Devotion for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday After the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Good Shepherd, Roman Catacombs

Image in the Public Domain

Shepherds, Part II

APRIL 22-24, 2024

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The Collect:

O Lord Christ, good shepherd of the sheep,

you seek the lost and guide us into your fold.

Feed us, and we shall be satisfied;

heal us, and we shall be whole.

Make us one with you, for you live and reign with the Father

and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 33

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The Assigned Readings:

1 Samuel 16:1-13 (Monday)

1 Chronicles 11:1-9 (Tuesday)

Micah 7:8-20 (Wednesday)

Psalm 95 (All Days)

1 Peter 5:1-5 (Monday)

Revelation 7:13-17 (Tuesday)

Mark 14:26-31 (Wednesday)

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Come, let us bow down and kneel,

bend the knee before the LORD our maker,

for He is our God,

and we are the people He tends, the flock in His care.

–Psalm 95:6-7a, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures (1985)

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The pericopes for these three days combine happy and somber thoughts.  Certainly the martyrs would not have become martyrs had their human “shepherds” been good ones.  Also, the prayer to God to shepherd the people (in Micah 7) came from a time of national peril.  The glory days of King David, whom the author of 1 Chronicles whitewashed, were not as wonderful as many people claimed, but they were better than the times of Micah.

Zechariah 13:7, in the literary context of the Day of the Lord and in the historical context of the Maccabean wars, reads:

This is the word of the LORD of Hosts:

Sword, awake against my shepherd,

against him who works with me.

Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,

and I shall turn my hand against the lambs.

—The Revised English Bible (1989)

This shepherd’s suffering will open the way for the purification and survival of one-third of his flock; the other two-thirds will perish.  Mark 14:27 has Jesus quote part of this passage in reference to himself in the context of the climactic Passover week.  The quote works mostly well that way, except for the perishing of two-thirds of the flock.  Nevertheless, this use of Zechariah 13:7 fits well with our Lord and Savior’s saying that the good shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep.

I try to be a grateful sheep of his flock.  My success rate is mixed, but I hope that it is improving, by grace.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 18, 2014 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF MARC BOEGNER, ECUMENIST

THE FEAST OF DOROTHY SAYERS, NOVELIST

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/shepherds-part-ii/

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