Revd John Howard-Norman

Sunday 26th April 2026

The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Welcome

Wherever you are joining us from today, you are welcome. As we come into this space, let’s recall the good news of Easter, that Christ is risen. So let’s take a little time to rest in his presence.

Opening prayer

Loving God, we gather in your presence.

Quiet our hearts and open our minds to you.

Receive our prayers and our praise,

and draw us closer to one another and to you,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Hymn: For the beauty of the earth

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Creator God, we want to start simply by saying thank you. Thank you for the world you have made and gifted to us. 

For daylight, birdsong, and the signs of spring that remind us that life keeps coming back. Thank you for all the small, quiet gifts that surround us, that we so easily take for granted.

And thank you that the God who made all of this also knows each one of us by name, and cares for us as a shepherd cares for the flock.

Forgive us for the times we have been too busy, too anxious, or too distracted to notice your goodness. Forgive us when we have forgotten that we are loved.

Receive our praise and our prayers, and meet us now in the quietness. Amen.

Introduction to the Bible Reading

Our reading is from John’s Gospel, chapter ten, verses one to ten. It’s a passage full of images from the countryside; shepherds, sheep, and sheepfolds, in which Jesus has a message for you today.

Bible Reading: John 10:1-10

Jesus said: “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. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Reflection: The Gate

The picture of Jesus we find in the tenth chapter of John’s gospel is very familiar. Perhaps you remember a painting of the Good Shepherd hanging in the room where your Sunday School met when you were a child. It’s a comforting image. We all want to be cared for by the Good Shepherd, who was prepared to lay down his life for us, his beloved sheep. Yet, part way through the passage, it seems that Jesus changes the subject and begins to talk about himself as a gate, and we may wonder why?

On my walks through the beautiful countryside around where I live, many field boundaries require me to open (and not to forget to close!) a gate. They are essential to ensure that livestock doesn’t escape from the safety of the field in which they graze, but what does all this have to do with Jesus?

In the world Jesus and his hearers inhabited, a shepherd guarding his flock through the night would lie down across the entrance to the sheepfold. His own body became the gate. Nothing could enter or leave without passing over him. The metaphor of the shepherd and the gate are not separate images, they are one. The shepherd is the gate. To say “I am the gate” is simply to say more fully what it means to be a shepherd; who protects the sheep, not by remaining at a distance but by placing his own body between them and the dangers that lie in the darkness beyond the sheepfold.

This particular gate is not an inanimate barrier. It is a presence. When Jesus says, those who enter through him will find pasture; will go in and out freely; will have life in abundance, he is describing life lived in a relationship. Access to that life cannot be earned or won for ourselves. It comes through the one who has already placed himself, body and soul, at the threshold.

Gates can speak of exclusion — we have all experienced closed doors, in one form or another, and the memory can be painful. But this gate is held open, and the one who holds it open does so, not from a position of power and judgement, but through service and self-giving. The gatekeeper decides who enters. The gate offers the way through.

Whatever doors have been closed to you - through circumstance, through loss, through the accumulated weight of the years - this passage places an altogether different threshold before you.

The gate is open. And the one who has opened it, is also the one who calls you by name.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Hymn: The King of love, my shepherd is

Prayers of Intercession

Lord, we bring to you the people and the world that you love.

We think of everyone living in fear today: those caught up in war and conflict, people who have had to flee their homes, families struggling to make ends meet. We ask that those with power to help would use it wisely and generously.

We pray for our own community, those who are unwell, those who are grieving, those carrying a burden we may not even know about. Hold them close, Lord.

We especially remember those who feel alone, people who can go a whole day without anyone calling their name. Remind them, through your Spirit and through us, that they have not been forgotten.

We pray for your church; not just our own congregations, but your people everywhere, that we would be a community through which others can catch a glimpse of the life you promise.

And we pray for ourselves. For patience, for trust, for the grace to hear your voice above all the noise of daily life.

Hear us, Lord, for we ask it through Christ. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come; thy will be done;

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

Hymn: The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want