Christ Church

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“I am the Good Shepherd”

The image of Christ the Good Shepherd is one of the great and most familiar images of care. At once a commonplace, it is altogether radical in its meaning. The root of care is cure. The care, we might say, is in the cure.

Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” What distinguishes good shepherds from bad is care. The Good Shepherd cares for the sheep. The meaning of that care is that he lays down his life for the sheep. There is sacrifice – the total giving of oneself for the good of another. It is what we have been privileged to see in Holy Week, on the one hand, contemplating the utter failure in and of ourselves to seek the good of one another and, on the other hand, contemplating the sacrificial love of Christ who alone accomplishes what belongs to our eternal good.

The Good Shepherd, and this is the great and wonderful paradox, is also the Lamb of God. His sacrifice is the cure for our sins but it also imparts his care for our lives. The pastoral ministry of the Church is rooted in this sense of care which is often called “the cure of souls.” It goes beyond the superficial and external matters of comfort and ease and convenience to address the distempers of our souls, the disenchantments of our hearts and the despair of our lives. There is no pastoral care without the naming of the cure and there is no cure without the acknowledgement of our need to be cured in the very root of our being. Once again, it belongs to the pageant of Holy Week to point this out to us. But it also belongs to the parade of Eastertide to show that sacrificial love is a living love. It belongs to the divine life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the divine love that has been made visible in the passion and crucifixion of Christ and in the wonder and triumph of Christ’s resurrection.

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“Your sorrow shall be turned into joy”

Eastertide is the season of joy. The joy, of course, is not just for a season but actually underlies the true nature of our spiritual pilgrimage for the entire year and for the whole of our life. The joy is the joy of the resurrection. Every Sunday, in the Christian understanding of things, is a celebration of the resurrection. In some sense, Christians should not so much be “surprised by joy” as defined by joy.

The joy of the resurrection is not simply or primarily something emotional and psychological, a state of feeling or euphoria. It is something inward and spiritual. It has to do with our understanding of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is something that has to be taught in order to be felt, we might say. There is the constant necessity of being reminded, time and time again, about the victory of Christ over sin and death. The resurrection is the radical triumph of Christ over the very things that make human life tragic and meaningless. We have to think it and live its triumph.

The joy of the resurrection does not eclipse the realities of human suffering and death. Neither does it deny the realities of good and evil. Quite the contrary. The resurrection is about facing those realities and seeing them in a new light of understanding. That new light of understanding is our life with Christ and in Christ lived out in his body, the Church. It means that we look on sin and suffering and death differently. We are no longer to see them as ultimately defining and defeating. “Death be not proud,” as the poet, John Donne, puts it, because death no longer has anything to be puffed up about; indeed, “Death, thou shalt die.” Death has been changed by virtue of the resurrection.

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Tuesday, May 17th
3:30pm Holy Communion at Windsor Elms
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. in the Hall

Thursday, May 19th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In
6:30pm Christ Church “Cinema Paradiso” – Shadowlands

Sunday, May 22nd, Fourth Sunday After Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming Event:
Saturday, June 4th
7:30pm King’s Chorale Concert (under the direction of Bill Perrott)

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St John 16:16-22

Artwork: Anselmo da Campione, Last Supper, c. 1184. Painted Marble, Modena Cathedral.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), Nurse, Social Reformer (source):

Life-giving God, who alone hast power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of thy servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them thy Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46

Artwork: Sir John Robert Steell, Florence Nightingale, 1862.  Bronze, Florence Nightingale Museum, St. Thomas’ Hospital, South Bank, London.  Photograph taken by admin, 25 August 2004.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cyril (826-69) and Saint Methodius (c. 815-85), Apostles to the Slavs (source):

O Lord of all,
who gavest to thy servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavic people:
we pray that thy whole Church may be one as thou art one,
that all who confess thy name may honour one another,
and that from east and west all may acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and thee, the God and Father of all;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:1-7
The Gospel: St Mark 16:15-20

Read more about Cyril and Methodius here.

Artwork: Jan Matejko, Saints Cyril and Methodius, 1885. National Museum, Poznan, Poland.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89), Monk, Bishop, Theologian, Doctor of the Eastern Church (source):

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

For the Epistle: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St John 8:25-32

“The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep”

In our social culture today is Mother’s Day but in the culture of the Church it is Good Shepherd Sunday. The Eucharistic gospel which orders our reading and thinking about the Scriptures on The Second Sunday after Easter is the passage from John’s Gospel about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

A familiar image, even too familiar, perhaps, Christ the Good Shepherd is almost a commonplace theme. And yet, we fail to appreciate its radical meaning.

It is not by accident that this Gospel is read in Eastertide, in the season of the Resurrection. That helps us to realize its radical intent. Christ the Good Shepherd is the Lamb of God. Christ the Good Shepherd “giveth his life for the sheep.” The image of Christ the Good Shepherd cannot be understood apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The Resurrection is about our freedom from sin and death but only through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Exodus is one of the Old Testament books which belong to our Eastertide thinking. It is about liberation. There is an important parallel between the Exodus and the Resurrection, between the liberation from captivity under Pharaoh’s bitter yoke and the greater liberation from sin and death. In both cases, there is the necessity of learning.

The lessons are not always easy. We are not always ready learners. Today, in the Exodus lesson we confront a certain aspect of ourselves. For an ancient story, what we confront here about ourselves seems positively contemporary. There is always time for whine in Canada, it seems, to use the old cliché!

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Tuesday, May 10th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies Mtg. in Parish Hall
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, May 12th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Friday, May 13th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge

Sunday, May 15th, Third Sunday After Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion – KES
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf

Upcoming Events:
Thursday, May 19th
6:30pm Christ Church ‘Cinema Paradiso’ Movie Night – Parish Hall: Shadowlands

Saturday, June 4th
7:30pm King’s Chorale Concert (under the direction of Bill Perrott)