This is the Fourth Sunday of Easter. It’s also known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  Every year at this time, the Gospel readings have as their specific message that of drawing us back to Jesus, if we feel distant, or into a deeper relationship with him, if we feel lacking in that.  This is an opportunity for us to redirect our lives, if we in fact need to do that.

Throughout these recent weeks, Jesus presents himself to us as “the Bread of Life” and as “The Gate.”  The common message is simple: Jesus Christ—and a strong relationship with him—is the only way to genuine happiness.  Following him and feeding on him is what brings us real joy.

With this in mind, here’s a random question for you: do you ever get so hungry that you just can’t decide what you want to eat?  You know, I’m not sure how it got started, but every now and then, I will meet a few guys for breakfast on Friday, my day off.  We always meet at our favorite cafe on the LSU campus.  There are usually 4 of us altogether. By the time they get there, it’s a little later than your normal breakfast time. In fact, by the time we’re all there, the clock on the wall shows lunch time.  Nevertheless, we call it breakfast.  We usually sit in the same place, tucked away in a back corner where we can converse and laugh.  There’s always a lot of laughing. For the first several minutes, our server keeps pouring coffee, while catch up on things—and, of course laugh.  Finally, she comes around and asks, “you guys ready to order?”  Now, if you’ve ever been to "our place," you know that there’s a lot on the menu, and it’s all good.  And we’re all really hungry, like, starving.  Because of this, it’s hard to narrow things down to what you want. It always starts with, “hey, man, you in a breakfast mood or lunch mood?”  And it never fails.  3 of us never know what we want.  The fourth? Always knows.  Because he always orders the same thing.  The last time we were there, I said, “you never really mix it up, even a little, do you?”  His response? “Hey, you know me. Gotta stick with what works.”

“You gotta stick with works.” Are you and I doing that? Sticking with what works?  With everything out there that we can feed on and all the voices we could follow, Jesus tells us, promises us over and over that he is the only real bread, he is the only real way.  And, if you look at life as one big menu, we can feed on anything we want—and, as we all know, there’s a lot out there to choose from, some of it good, and a lot of it not good at all.  Whether we realize it or not, we’re all hungry, very hungry, but we don’t always realize what we’re hungry for.  Because beneath all the desires that we have, what we’re really looking for is something that lasts.  We want to “walk the way” that takes us to the right place, but all to often we take shortcuts.  Jesus tells us, “I am the true bread, come down from heaven.”  Today he says it clearly, in yet another way; namely, “I am the gate.  There is no other way.”  We live as a people who desire something that lasts forever, but we live in a world that offers things that do not.

The late psychologist, Steven Reise, wrote a popular and well-accepted book, entitled, “Who Am I?”  In it, he identified 16 basic human hungers and desires.  No, I’m not going to list them.  I will, however mention the top 5. They are:

1. Power
2. Independence
3. Curiosity
4. Acceptance
5. Order

(Reise, Steven. Who Am I? ©2000. Tarcher Publishing. New York.)

All of these, in their most genuine form, in their richest form, are offered to us in Christ, nowhere else.  All the rest is fluff.  All of the rest is only temporary.

So, if you want to pray with and allow the Gospels from this time of year to challenge you and encourage you, then just ask yourself a couple of questions: “What am I feeding on and where am I turning for real strength, independence, acceptance, order?”  I won’t bore you with all of the examples, because you know what they are.  They are things and attitudes.  Bad behaviors and heavy burdens like prolonged anger and resentment.  “What road am I following?  Who am I following?”  The crowd—and pleasing or being accepted by them—will not bring us happiness.  It’s a weak, artificial form of acceptance and only leaves us fooled and lost. 

There is in the end, then, only One True Bread and One True Gate.  Do we know him?  Or have we gotten away from him?  Because that’s the thing about The Shepherd: he will always welcome us back.