# The Shepherd Has Arrived - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 26 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73038750/the_shepherd_has_arrived_bishop_barron_s_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends.
[0:01] Speaker 2: The readings for this sixteenth Sunday at ordinary Time are
[0:05] Speaker 2: very interesting the way they're kind of interwoven with each other.
[0:08] Speaker 2: I want to start with Jeremiah. I want to go
[0:10] Speaker 2: to the Gospel, but then I want to circle back
[0:12] Speaker 2: to the second reading from Paul, which I think sheds
[0:16] Speaker 2: the most light on the thematics here. So Jeremiah, we
[0:20] Speaker 2: find a theme that you can also find in other prophets.
[0:23] Speaker 2: You can find it in the Psalms. In fact, all
[0:26] Speaker 2: throughout the Old Testament, the idea of God's desire to
[0:31] Speaker 2: shepherd his people. Listen, here's Jeremiah channeling the words of God.
[0:37] Speaker 2: Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock
[0:40] Speaker 2: of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord,
[0:45] Speaker 2: the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherded my people.
[0:49] Speaker 2: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. So
[0:53] Speaker 2: there's that standard trope if you want, of the shepherd,
[0:56] Speaker 2: the one who should be guiding the people. Israel has
[0:59] Speaker 2: had bad leaders, bad kings. I mean, David himself is
[1:02] Speaker 2: a deeply flawed king. Solomon, even the greatest of Israel's
[1:05] Speaker 2: kings are flawed, then follow those two. You've got kind
[1:09] Speaker 2: of a rogues gallery of corrupt and defective kings. And
[1:14] Speaker 2: so the prophets consistently. The Psalmas, too, complain about the
[1:18] Speaker 2: bad shepherding of Israel. So what does God saying, I
[1:23] Speaker 2: myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all
[1:28] Speaker 2: the lands to which I've driven them and bring them
[1:30] Speaker 2: back to their meadow. God is going to come as
[1:34] Speaker 2: the true shepherd of the house of Israel. He's given
[1:38] Speaker 2: these human shepherds a chance, and they failed, so he
[1:42] Speaker 2: himself will come. We find exactly the same thing in
[1:46] Speaker 2: the prophet Ezekiel. He envisions the flock of the Lord
[1:50] Speaker 2: scattered upon the hillside, and he decries the bad shepherds.
[1:53] Speaker 2: Then he says, I myself will come and shepherd my people.
[1:57] Speaker 2: So that's the expectation that God would become king. Now
[2:04] Speaker 2: here's where it gets kind of interesting. We got that
[2:07] Speaker 2: God will shepherd his people, But how's this going to happen.
[2:12] Speaker 2: I will appoint shepherds for them, who will shepherd them,
[2:16] Speaker 2: so they need no longer fear and tremble, and none
[2:19] Speaker 2: shall be missing, says the Lord. Behold the days are coming,
[2:23] Speaker 2: when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David
[2:28] Speaker 2: as king. He will reign and govern wisely. Okay, the
[2:32] Speaker 2: plot thickened, So God himself will shepherd his people, but
[2:37] Speaker 2: precisely through the ministrations of this Davidic figure, a human figure,
[2:43] Speaker 2: new David, who will be the king somehow in the
[2:46] Speaker 2: imagination of the prophets, and therefore in the imagination of
[2:49] Speaker 2: the people Israel. God and a dividic king are going
[2:54] Speaker 2: to work together to shepherd his holy people. Right fast
[3:00] Speaker 2: forward from the time of Jeremiah, which is the time
[3:03] Speaker 2: of the Babylonian captivity around five eighty seven BC.
[3:07] Speaker 1: So go almost six.
[3:09] Speaker 2: Hundred years later, and we find this peculiar, compelling, strange,
[3:17] Speaker 2: disturbing figure emerging in the hills of Galilee. Listen, the
[3:22] Speaker 2: apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they'd done
[3:26] Speaker 2: and taught. So the Lord has sent his disciples out.
[3:30] Speaker 2: They come back. Now the twelve, evocative of the twelve
[3:36] Speaker 2: tribes of Israel. We had heard that the tribes had
[3:39] Speaker 2: been scattered throughout the world. Jesus this magnetic point around
[3:46] Speaker 2: which the tribes of Israel are gathering.
[3:49] Speaker 1: Then listen to this people were coming.
[3:52] Speaker 2: And going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity
[3:55] Speaker 2: even to eat, so they went off to a deserted place.
[3:59] Speaker 2: But when he disembarked, he saw the vast crowd, and
[4:04] Speaker 2: his heart was moved with pity for them. So first
[4:07] Speaker 2: the twelve evocative of the twelve tribes, they come to him.
[4:11] Speaker 2: But now now this vast crowd, meaning it's the whole
[4:17] Speaker 2: people Israel flocking to him. It's as though by a
[4:23] Speaker 2: deep instinct, they realize the Shepherd has arrived. And then,
[4:29] Speaker 2: unless there's any doubt our mind, listen to what follows.
[4:32] Speaker 2: His heart was moved with pity for them. Listen, for
[4:35] Speaker 2: they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jeremiah called it
[4:42] Speaker 2: long before Ezekiel called it long before I myself will
[4:48] Speaker 2: come and shepherd my people. And I will do so
[4:51] Speaker 2: through a dividic king. Who is this figure? Who is
[4:55] Speaker 2: this Jesus. He's called indeed the son of David, and
[5:03] Speaker 2: he speaks and acts in the very person of.
[5:07] Speaker 1: The God of Israel.
[5:10] Speaker 2: He's the one everybody, He's the one who had been
[5:15] Speaker 2: anticipated by the prophets and by the psalms. The shepherd
[5:20] Speaker 2: has arrived. He's come to gather Israel. But now we're
[5:25] Speaker 2: ready for the next step. Israel's vocation was to become
[5:32] Speaker 2: itself once gathered, a magnet to all the nations of
[5:37] Speaker 2: the world. So this dividic shepherd, God himself, shepherding his people,
[5:44] Speaker 2: will first gather Israel, and then through Israel he will
[5:48] Speaker 2: gather the whole world. Now with that in mind, so
[5:52] Speaker 2: there's Reading one and Reading two Jeremiah and the Gospel
[5:55] Speaker 2: of Mark. But now let's follow to the second reading,
[6:00] Speaker 2: Paul to the Ephesians. Now, Paul, Paul, Rabbi Shaoul right
[6:06] Speaker 2: studying at the feet of Gamaliel. So Rabbi Schaoul knew
[6:10] Speaker 2: Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the Psalms. He knew all of
[6:13] Speaker 2: that anticipation. At first, I mean, a crucified carpenter cannot
[6:18] Speaker 2: be the Mashiak of Israel. So Chaoul opposes early Christianity.
[6:24] Speaker 2: But then but then Jesus appears, risen from the dead,
[6:29] Speaker 2: to Shaoul and says, why are you persecuting me? And
[6:33] Speaker 2: with that Rabbi Shaoul becomes the apostle Paul. And what
[6:38] Speaker 2: does he construe everybody? As his mission to bring the
[6:43] Speaker 2: message of the Mashiak of the Messiah to bring the
[6:47] Speaker 2: message of the Shepherd of Israel to all the nations
[6:53] Speaker 2: beyond Israel, to the Gentiles, because he sensed Jesus as
[6:59] Speaker 2: Lord and Shepherd of Israel is meant to become Lord
[7:03] Speaker 2: and Shepherd of the whole world. So with that in mind,
[7:08] Speaker 2: this marvelous passage. In fact, get out your Bibles and
[7:13] Speaker 2: read Paul's letters to the Ephesians.
[7:15] Speaker 1: That's a masterpiece.
[7:17] Speaker 2: Literary masterpiece, theological masterpiece, spiritual masterpiece. Listen, now, as I
[7:23] Speaker 2: walked through some of these verses, brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus,
[7:30] Speaker 2: you who once were far off have become near through
[7:35] Speaker 2: the blood of Christ. Well, remember, Jeremiah, the scattered flock,
[7:41] Speaker 2: the exiled tribes are all far off, but through the
[7:45] Speaker 2: Shepherd they've been gathered back. What's Paul intuiting? Yes, and
[7:52] Speaker 2: now the gathering has just begun. You who were far off,
[7:57] Speaker 2: have been brought near by the blood of For he
[8:02] Speaker 2: is our peace, he who made both one and broke
[8:06] Speaker 2: down the dividing wall of enmity through his flesh. Now
[8:10] Speaker 2: what's he talking about here, Well, here's Paul writing to
[8:14] Speaker 2: the Ephesians. So the city of Ephesus on the west
[8:17] Speaker 2: coast of Asia Minor, where is he. He's a long
[8:21] Speaker 2: way from Jerusalem, He's a long way from the land
[8:24] Speaker 2: of Israel. He's now in Gentile territory. What was one
[8:31] Speaker 2: of the most fundamental divisions of Paul's time and in
[8:35] Speaker 2: the minds of his Jewish audience, the division between Jews
[8:40] Speaker 2: and Gentiles.
[8:43] Speaker 1: You know, jewsh have nothing to do with Gentiles.
[8:45] Speaker 2: It's unclean, and they're the uncircumcised, and they're sinners. And
[8:48] Speaker 2: I mean, we've been given the law and the prophets,
[8:51] Speaker 2: and we're the specially chosen people of God, and so
[8:53] Speaker 2: we're not going to mix and mingle with these gentiles.
[8:57] Speaker 1: There was, indeed, as.
[8:58] Speaker 2: Paul points out, a wall of enmity, a wall of hatred,
[9:02] Speaker 2: separating Jews and Gentiles. But see Paul has sensed, no, no,
[9:06] Speaker 2: the Shepherd of Israel has come for all the world.
[9:11] Speaker 2: So what did he do is he broke down this
[9:15] Speaker 2: dividing wall of enmity. Listen, that he might create in
[9:20] Speaker 2: himself one new person in place of the two. Okay,
[9:27] Speaker 2: you say, all right, I get it, I get it.
[9:30] Speaker 2: He's speaking for the Jesus, the Shepherd of all nations.
[9:32] Speaker 2: He wants to break down this wall of separation between
[9:35] Speaker 2: Jews and Gentiles. He wants the message to go out
[9:38] Speaker 2: to the whole world. But how's it happen? How is
[9:44] Speaker 2: Jesus the shepherd not only of Israel but of all
[9:46] Speaker 2: the nations? Can I go back to this line which
[9:49] Speaker 2: is the key.
[9:51] Speaker 1: In Christ?
[9:52] Speaker 2: Jesus, you who once were far off, have become near
[9:58] Speaker 2: by the blood of Christ. Somehow, in the cross of Jesus,
[10:08] Speaker 2: the great work of shepherding has happened. Somehow, in the
[10:12] Speaker 2: blood of Christ, these great divisions among the Jews and
[10:17] Speaker 2: between Jews and Gentiles have been overcome.
[10:20] Speaker 1: Now what could that mean? What could that mean? How's
[10:23] Speaker 1: that work?
[10:23] Speaker 2: Look, Jesus crucified, the author of life, came and you
[10:31] Speaker 2: killed him. Saint Peter says that one of his early
[10:34] Speaker 2: charigmatic sermons, what do we see in the blood of
[10:39] Speaker 2: Jesus but our own sin? It's our sin brought him
[10:46] Speaker 2: to the cross. I've said that to you many times,
[10:48] Speaker 2: and in the Passion narratives. It's as though all the
[10:51] Speaker 2: forms of human sin are just on display.
[10:54] Speaker 1: Stupidity, cruel de hatred, violence, injustice.
[10:58] Speaker 2: All of it, all of it, all of it sins
[11:02] Speaker 2: shared by Jews and Gentiles, sins shared by all of us.
[11:07] Speaker 1: All of us.
[11:08] Speaker 2: Are united in seeing in the blood of Christ our
[11:12] Speaker 2: own sin.
[11:16] Speaker 1: But what else.
[11:19] Speaker 2: When the soldier pierces the side of a dead Christ
[11:22] Speaker 2: and outcomes water and blood, what is that blood? Yes,
[11:30] Speaker 2: we see our sin in it, but it's also the
[11:35] Speaker 2: life blood of God offered in forgiveness of the sins
[11:41] Speaker 2: of the world.
[11:43] Speaker 1: I'm that very.
[11:44] Speaker 2: Cross, that bloody cross, Jesus says, Father, forgive them. They
[11:50] Speaker 2: know not what they do. The risen Christ, returning from
[11:55] Speaker 2: the dead, says to those who killed him, shallom peace
[12:03] Speaker 2: to see everybody. We're united in seeing our sin on
[12:08] Speaker 2: that cross, and we're united, all of us in seeing
[12:14] Speaker 2: our forgiveness coming from that cross. See everything else that
[12:21] Speaker 2: divides us, whether it's ethnicity, nationality, language, all these things,
[12:26] Speaker 2: they're trivial and unimportant compared to what unites us here,
[12:31] Speaker 2: that we're all sinners. There's no escaping it, there's no
[12:36] Speaker 2: hiding from the blood of Christ. We're all covered in it.
[12:39] Speaker 2: We're all sinners, and we've all been offered forgiveness through
[12:45] Speaker 2: that same blood.
[12:48] Speaker 1: So again, in.
[12:49] Speaker 2: Christ, Jesus, you who once were far off, whether you're Jews,
[12:52] Speaker 2: are gentiles, had become near by the blood of Christ.
[13:00] Speaker 1: This enmity which has.
[13:03] Speaker 2: Been destroyed, how through the.
[13:08] Speaker 1: Cross, Paul says, do you see it now? Do you
[13:11] Speaker 1: see it?
[13:13] Speaker 2: That's what galvanized him, That's what fired his imagination that
[13:17] Speaker 2: was filled with all the Old Testament prophecies. But once
[13:21] Speaker 2: he saw the risen Jesus, he got this. The Shepherd,
[13:26] Speaker 2: long awaited by Jeremiah, long awaited by Ezekiel, having appeared
[13:31] Speaker 2: among us in Jesus, now does his work most thoroughly
[13:38] Speaker 2: through the blood of his cross. The Shepherd has come.
[13:44] Speaker 2: Let's follow him, and God bless you.

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