The Icon of the Good Shepherd in the Early Eucharist (Nea-Synaxis #3)

If you are interested in this article you might be interested in my other blog-

http://phenomenalogos.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-shepherd-thanksgiving.html

One of the earliest examples of Christian Iconography that has survived to this day is the depiction of Christ as the Good Shepherd.  For at least the first two centuries Christ was represented almost exclusively as the Good Shepherd.  This is an image rich in scriptural and cultural significance that was not merely an early Christian exercise in aesthetics, but an epiphany of God’s personal revelation in His eternal Son, Jesus Christ.  The key to unlocking the hidden depths and riches of this sacred Icon is in the proper placement of the Icon in the place and at the time of the Eucharist.

The Good Shepherd is the one who calls the sheep saying, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”(John 10:27)  The Good Shepherd calls forth His people, shaping them into the ἐκκλησία/Church (which literally means to be called). 

The Eucharist from a very early date was called Synaxis, the gathering.  The Eucharist was the gathering of God’s people (Laos) in and around Christ the Good Shepherd.  In Ezekiel 34:12 we read, “As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day.”  This verse which the early Church was certainly familiar would have been applied to Christ who gathers His people together in order to feed them.  Isaiah 40:11 tells us that, “He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, And carry them in His bosom, And gently lead those who are with young.”  The food He gives them is not food that perishes but the food of eternal life because Christ has said, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”(John 6:48-51)

The Eucharist is also a remembrance of “all that came to pass.”  We remember the death of Christ who said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)  The Shepherd did not only lay down His life for the sheep but became as one of them in every way except sin.  The Shepherd becomes the Lamb that was slain so, “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.  For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18)

We remember the Resurrection and enthronement of Christ the Shepherd who became the Lamb, slain and raised from the dead.  It is He that we worship in the Divine Liturgy.  “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

      ‘You are worthy to take the scroll,
      And to open its seals;
      For You were slain,
      And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
      Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
       ¹⁰ And have made us kings and priests to our God;
      And we shall reign on the earth’.” (Revelation 8-10)

It is perhaps already evident in what has been said that the Eucharist is an Eschatological event, an Icon of the Lord’s Kingdom which is to come in the last times.  It was thus fitting that the Image of the Good Shepherd be present at the Eucharist because Christ identifies Himself in His second coming as Judge with a shepherd.  “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:31-33)

Another Eucharistic element found in the image of the Good Shepherd is ecclesiological.  The bishop, or perhaps more accurately the president of the Eucharist, is understood as the living Icon of Christ the Shepherd.  This is evidenced in the ancient Western tradition of the bishop holding as his staff the shepherd’s crook and in the East the Gospel pericope read on the feast day of a hierarch is from the 10^th chapter of John.

In conclusion we see in light of the Good Shepherd Icon that the Eucharist is:

1.      The assembly who hears the Shepherd’s voice

2.      Those who are gathered together by the Shepherd

3.      The Sheep receiving food and drink from the Shepherd

4.      The food and drink itself which is the body and blood of the Shepherd become lamb that was slain and has risen.

5.       The Worship of the Lamb with celebrations, hymns, incense, and prostrations.

6.      A foretaste of the coming Judgment by the Shepherd-King.

7.      An Icon of God’s Kingdom made tangible in the person of the bishop the par excellent icon of the Shepherd.

-Micah H., November 2011

Psalm 23, A Eucharistic Psalm of the Good Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd;
         I shall not want.
  He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
         He leads me beside the still waters.
  He restores my soul;
         He leads me in the paths of righteousness
         For His name’s sake.
     
  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
         I will fear no evil;
         For You are with me;
         Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.       

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
         You anoint my head with oil;
         My cup runs over.
  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
         All the days of my life;
         And I will dwell in the house of the LORD
         Forever.