Peace be with you. Friends, on this fourth Sunday of Easter, we have this marvelous, short but very punchy reading from the Gospel of John.

Jesus referring to himself as the Good Shepherd. Now listen, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.

Well, this trope of the shepherd might be alien to a lot of us today, but man, is it powerful

and consistent in the Bible, both Old Testament and New?

The shepherd who calls out the sheep, even though they're kind of dumb animals, but they

are able to discern the voice of the shepherd.

And the shepherd knows which sheep belong to him.

So it was a very apt metaphor for the manner in which God, Christ, reaches out to us, knows us personally,

and how we, and this is the part I find really interesting and mysterious, we're able,

even though we're kind of dumb animals too, let's be honest, but we're able to discern

amidst all the competing voices, his voice, that that's the one we are to follow.

I say mysterious because, you know, why do we end up following

Christ, those of us who do? What is it? And you say, oh, it's your family, it's your background.

Yeah, sure, all that contributes. But at some point, we found that voice compelling. At some level,

we said, a lot of voices, I hear a lot of voices, but

that's the one I'm going to follow. And that's the Christian life. Now, the claim of the New

Testament is that everybody is meant to follow that voice. Jesus is not just, you know, one interesting

figure among many. Like, oh, that's nice. He's got, you know, a few million followers, but

lots of other spiritual gurus have their followers. And, you know, there's this shepherd and that

shepherd. No, no. I am the good shepherd, Jesus says. I am the good shepherd. And the will of God is that everyone

hears his voice. Everyone follows him. Now, look at the first couple readings for this Sunday.

The first one from the Acts of the Apostles. That's the whole point of the Acts of the Apostles,

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