Neville Kyrke-Smith writes a Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A)
If you like music, you will probably start singing when you read the words “For we like sheep have gone astray” as Handel’s Messiah resounds in the echo chambers of your heart and mind. Yet today (1 Peter 2: 24 & 25) we are reminded that “by his wounds (we) have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.”
How can we open up to God’s love and follow the Good Shepherd? It is Christ himself who stands and knocks at the door of our heart and life. In the marvellous Holman Hunt painting of The Light of the World – the original version of which is to be found in Keble College Chapel, Oxford – there is no door handle on the outside. This is an echo of Revelation 3:20 : “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” We are asked to respond to that knock and open up to let the Light of the World lead us as we reflect the glorious hope of the Resurrection in the darkness of today’s world.