For a Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good, Day
John 10:22-30
Do you know anyone who has had a very bad day lately? Have you had a bad day lately? When I think of bad days, I am reminded of a boy in a children's story my Mother used to read to me 1. His name was Alexander, and over and over he talks about how he has had a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day.Are there any Montreal Canadien fans here? Perhaps if you are a Montreal Canadien's fan, you feel like you had one of those days, on Thursday night. From time to time they looked like they might pull out at least one game during the series, but it just didn't happen. I guess Sen's fans had their bad day a few weeks ago.
But of course having a sports team lose isn't really a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day. But we all have them don't we.
When our children are sick, when our parents, or our spouse, or our friends die. When our plant closes down and we lose our job. When ever we end up finding ourselves in places and situations that we really don't want to be in.
But Jesus has something to say to each one of us in the middle of our terrible, horrible, very bad, no good, days. "No one will snatch them from his hand". When we belong to Jesus, nothing, absolutely nothing, will separate us from him. As Paul says in Roman's: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord".
Now in the middle of hard times, that is very good news. Even in the middle of very good times it can be very good news. Jesus is with us. Jesus, the Messiah, one with the Father, will carry us when we need to be carried.
This Sunday is sometimes called Shepherding Sunday. We are at the time of year when it used to be, that the flocks and herds would be taken from their barnyards and keeps, to pasture for the summer. You will notice that there are all sorts of bits of sheep and shepherd imagery in our readings today. We read the 23rd psalm. We hear about how Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
When I lived in Montana, we had sheep. And this means that we had lambs too. One thing that is always a problem for sheep farmers, is dogs, and wolves and coyotes.
There is a story of an old sheep farmer whose neighbor's dogs were always killing his sheep. It got so bad that he knew he had to do something. As he saw it, he had three options. One, he could sue; he could bring a lawsuit and take his neighbor to court. His second option was to build a stronger and higher fence so his neighbor's dogs could not get in. But he took a third option. He gave two lambs to his neighbor's children. In due time the lambs grew into sheep and had other sheep and then the neighbor and his children got to see the sheep not as an impersonal herd, but as something warm and fuzzy, something personal with individual traits and a history and names. Something that could love and be loved, feel cold and feel pain. They soon penned in their dogs. 2I only needed to care for one lamb who's mother couldn't feed it and I understood a bit more about what Jesus was saying when he was talking about being the good Shepherd.
Sheep need shepherds. And Jesus is the Good shepherd. He cares for us in all sorts of ways. He leads us. He reaches out and aches to heal each of us. He knows each of us by name, and in the end he died for each of us too.
Clara Null of Oklahoma City, talks about a very bad day she was having. "The washing machine broke down, the telephone kept ringing, my head ached, and the mail carrier brought a bill I had no money to pay. Almost to the breaking point, I lifted my one-year-old into his high chair, leaned my head against the tray, and began to cry. Without a word, my son took his pacifier out of his mouth...and stuck it in mine."... 3Jesus is reaching out to each of us, to give us a hug, to encourage us, and to make it all right, no matter what the situation. He is our good Shepherd. He is the one that leads us, in all that we do. He calls us to care for others, and he promises to take us home.
So what is our part in all of this? It's sounds easy really. But it will take each of us our entire lifetime to master. We follow Jesus. We follow our shepherd. We try to live as he calls us to. We try to listen to his voice. We pray. We reach out to others. We come to church and learn from each other. We care. We love.
In the good times, and the bad times, the easy times and the difficult times, let us follow Jesus.
Amen
©2004 Steve E. Timpson
1 Judith Viorst, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", Simon & Schuster, New York, 1972.
2 This story about shepherds is taken from a sermon for the "Fourth Sunday of Easter (B)" by Deacon Sil Galvan.
3 This story about Clara Null is taken from the Christian Reader Magazine, and I came across it in a sermon by Jerry Fuller called "The Good Shepherd".
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