. This is a story of true witness.

Once Mahatma Gandhi was asked this question by a foreign missionary: Which is the greatest hindrance for Christianity to spread in India? His answer was very quick and prompt. He simply said: Christian themselves! Let us not be shocked by this fact. It is a fact because we Christians lack a witnessing life to Christ and His values. The blame is not on those Christians who live a true witnessing life and could be counted in few numbers. The accusation rests on those who proclaim themselves as Christians just for name sake and does not counter it in their Christian lives.

St Ignatius of Antioch said: The tree is made manifest by its fruit; so, they who profess themselves to be Christians are known by what they do. For Christianity is not the work of an outward profession; but shows itself in the power of faith, if a man be found faithful unto the end. It is better for a man to hold his peace and be; than to say he is a Christian and not to be.

Our call is not to be name sake Christians. Witnessing life is like two sides of the same coin. One refers to the experience of Christ. The other refers to the sharing and proclamation of the same. Without the first, the second would have no effect. Do we sufficiently have the first?