Patrick Comerford
We are more than a week into the Season of Advent, the real countdown to Christmas has gathered pace. The week began with the Second Sunday of Advent (Advent II, 8 December 2024).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 18: 12-14 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 12 ‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’
Today’s reflection:
In my experience, most people warm to the Gospel readings in which Christ is depicted as the model of pastoral care as the Good Shepherd. It iss a popular image, filling stained-glass windows in churches of every tradition, surpassed in popularity only by windows showing the Crucifixion or the Last Supper.
But sometimes I have problems with our cosy, comfortable image of the Good Shepherd. Christ is so often portrayed in clean, spick-and-span, neatly tailored, nicely dry-cleaned, red and white robes, complete with a golden clasp to hold all those robes together.
And the lost sheep is one-in-a-hundred, a huggy, lovable, white fluffy Little Lamb, a little pet, no different from the Little Lamb that Mary had in the nursery rhyme and that followed her to school.
But shepherds and sheep, in real life, are not like that.
I remember once, on Achill Island, hearing about a shepherd who went down a rock-face looking for a lost sheep, and who lost his life. Local people were shocked – lambs don’t fetch a price in the mart that makes them worth losing your life for.
The sheep survived. But as you can imagine, in the process of being lost, it had been torn by brambles, had lost a lot of its wool, was bleeding and messy. Any shepherd going down after a lost sheep will get torn by brambles too, covered in sheep droppings, slip on the rocks, risk his life.
And all for what?
And yet Jesus compares himself the Good Shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep, in the face of great risks from wolves and from the terrain, and against all common wisdom, as the hired hands would know.
Christ, against all the prevailing wisdom, identifies with those who are lost, those who are socially on the margins, who are smelly and dirty, injured and broken, regarded by everyone else as worthless, as simply not worth the bother.
God sees us – all of us – in our human condition, with all our collective and individual faults and failings, and in Christ totally identifies with us.
And how should we respond to that?
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 10 December 2024, Human Rights Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Peace – Advent’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by the Revd Nitano Muller, Canon for Worship and Welcome, Coventry Cathedral.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 10 December 2024, Human Rights Day) invites us to pray:
This Human Rights Day we celebrate the fundamental rights we share and safeguard the rights of our fellow human beings. We pray for our partners the Iglesia Filipina Independiente as they continue to advocate for the human rights of Indigenous people.
The Collect:
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Father in heaven,
who sent your Son to redeem the world
and will send him again to be our judge:
give us grace so to imitate him
in the humility and purity of his first coming
that, when he comes again,
we may be ready to greet him
with joyful love and firm faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
purify our hearts and minds,
that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again
as judge and saviour
we may be ready to receive him,
who is our Lord and our God.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
