Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Easter

April 22, 2018

1 John 3: 1-2
Visitation Convent, Georgetown, D.C.

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us” (1 John 3: 1).

The entire Gospel—“the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” as Mark announces in the 1st verse of his version of the Gospel—is that God loves us.  We acknowledge that perhaps a little bit more on this Sunday called Good Shepherd Sunday.

from Catacombs of

St. Callixus, Rome

The Good Shepherd lays down his life to protect his sheep (John 10:11)—a supreme act of love.  The apostles heal a cripple in Jesus’ name, an act which Peter equates with salvation (Acts 4:9,12), at least in a symbolic way, a symbolic healing pointing to the complete and eternal healing won by “Jesus Christ the Nazorean . . . whom God raised from the dead.  There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (4:10,12).  God’s love is generously shared with a great multitude of people.  In fact, the Good Shepherd enlarges God’s chosen flock:  “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  These also I must lead and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16).  These are the Gentiles—the entire human race beyond the original chosen people.  The brave Shepherd has gone before us to heaven, guiding his humble flock thither (Collect).

Why all that?  “That we may be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).  Not just called his children, but in fact become his children:  “yet so we are” (3:1).  The humble flock guarded and led by the good and brave shepherd somehow becomes so identified with the Shepherd that they are enabled to assume his status:  to become God’s children thru a mystical union with the Son—a sacramental union.

The Good Shepherd’s supreme act of love expresses the Father’s love.  By giving us his Son, the Father “has bestowed [his] love on us,” has lavished his love upon us.  That love transforms us from sinners into saints, from vagabonds into members of the family.

And, as the TV ads say, “Wait!  There’s more!”  (You do watch TV, don’t you?)  What “more”?  We are already, here and now, God’s children (3:2) thru our participation in the sacraments, which unite us to the Son.  But “what we shall be has not yet been revealed” (3:2).  That there could be more is mind-blowing; it’s way more than we can imagine.  At least more than I can!  What could be better than being a child of God for eternity alongside Jesus?

I don’t know.  But St. John says, “We do know”—notice that word:  we know, not suppose, not guess, not hope, not wish—“that when it [whatever that more is] is revealed we shall be like him,” i.e., like God himself.

The gross ambition of the 1st couple in Eden is going to be realized.  The serpent’s duplicitous promise is going to be fulfilled, after all, tho certainly not due to anything the Evil One wished:  If you eat the forbidden fruit, he told the woman, you shall be like gods (cf. Gen 3:5).  Instead, we have been commanded by “Jesus Christ the Nazorean” to take and eat, take and drink, the fruit of the earth, the fruit of the vine, to eat his Body and drink his Blood.

And this is life-giving fruit, transformative fruit for eternal life.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54).  Eating this commanded fruit changes us already into the Mystical Body of Christ, God’s daughters and sons thru a most intimate union with Jesus Christ the Son of God.  And it promises more when we finally enter our Father’s eternal home.  “What we shall be has not yet been revealed.  … we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

You’ve probably heard of Medusa from Greek mythology.  The story is that anyone who looked upon her was instantly turned into stone.  I dare say there was no basis in fact for that myth, altho there certainly have been prefects of studies or deans of discipline who could freeze students with a look.  St. John, however, is telling us that when we look upon the reality of God—what has traditionally been called the “beatific vision”—we shall be changed in some way into a likeness of him—certainly not into stone but perhaps into perfect images of our Lord Jesus; not in a physical sense, for we must keep our own identity, but in some manner, moral and spiritual, beyond what we can imagine.  And this transformation will be the perfect fulfillment of all our desires and yearnings; will give us that “share in the joys of heaven” for which we prayed in the Collect; will make us happy beyond our wildest dreams and hopes—beatifically happy!

So much does God love us.  So much does he long for us to be with him forever, like the father in Jesus’ parable who watched daily for his younger son to show up in the distance, coming homeward (Luke 15:20).  So much does he freely give this gift to us without our deserving it; rather, he bestows it, like the father’s lavish and unmerited love in the parable—in sign of which we come this morning to the great banquet of the Lord’s Body and Blood, to continue the process of our transformation in love.