The Fourth Sunday of Easter each year is always Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel, and therefore hymns and music and sermon pick up the theme of the Good Shepherd, all working together to present this enduring and endearing image of Jesus Christ the high and mighty ruler of the universe as a simple Palestinian shepherd, a faithful shepherd, an unassuming shepherd, a devoted shepherd, a good shepherd. The imagery of Shepherd, especially Jesus as the Good Shepherd, is much beloved. But the imagery of sheep, especially us as sheep, is less appealing. Sheep are timid, anxious, easily frightened, and overwhelmingly stupid. They above all animals have come to symbolize mindless herd instinct with no individual initiative or responsibility. Even lemmings come in second in this symbolism sweepstakes. We may listen in rapture to the choir gloriously singing about us being his people and the sheep of his pasture, but that is not a nice thing for anyone to be saying about us, much less singing over it. And yet, we may well share more than we care to admit. Do we sometimes go along with others when I don't mean to? Can we remember times when we quietly allowed the comments of the herd to pass unchallenged, even when those comments are nasty? Have we ever been tempted to go along with the others? And have we ever given in? Personally, I do like peacefulness, stability, serenity, quiet contentment. I am really a lot more sheep-like than I am usually willing to admit. I have great fun pretending I am a sheep on Good Shepherd Sunday, imagining I am a sheep when I am happily singing out “The King of Love my Shepherd Is", but I am not quite so happy at the crucial, critical times in my life when I have behaved like a sheep, thought very much the way sheep think, just gone along with the rest the way sheep so love to do. The image of Jesus Christ as the shepherd of my sheepness, really ought not to be as endearing as I find it, it really should be something more like embarrassing. It should make me a bit more uncomfortable, self-conscious ... sheepish. And I am also very much afraid, because a shepherd, even a good shepherd, even the best shepherd, will eventually, and from time to time, lose his patience with sheep. Sometimes, there is nothing else you can do with sheep but get impatient. They will not do what is best for them because you suggest it. They need to be driven. That is what the pointy end of the shepherd's crook is for. They need to be prodded, pushed, poked, jabbed or they will never do anything, even that which is clearly in their own best interest. That my Savior is my shepherd and I am a sheep makes me just a little nervous. He is a good shepherd, but he is a shepherd, and I am a sheep, and maybe we are going to come to grief at some point. All sheep do with their shepherds. Strangely, I think, in the midst of all this Sunday's imagery of the shepherd in collect and psalm and hymn and gospel, there is missing that especially appropriate and lyrical passage from the Book of Revelation, the one with the image of the lamb in the midst of the throne, at the center of heaven. Not the imagery of a good and faithful man who is a good and faithful shepherd. But an actual lamb, who is a shepherd. Who better than a lamb to sympathize with sheep, to understand their fear to know they are timid and frightened and yet still to love them. Not likely a lamb will condemn us for being sheep like. A sentimental view of shepherds imagines them as always faithfully, understanding, and infinitely patient. Well, they are not. Shepherds get impatient, and they drive the sheep too hard, and even when they lead well enough, they do so for their purposes and their own gain, though they may do so with affection. Even a good shepherd will do that, even the best shepherd. But a shepherd who is himself a lamb? Now that is a different story. Not one to sympathize only with what it is to be a sheep. But one who is himself a lamb, who has lived and died as a lamb, and now reigns in the midst of Heaven like a lamb, and though qualified to be a shepherd, will always remain a lamb. In the midst of the Throne of Heaven, in the midst of us. This is a fairly light-hearted version of the mystery of the Incarnation, but nonetheless it is what it is all about. Usually the implications of the Incarnation are phrased more grandly and more solemnly. Namely, that Jesus Christ - true God and true man, is fully human and fully divine. But now, here a very welcome image and reminder: we have a God who is not fearsome or unapproachable. Usually we say we have a God who is transcendent - that is high and lifted up, lofty and exalted, but we also believe that we have a God who is immanent, amongst us, near at hand, in our very midst, spread throughout our lives. That is the doctrine of the Incarnation, usually. But on this particular Sunday, this Fourth Sunday of Easter each year, we are offered in place of all of that, this tender-hearted device, the unique and reassuring image that the sheep are being led gently and lovingly and effectively by a shepherd, a Good Shepherd, but a Shepherd who is himself a lamb.