Fourth Sunday after Easter – Year A
April 26, 2026
Gospel Lectionary Text
John 10:1-10
10:1 "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit.
10:2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
10:3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
10:5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers."
10:6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
10:7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
10:8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.
10:9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."
Context
Welcome to the Fourth Sunday after Easter. It’s Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus gives us one of his most puzzling images: “I am the gate.”
Standing in the Temple, Jesus isn’t speaking in abstractions. He’s pointing to something everyone can see: the sheep gate. Faithfully following their shepherd, the sheep are brought in, but they don’t come out. It’s a one-way gate. Not the kind of place you want to be if you’re a sheep.
In this week’s text, Jesus is exposing the sacrificial system for what it is — a giant abattoir. Jesus doesn’t mince words. He says it’s run by “thieves and bandits” who “steal, kill, and destroy” in God’s name. Jesus isn't saying that if only the sacrificial system had better priests, everything would be fine. He’s saying that the sacrificial system (which operates on the premise that God needs blood sacrifice to be satisfied) turns even the best leaders into thieves and bandits who steal, kill, and destroy. That’s what sacred slaughterhouses do — something sheep know all too well. And here Jesus mixes his metaphors to drive home the point. Jesus is not only the gate, but also the shepherd, as well as the sheep.
Gate: “Whoever enters by me will be safe… and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Jesus transforms the one-way passage into a two-way passage, where we can freely enter and roam the temple of God’s presence without fear.
Shepherd: “I came that they may have life… abundantly.” Jesus isn’t just a better shepherd than the others. He’s shepherding an entirely different kind of system; it’s a system of mercy, authored by a God in whom there is no violence, who is in rivalry with nothing, not even death.
Sheep: “I lay down my life… and take it up again.” Jesus freely becomes the sacrificial victim, not to affirm the system, but to expose it for what it is: a sacred slaughterhouse, ruled and run by our wrath, not God’s.
To be clear, Jesus’ self-sacrifice did not suddenly bring an end to scapegoating, nor did it immediately dismantle the sacrificial systems of this world. But Jesus did reveal that God is in no way behind any of it. And that changes everything, including what it means to be sheep.
Question
If Jesus is the gateway of mercy, not sacrifice, how does this reimagine God and the whole temple system? And how relieved are you if you are a sheep?
Reflections
A Different Kind of Gate
By Joel Van Dyke |
As a part of the broader church, I see myself in the mirror of Jesus’ words today. We have a crucial decision to make. Will we be the kind of gate that uses all of our energy acting like bouncers, deciding who is in and who is out? Or, will we embrace the role of...
Pastureland in a Pandemic?
By Joel Van Dyke |
After an encounter with the shadowlands of Ash Wednesday, we now sit silently in front of an opened curtain, revealing the five-week theater that is the Valley of Lent. The Gospel narrative for the first Sunday of Lent is that of the desert temptation.
Shadowlands or Pastureland
By Joel Van Dyke |
Street Psalms leads a collaboration of 13 training hubs (UTC) in cities around the world; together, we seek to develop incarnational leaders who love their cities and seek their peace. We have a strong sense of what UTC Hubs are called to do on a communal level. But, we can sometimes lose sight of where...
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
In this week’s gospel, Jesus comforts the sheep. He transforms the one-way gate of death into the two-way gate of life. Jesus reveals that God is in no way behind the sacrificial system that feeds off victims. This is very good news if you are a sheep. Collins’s poem names the irony of how sacrificial systems work – something we are still learning. Consider the dark humor in Collins’s poem. What forms does this irony take today?
Flock
by Billy Collins
"It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible...required the skins of 300 sheep."
-from an article on printing
I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed,
all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible
to count them,
and there is no telling
which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd,
one of the few things they already know.
Prayer
Jesus, you are Emmanuel, the God who is with us. Be with us in all the ways we need but cannot name, revealing yourself to us by what you do.
We pray this in the name of the Father who is for us, the Son who is with us, and the Spirit who unites us all in the never-ending dance of Love.
Amen.