Good Shepherd Sunday: An Anglican Perspective

Fourth Sunday of Easter

The Fourth Sunday of Easter occupies a distinctive place in the Anglican liturgical year. It is not a Principal Feast, and it is not a Red-Letter Holy Day. It is a Sunday within the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide, and it has a name: Good Shepherd Sunday. The BCP 2019 appoints a collect and lectionary readings on page 612 and page 724 that consistently draw the Church’s attention to Jesus as the risen Shepherd of his people — the one who knows his sheep by name, goes before them, and laid down his life for them. The imagery is ancient, rooted in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the Gospels, and still alive in the Church’s prayer every spring.

The name comes from Jesus’ declaration in John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11, ESV) This Sunday invites Anglicans to reflect on Christ’s role as the loving, sacrificial shepherd who guides, protects, and redeems his flock — and on the shape of ministry and discipleship that flows from following such a shepherd.

The Biblical Portrait

The shepherd imagery runs through the whole of Scripture. In the Old Testament, God himself is depicted as Israel’s shepherd. Psalm 23 — perhaps the best-known passage in the entire Bible — opens with the confession that frames the whole: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1, ESV) Ezekiel 34 is the prophetic counterpart, a sharp indictment of the false shepherds who have exploited the flock, followed by God’s promise: “I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” (Ezekiel 34:11, ESV) The shepherd who seeks and saves the lost is not an image Jesus invented. It is the identity of God himself, promised through the prophets and now embodied in person.

Jesus’ discourse in John 10 is the New Testament fulfillment of these promises. He presents two images in the opening verses: himself as the gate through which the sheep enter safely, and himself as the Good Shepherd who calls his own by name and leads them out. In verse 14 he makes the intimacy of the relationship explicit: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (John 10:14–15, ESV) The knowledge between shepherd and sheep is analogous to the knowledge between the Father and the Son. This is not the knowledge of a manager who has memorized a roster. It is the knowledge of a love that has made each sheep its own.

The Greek word John uses for “good” is kalos — which carries the sense not merely of moral goodness but of beauty, nobility, and excellence. The Good Shepherd is not simply a shepherd who follows the rules. He is the shepherd who is supremely capable, entirely trustworthy, and uniquely selfless. And the proof of his character is the cross: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11, ESV) The hired hand runs when danger comes. The Good Shepherd stays and dies. The Fourth Sunday of Easter is a Sunday of the resurrection — and the risen Christ who appears to his people in Eastertide is the same one who laid down his life for them. The resurrection does not cancel the cross. It vindicates it.

The Theological Significance

Good Shepherd Sunday places before the Church one of the most pastorally rich images in all of Scripture at the heart of the resurrection season. The resurrection of Jesus is the vindication of the shepherd who died. He was not simply a moral teacher whose memory inspires. He is the living shepherd who continues to call, lead, protect, and provide — actively, personally, now. Eastertide is the season of the risen Christ making himself known to his people: on the Emmaus road, in the locked Upper Room, by the fire on the beach, and here in John 10, in the discourse that the lectionary appoints for this Sunday every year.

The collect for this day captures the pastoral heart of the feast with characteristic Anglican economy. The prayer is not primarily about the sheep’s need, though that is present. It is about the shepherd’s voice: “grant that, when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name.” The petition assumes that the risen shepherd is still speaking, still calling, still naming each of his people individually. Good Shepherd Sunday is the Church’s annual reminder that the relationship between shepherd and sheep is not a past event to be commemorated but a present reality to be inhabited.

There is also an eschatological dimension the Sunday holds before us. John 10 does not stand alone in the New Testament’s shepherd imagery. Revelation 7:17 pictures the glorified Christ as the Lamb who is also Shepherd: “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:17, ESV) The care of the Good Shepherd does not end at death. It leads, ultimately, to springs of living water that never run dry. Good Shepherd Sunday plants that hope in the heart of the congregation, pointing them not only toward faithful living now but toward the final destination toward which the Shepherd is leading his whole flock.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints the following collect for the Fourth Sunday of Easter on page 612: “O God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd of your people: Grant that, when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” The collect is Trinitarian in structure — addressed to the Father, identifying the Son, implicitly invoking the Spirit — and personal in its petition. It does not ask for doctrine about the Good Shepherd. It asks for the grace of hearing his voice and following where he leads. The movement from hearing to knowing to following is the movement of the whole Christian life, compressed into a single prayer.

The Preface of Easter, found on page 154 of the BCP 2019, is used throughout the Easter season including this Sunday: “But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.” (BCP 2019, p. 154) The preface and the Sunday’s theme hold together in a single theological claim: the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep is the Paschal Lamb who destroys death by dying. The shepherd imagery and the sacrificial imagery are not two different doctrines. They are two windows onto the same truth.

The lectionary readings for Good Shepherd Sunday are found on page 724 of the BCP 2019. The Gospel is always from John 10, though the specific verses vary by year: Year A appoints John 10:1–10, Year B appoints John 10:11–16, and Year C appoints John 10:22–30. Psalm 23 is appointed in Years A and B, with Psalm 100 in Year C. The first reading and Epistle also vary by year, drawing from Acts, the Petrine and Johannine letters, and Revelation. The consistent appointment of John 10 across all three years underscores the theological weight the Church places on this particular image of the risen Christ.

Pastoral Implications

Good Shepherd Sunday carries significant pastoral weight for both clergy and congregation. The Anglican understanding of ordained ministry has always been shaped by the shepherd image. The BCP 2019 ordinal charges those being ordained to the priesthood in language that resonates directly with John 10: to teach, to warn, to feed, and to provide for the Lord’s family, and to seek for Christ’s sheep in the midst of this fallen world. Priestly ministry is not self-directed. It is shepherd-shaped: oriented entirely toward the flock entrusted to one’s care.

The contrast between the Good Shepherd and the hired hand in John 10:12–13 is a perennial examination of conscience for those who hold pastoral office. The hired hand runs when the wolf comes, because the sheep are not his own. The Good Shepherd stays. The distinction is not primarily about physical courage. It is about the orientation of the heart — whether one tends the flock for its own sake or for one’s own. For priests and bishops, Good Shepherd Sunday is a call to renewed self-examination and recommitment to the sacrificial shape of ordained ministry.

For the congregation, Good Shepherd Sunday is a reminder of their place within the flock and their own call to shepherd one another. They are called to listen for Christ’s voice amidst the noise of the world, discerning his guidance through prayer, Scripture, and the counsel of the Church. The imagery of Psalm 23 — still waters, green pastures, the valley of the shadow of death — is comfort for those in trial and an assurance that the Shepherd is present in every terrain through which the flock passes, including the darkest ones. And the verse that follows the valley is always the table: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” (Psalm 23:5, ESV) The Eucharist on Good Shepherd Sunday is that table. The Shepherd who laid down his life now gives himself as food and drink for the journey.

Observing This Sunday

To observe Good Shepherd Sunday: pray the collect from BCP 2019, p. 612. Read John 10 — the full chapter if time allows, or the appointed verses for the year — and sit with the question Jesus presses on every hearer: do you know the shepherd’s voice? Read and pray Psalm 23 slowly, perhaps aloud, letting each verse name a specific terrain of your own life — the green pastures of provision, the dark valleys, the table set in the presence of enemies. Read Ezekiel 34:11–16 as the prophetic background to John 10 and hear the promise of the God who seeks his own scattered sheep. And let the collect’s petition frame the week: grant that when we hear his voice, we may know him, and follow where he leads.

Conclusion

Good Shepherd Sunday is not a feast day or a holy day in the BCP hierarchy. It is a Sunday — the Fourth Sunday of Easter — that the lectionary has given a name and a consistent focus. But that name carries the weight of the whole Easter season: the risen Christ, vindicated by the resurrection, still calls his sheep by name, still goes before them, still lays down his life for those who are not yet in the fold. The shepherd who was dead is alive, and he has not stopped shepherding.

“I know my own and my own know me… and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:14–15, ESV)