The image that marked out the earliest Christians was Christ the Good Shepherd. It’s this face that you see when you explore their earliest burial sites – such as the Catacombs of St Callistos on the Appia Antica, which I climbed down into in April with our son Nick. Some might expect a Cross, to symbolise Christ’s achievement, or the Fish. But no. The face of the Good Shepherd mattered more – as a sign of who Christ is, his resurrection, his ultimate victory over sin and death.
This struck me with a sense of force. For the earliest Christians, what was most important was not a divine transaction or even a badge of identity – significant though these were. What mattered most was a personal relationship with the one who bore the visible face of God… and that face was the one of the Good Shepherd.
The figure of the Good Shepherd looms great in our Ordination Services. In the opening words of Revd Helen’s Priestly Ordination Service on 29th June, the Bishop told the candidates “to set the example of the Good Shepherd always before them as the pattern of their calling.” In the charge read out at Revd Christine’s Deacons’ Ordination on 30th June, the Bishop declared they were to be “reaching into the forgotten corners of the world, that the love of God may be made visible.” What a great expression of the shepherd-like care of the Lord described by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
The deeply personal moments of an Ordination – whether in gifts, greetings, memories, or even the occasional mis-hap – remain with each person throughout their lives. That is because they reflect the deeply personal nature of all Christian ministry – ordained or lay, recognized or hidden. Continue to remember Revd Helen and Revd Christine in your prayers as they embark on this new and life-long commitment. Remember, too, that you also have a calling and a gift – that nothing escapes the Good Shepherd’s line of vision, and that the Good Shepherd has a purpose for you that only you can fulfil.
At my own ordination to priesthood, I was given this Prayer of Thomas Ken – a gentle 18th century hymn-writing Bishop – by our Retreat Leader:
Give me the priest these graces shall possess: –
Of an ambassador, the just address;
A father’s tenderness, the shepherd’s care;
A leader’s courage, which the cross can bear;
A ruler’s awe, a watchman’s wakeful eye;
A pilot’s skill, the helm in storms to ply;
A fisher’s patience, and a labourer’s toil;
A guide’s dexterity to disembroil;
A prophet’s inspiration from above;
A teacher’s knowledge, and a Saviour’s love.
Then we were invited to remember that this, like all ministry, was a gift of God’s grace and mercy [2 Corinthians 4.1]. We couldn’t do this without God’s Shepherd-like Love reaching us first. And, in the distilled Biblical wisdom of Brother Roger of Taizé, “What God asks of us, God gives.”
Rev Steve
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 