The Lord is My Shepherd, Even Now

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1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. (Psalm 23:1-6 NRSV)

I had to memorize this psalm when I was a boy. En español. My mother enjoyed my four years as an only child and I was blessed by her company during those years and she delighted that I could recite it from memory whenever she asked. Since those days I have read it thousands of times in different settings; hospital visits, funerals, memorial services, counseling sessions, devotional times, and many other times I can't recall all. It was the favorite of presidents and generals and was used before battles, after battles, and so many other different occasions that we can't begin to ilst them all.

My favorite memory of this is that I might have carried a modern Bible to many a bedside and as I read the first words I revert back to the King James, for it connects with people in a special way; it's muscle memory and it does bring and add strength in situations that need it. But on Easter morning, these ancient words take on new depth. Because the Shepherd David sang about is the same Shepherd who, on Good Friday, became the Lamb. And on Easter Sunday, the Lamb who was slain rose as the conquering Shepherd who can never die again. Let's walk through this psalm with Easter eyes and see what we've been missing.

The shepherd's first job is provision and rest. Notice the psalm doesn't say, "I find green pastures" or "I discover still waters." The Shepherd makes it happen. He leads. He provides.

But here's what's remarkable about sheep: they won't lie down unless four conditions are met. They must be free from fear. Free from friction with other sheep. Free from pests and parasites. And free from hunger.

A fearful sheep cannot rest. An anxious sheep stays standing, alert, ready to run.

And isn't that so often our story? We're tired, exhausted even, but we can't rest. We're too afraid—afraid of what might happen, what we might lose, what others might think. We stay standing, vigilant, unable to lie down even in green pastures.

But Easter changes everything. The resurrection declares that our deepest fear—death itself—has been defeated. The tomb is empty. The grave has no power. And if death itself is conquered, what else do we have to fear?

He restores our soul. The Hebrew word means "to bring back, to return." It's the language of rescue and recovery. When we wander, when we're depleted, when we've lost our way—the Shepherd brings us back. He restores what's been damaged. He renews what's been drained.

And how does he do it? By leading us beside still waters. Not raging rivers where we might drown, but quiet streams where we can drink deeply and be refreshed.

On Easter morning, we're invited to drink from the living water Jesus promised. The water that satisfies so completely we'll never thirst again.

The Shepherd doesn't just provide rest—he provides direction. He leads us in paths of righteousness.

Notice the motivation: "for his name's sake." Not primarily for our sake, though we benefit. For his reputation. A good shepherd's reputation depends on the health of his flock. If the sheep are lost, sick, or scattered, people question the shepherd's competence.

God's glory is tied to our flourishing. When we walk in right paths, when our lives reflect his character, his name is honored.

But here's the Easter connection: Jesus is the Way. He doesn't just show us the path—he IS the path. And the path he walked led straight through death to resurrection. The right path for the Shepherd meant the cross. The way of righteousness led to the tomb.

And he invites us to follow that same pattern. Death to self. Surrender. Letting go of control. And then—resurrection. New life. Transformation.

The Christian life isn't about avoiding the valley. It's about following the Shepherd through it to the other side.

Here it is. The verse we cling to in crisis. "The valley of the shadow of death."

Every shepherd in ancient Israel knew these valleys—narrow ravines between steep cliffs where predators hid in the shadows. The sheep had to walk through single file, vulnerable, unable to see what lurked ahead.

And every one of us will walk through valleys. Grief. Loss. Diagnosis. Betrayal. Depression. Seasons so dark we wonder if the sun will ever rise again.

But notice what the psalmist doesn't say. He doesn't say, "I will camp in the valley." He says, "I walk through." Valleys are passages, not permanent residences. You're not meant to stay there forever.

And in the valley, the Shepherd doesn't abandon us. "You are with me."

Not "you were with me before the valley." Not "you'll be with me after the valley." You are—present tense—with me. In the darkest place, the Shepherd is closest.

The rod and staff—tools of protection and guidance—bring comfort. The rod wards off predators. The staff pulls straying sheep back from danger. In the valley, we need both. Protection from threats and correction when we wander toward harm.

On Good Friday, Jesus walked through the ultimate valley. He descended into death itself. He experienced the darkness we fear most. And on the third day, he walked out the other side, victorious, alive, carrying the keys to death and hell.

We fear no evil—not because evil doesn't exist, but because the Shepherd is stronger. The resurrection proves it. Death threw its worst at Jesus, and he walked out of the tomb smiling.

What valley are you in right now? What darkness feels overwhelming? Remember this: the Shepherd has been there first. He knows the way through. And he will not leave you.

Now the imagery shifts dramatically. We're no longer in the valley. We're at a banquet table.

This is what shepherds actually did. After leading sheep through dangerous valleys to higher pastures, they would prepare the grazing land—clearing it of poisonous plants, filling in holes where sheep might break a leg. They made the high country safe. And then they would rest while the sheep grazed.

But David uses banquet language. A table. Anointing. An overflowing cup. This is the language of celebration, of victory, of abundant blessing.

And here's the shocking detail: the table is prepared "in the presence of my enemies."

The enemies haven't disappeared. They're still there, watching. But they're powerless to stop the feast. They can see you blessed, protected, celebrated—and they can do nothing about it.

This is the Easter reality. The forces that opposed Jesus—religious authorities, political powers, Satan himself—thought they'd won on Friday. They watched him die. They sealed the tomb. They posted guards.

And then Sunday morning, God prepared a table. The stone was rolled away. The grave clothes were folded. Jesus appeared to his disciples and ate with them—a resurrection feast in the presence of his enemies.

And we're invited to the table. Not because we're worthy, but because the Shepherd is generous. He anoints our head with oil—a sign of honor, of being chosen, of belonging. He fills our cup until it overflows—more than we need, more than we can contain, blessing that spills out onto others.

Your enemies may still be present. Your problems haven't all vanished. But the Shepherd has prepared a table anyway. He's saying, "Sit down. Eat. Drink. Be filled. They can't touch you here."

The psalm ends with confidence. Not hope. Not wishful thinking. Certainty.

"Surely." Without doubt. Absolutely.

And what follows the sheep? Not predators. Not fear. Goodness and mercy.

The Hebrew word for "follow" is actually quite aggressive. It's pursuit language. Goodness and mercy are chasing you down. They're hunting you. You can't outrun God's kindness.

Even when you wander. Even when you fail. Even when you turn your back. Goodness and mercy are in pursuit.

Why can David be so certain? Because he knows the Shepherd's character. He's experienced the green pastures and still waters. He's walked through valleys with the Shepherd beside him. He's sat at the table in the presence of enemies.

And knowing all that, he concludes: this Shepherd will not abandon me. His goodness is relentless. His mercy never quits.

And where does this journey end? "I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."

Not just visit occasionally. Not just attend services. Dwell. Live. Abide permanently.

This is our eternal destiny. To be home with the Shepherd forever. To live in his house, at his table, in his presence without interruption, without end.

Every Easter is a preview. A foretaste. A reminder that the tomb couldn't hold him, and it won't hold us either.

The Shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures will one day lead us home to the Father's house, where we'll dwell with him forever.

PRAYER: Good Shepherd, thank you for walking through death's valley so I never have to walk it alone. Thank you for the empty tomb that proves your love is stronger than my worst fear. Lead me today. Restore my soul. Prepare your table before me. And remind me that goodness and mercy are chasing me down all my days. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, identify which part of Psalm 23 speaks most to where you are right now. Write that verse on a card and place it where you'll see it daily. Let it be the Shepherd's Easter word to you this season.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! The LORD is your Shepherd. And because he rose from the dead, you shall not want. Ever.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Four Pillars of The Church

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42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 NRSV)

Happy Wednesday, dear Friend! May it truly be a wonderful one for you and for your work in God's kingdom. We are reminded by this passage that there's still much to do! And, we can only do it with God's help and leading. Let us continue to pray for one another and for needs as they present themselves. We celebrate and thank God for Mr. Kevin Pirkle being home after his surgery. May home be the key to a speedy and complete recovery. Pray during this season for pastors who are moving from their current assignment to new ones. Pray for their move, for the churches who welcome them and those who say goodbye. Pray for those pastors who are retiring and are anxious about such a move. Pray for retired pastors and their families, and pray for churches that invite retired pastors to preach in them! Pray for me as this coming Sunday I preach here in Seguin at La Trinidad UMC in a bilingual setting! ¡Gracias a Dios! Later in May I preach in Poteet Methodist, Poteet, Texas.

This passage shares First Church Jerusalem as it started. It also shares what the four pillars of a powerful church includes; Teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Luke makes sure to use the word devoted, meaning they went beyond just attending. Some churches major in one and forget about the other; those churches who stress all four remain strong and effective in growing the kingdom; but we'll get into that a bit later.

Easter Sunday is glorious. The music swells, the sanctuary fills, the declaration rings out: He is risen! And then Monday comes. The lilies begin to wilt. The crowds thin. The ordinary week reasserts itself, and the question that every serious follower of Jesus must eventually face arrives quietly at the door: what does the resurrection actually look like when lived out in the texture of real, daily life?

Acts 2:42–47 is Luke’s answer to that question. These six verses are a portrait of the very first community shaped by resurrection faith — people who had heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon, been cut to the heart, repented and been baptized, and now found themselves in something entirely new: a community of the raised. What they built together in those early days was not a program or an institution. It was a way of life. And it is one of the most beautiful, challenging, and hopeful pictures in all of Scripture.

The first word Luke uses to describe this community is “devoted.” They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Four things. Notice the verb: not “attended” or “enjoyed” or even “participated in.” Devoted. The Greek word carries the sense of steadfast, persistent, continual attention — the kind of commitment that does not depend on how you feel on a given morning or whether the gathering is particularly inspiring that week.

This devotion had four pillars, and they are worth naming one by one. The apostles’ teaching — the careful, sustained formation of minds and hearts in the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done. Fellowship — not mere socializing, but the deep, binding solidarity of people who know they belong to one another. The breaking of bread — the shared meal and the Lord’s Table, the regular reminder that they had been bought at a price and that the risen Christ was present among them. And the prayers — not private devotion alone, but the corporate, persistent practice of bringing their whole common life before God.

These four pillars are still the architecture of resurrection community today. The church that is genuinely shaped by Easter is not built on inspiring speakers or compelling programs or comfortable facilities. It is built on people who are devoted — who keep showing up to learn, to belong, to eat together at the Lord’s Table, and to pray. Devotion is not glamorous. It is simply the daily choice to stay.

“Awe came upon everyone.” It is one of the most quietly remarkable sentences in the New Testament. Not upon the disciples only, not upon the especially spiritual or the theologically sophisticated — upon everyone. The whole community, and apparently those around them as well, found themselves living inside something they could not entirely explain, something larger than themselves, something that had the texture of the holy.

Awe is one of the most countercultural experiences available to human beings in a world that has grown aggressively ordinary. We have been trained by saturation and speed to expect everything and be surprised by nothing. But the early church lived in a state of ongoing astonishment — because they were watching, day by day, the risen Christ continue to act. Signs and wonders happened among them. People were being saved. The community itself, in its generosity and unity, was something the ancient world had never seen.

Easter recovers awe. When we truly reckon with the resurrection — not as settled religious information but as the most staggering event in human history, still reverberating into the present — we begin to see the ordinary world differently. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is alive in our gatherings, our prayers, our shared meals, our acts of generosity. We should not be surprised to find ourselves occasionally undone by wonder. That is simply what it feels like to be near the living God.

The generosity of this first community has arrested readers for two thousand years. They sold possessions and distributed the proceeds to any who had need. They held things in common. They ate together — not in rotating, carefully scheduled hospitality, but with what Luke calls “glad and generous hearts.” The Greek word translated “glad” here — agalliasis — is a word of exuberant, overflowing joy. They weren’t grinding through obligatory sharing. They were delighting in it.

This is what resurrection does to the human relationship with possessions. When you genuinely believe that death has been defeated, that the future is secure in the hands of the God who raises the dead, that your ultimate inheritance cannot be stolen or inflated away or lost in a market collapse — the grip loosens. Things stop being ultimate. People become more important than property. Generosity stops feeling like loss and starts feeling like freedom.

We should not read this passage as a blueprint for a specific economic system. Luke is not writing a policy document. He is describing the natural overflow of people who have been genuinely gripped by the resurrection. When Easter is real to us — truly, daily real — it will change what we do with what we have. It will make us more generous, more open-handed, more attentive to the need around us. Glad generosity is not a spiritual achievement. It is the simple fruit of a heart that has been set free.

Luke closes this portrait with a phrase that is easy to rush past and yet contains a world of hope: “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Not in dramatic quarterly campaigns. Not in carefully orchestrated revival events. Day by day. Quietly, steadily, organically — the risen Christ was adding people to the community of faith through the simple, sustained witness of a people living resurrection life together.

And notice who is doing the adding: the Lord. Not the apostles’ evangelism strategy, not the community’s winsome outreach program, not the quality of their public communication. The Lord added to their number. The early church did not grow itself. It devoted itself, held itself together in love and generosity and prayer and worship — and the risen Christ did what only He can do. He called people home.

This is both a relief and a summons. A relief, because the growth of the church is ultimately not our responsibility to manufacture — it is the Lord’s work to do. A summons, because the community’s job is faithfulness: to keep being devoted, to keep eating together with glad hearts, to keep praising God in the temple and breaking bread at home. The witness that attracts the world is not a polished presentation. It is a community so visibly and joyfully alive in resurrection faith that people find themselves drawn, day by day, toward the God who makes such a life possible.

PRAYER: Risen Lord, make us a devoted people — devoted to Your Word, to one another, to Your Table, and to prayer. Restore in us the awe that Easter deserves, and let it spill out in glad and generous lives that draw others, day by day, toward You. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Choose one of the four pillars — teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, or prayer — where your devotion has grown thin, and take one concrete step this week to renew it. Show up to a gathering you have been skipping. Invite someone to your table. Sit with Scripture for fifteen minutes before the day begins. Bring one honest need to God in prayer. Resurrection life is not sustained by grand gestures. It is built, day by day, by people who simply keep returning to what matters most.

I love you and I thank God for you! You truly are a unique gift from God to the world! You matter to God and you matter to me! Day by day, the Lord is still adding. Be faithful to the life He has given you.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Wounds That Heal

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19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. 20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2: 19-25 NIV)

I had two needed operations when I was five. One was to remove my tonsils, the other more private, think religious ritual of an ancient sect. That was until I had a torn tendon mended and that was a major surgery, the wound of which all these months later still hurts. I end my therapy in a couple of weeks but I feel miles from where I'd like to be. My therapy reminds me twice weekly of that pain. The wound on the surface has healed, but inside the surgical cut still smarts. I have faith in God that one day it will go away. My doctor will attest that I am not a fan of any sort of suffering. Not so our Lord, who prophecies of old foretold of all that He would suffer on our behalf. Let me add that I saw the movie The Passion of the Christ, with no desire to ever see it again for its reality hurt me just to see it and to feel within me of what Jesus suffered for me. And you.

Peter is writing to people who know what it is to suffer for doing nothing wrong. His original audience were servants — household workers with little legal standing, subject to the moods and cruelties of masters who were under no particular obligation to be fair. And Peter does not pretend their suffering isn’t real, or that they should simply endure it without noticing. He names it plainly: unjust suffering is painful. It stings precisely because it is undeserved.

But Peter will not let suffering have the last interpretive word. He sets it inside a larger frame: Christ suffered for you. Those three words change everything. They do not explain away the pain or make the injustice disappear. What they do is ensure that unjust suffering is never meaningless for the person who follows Jesus. It has a context. It has a companion. It has a destination.

The Easter season is the right time to sit with this. Good Friday tells us that the Son of God was subjected to the most grotesque injustice in human history — perfect innocence condemned, love itself tortured and killed. And Easter Sunday tells us that God did not let that injustice stand as the final word. The resurrection is God’s ultimate verdict: suffering borne in faithfulness is not wasted, not forgotten, and not permanent.

Peter draws a portrait of Jesus in suffering that is almost unbearably specific. He committed no sin. No deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled insults, He did not retaliate. When He suffered, He made no threats. Each detail is a quiet rebuke to every natural human instinct toward self-defense, score-keeping, and retaliation. Jesus, in His passion, was the most fully human person who ever lived — and He chose, at every possible juncture, the path of non-retaliation.

Peter calls this an “example” — a word that in the original Greek carries the image of a writing tablet used to teach children to form letters. They trace over the master’s hand until the shape becomes their own. We are invited to trace the life of Christ until His responses begin to feel more natural in us than our own defensive reflexes. This is not passive resignation. It is an active, costly, deeply counter-cultural choice made possible only by the resurrection — because only a person who believes that God will ultimately set things right can afford to release the compulsion to defend themselves at every turn.

The key phrase is this: “he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” Jesus did not relinquish justice — He relocated it. He placed it in the hands of the One whose judgments are not distorted by power or politics or fear. The risen Christ is the proof that this trust was not misplaced. God vindicated Him. God will vindicate those who follow in His steps.

Peter reaches back to Isaiah 53 with one of the most stunning sentences in the New Testament: “by his wounds you have been healed.” The grammar deserves attention. It is past tense — not “will be healed” or “might be healed,” but have been healed. The healing is accomplished. It was completed at the cross and confirmed at the empty tomb. We do not wait for healing to become available. We receive what has already been secured.

And yet the wounds remain visible. The risen Christ, appearing to His disciples after Easter, still bore the marks of the nails. Thomas was invited to touch them. The resurrection did not erase the wounds of the cross — it transformed them. What had been the marks of defeat became the seals of victory, the credentials of the one who had been to death and back, the visible proof that suffering borne in faithfulness becomes, in God’s hands, the very instrument of healing.

This is the deepest mystery and the greatest hope of the Easter faith. The wounds that the world inflicts do not have to define us or defeat us. In the hands of the God who raises the dead, they can become the very places through which His light shines most clearly. The crack in the vessel, as the old image goes, is where the light gets out. Your suffering, your scars, your unhealed places — none of them are beyond the reach of the One who heals by bearing wounds Himself.

Peter ends this passage with one of the most tender images in all of Scripture: “For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” The past tense — “you were” — is quietly triumphant. That is who you used to be. A sheep without direction, wandering toward whatever looked appealing in the moment, drifting further and further from the fold without fully realizing it.

But now you have returned. The Greek word carries the sense of turning back, of reorientation, of a journey reversed. And notice who made this return possible: not the sheep, but the Shepherd. The whole of this passage has been building to this point. Christ suffered for you. He bore your sins in His body on the cross. He died so that you might die to sins and live for righteousness. The return home was purchased at the cross and opened at the resurrection. We did not find our way back. We were found.

The word “Overseer” — the one who watches over, who superintends — is the other side of the Shepherd’s care. He does not merely rescue the lost sheep and then leave it to fend for itself. He watches over the soul. He attends to the inner life, the deep place where the real battles are fought and the real wounds are held. The risen Christ is not only the Shepherd who leads — He is the Overseer who stays. He does not leave us to manage our souls alone. Easter means that the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep is alive and watching over them still.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, We confess that we know what it is to stray — to wander from Your voice, to follow our own instincts into places that looked like pasture and turned out to be wilderness. We thank You that You did not wait for us to find our way back. You came for us. You bore in Your body what we deserved. You entrusted Yourself to the Father’s justice so that we might be covered by His mercy. Where we are suffering unjustly, give us the grace to entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly, as You did. Where we are carrying wounds we have not yet allowed You to touch, let the truth of Your own wounded and risen body speak healing into those hidden places. Teach us to follow in Your steps — not the steps of retaliation or self-protection, but the steps of One who knew that love borne faithfully through suffering is the most powerful force in the universe. Keep watching over our souls. We are glad to be home. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Is there a place in your life where you are carrying an unjust wound — something done to you that was wrong, and that you have been quietly rehearsing in the courtroom of your own heart? This week, take that specific wound to the Shepherd in prayer and practice the act of entrusting it to the One who judges justly. You are not releasing the wrongdoer from accountability. You are releasing yourself from the exhausting work of being your own judge and jury. The Overseer of your soul can be trusted with what you have been carrying alone.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! By His wounds you have been healed. You were straying. Now you are home.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Voice That Calls You By Name

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1 "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. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10: 1-10 NRSV)

I was blessed to grow up in a different time and place. I was born in Kingsville, Texas, during the days when most moms and dads allowed their children to roam freely outside. There was a command I yearned to hear, "¡Salganse pa' fuera!" which is "Go (play) outside!" And having a best friend named Alex, whose mom also gave that command, and Alex having a bike like me, we could ride almost anywhere in the city limits of Kingsville, and we did. My legs in those days did not yet "kill" me with every mile I tried to pedal; I could ride for hours and it would not bother me. And to this day I believe that anywhere within the city limits of some 26,000 residents of Kingsville, if Mom so yelled my name, I would know it was her and it was me that was being summoned home. Something about her voice that I knew was for me.

In a culture where shepherding was a way of life, Jesus speaks to crowds who knew exactly what He was saying. They knew that Jesus knew, that a good shepherd leads, or goes ahead of, his sheep. It is he who can open and close the sheep gate or if there is a gatekeeper, the gatekeeper opens the gate for him. The key is that the sheep know the voice of the shepherd and when they hear his voice, they know it is he whom they are following and not some other person, especially not a thief who may have come to steal some sheep. The good shepherd knows the name of each lamb and so when they hear their name and in the voice of their shepherd they know they are in good hands and in the company of he who leads them and provides all they need for their own good. Sheep are smart enough not to follow a stranger but will in fact, run from a stranger.

There is a detail in this passage that becomes electrifying when read through the lens of Easter: the shepherd goes ahead of the sheep. He does not drive them from behind. He does not manage them from a distance. He leads them out of the fold and then walks on before them, and they follow because they know the one whose footprints they are stepping into.

This is exactly what Jesus did at Easter. He went ahead. He entered death before us — not because He had to, but because He was leading. He walked into the darkest place a human being can go and He came out the other side, and He did it first, so that every one of His sheep could know: the Shepherd has already been where we are afraid to go. The path through death is not unwalked. There are footprints ahead of us, and they belong to the risen Christ.

Whatever terrain you are facing in this season — illness, grief, uncertainty, exhaustion, a future that feels more frightening than hopeful — the Easter proclamation is that your Shepherd has gone on ahead. He is not watching from safety while you struggle. He has already been there. Follow the voice. Follow the footprints. He knows the way through.

John’s Gospel is careful with its details, and this one deserves to be lingered over: the shepherd “calls his own sheep by name.” Not by category. Not by number. Not by general summons broadcast over the whole flock. By name. Your name. The name that belongs to you alone, the name that carries the whole weight of your particular history, your particular struggles, your particular hopes.

There is a moment in the Easter story that perfectly illustrates this. On the morning of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene stands outside the empty tomb weeping, and a figure she takes for the gardener asks her why she is weeping. She does not recognize Him. And then He says one word: “Mary.” Just her name. And she knows. Not because of an argument or a proof. Because He called her by name, and she recognized the voice of the one who knew her.

The risen Shepherd knows your name with the same specificity. You are not anonymous to God. You are not lost in the crowd of human history, one more anonymous soul among billions. You are known — named, called, led. In a world that so often reduces us to data points or demographic categories, the Easter gospel insists on something radical: the God of the universe knows your name and has called it.

We live in a world absolutely saturated with voices. Every hour of every day, voices compete for our attention, our allegiance, our sense of self. Some of those voices are subtle. They do not announce themselves as thieves. They speak the language of comfort, of comparison, of fear, of ambition — and they lead us, quietly and incrementally, away from the pasture and toward the kind of exhausted, depleted living that looks nothing like the abundant life Jesus describes.

The Easter season is a gift precisely here. It invites us to return — to the Word, to prayer, to worship, to the community of faith — and to re-tune our hearing to the Shepherd’s frequency. The more time we spend near Jesus, the more quickly we recognize when a voice is leading us somewhere He would not go. Discernment is not a spiritual gift reserved for a few. It is the natural result of a sheep who has spent enough time near the Shepherd to know the sound of His voice.

When Jesus shifts the metaphor and declares “I am the gate,” He is not narrowing the picture — He is clarifying the architecture of salvation. A gate is the threshold between danger and safety, between exposure and shelter, between wandering and home. And Jesus says: I am that threshold. Whoever passes through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture.

Notice the freedom embedded in that phrase: “come in and go out.” The sheep are not locked inside. They are not imprisoned in the fold. The gate opens both ways — inward to shelter and rest, outward to pasture and mission. The Christian life is not a retreat from the world into safe religious enclosure. It is a rhythmic movement between gathering and sending, between being fed and going out to serve. The risen Christ is the gate for both movements.

And then the declaration that gathers everything together: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” This is the Easter sentence. The thief — death, sin, fear, the powers of this age — came to steal and kill and destroy. And for a time, on Good Friday, it looked as though the thief had won. But Easter morning is God’s final, decisive, unanswerable word: the thief does not get the last say. The Shepherd does. And what He says is life. Abundant life. Life that overflows its banks, that cannot be contained by a sealed tomb or a rolled stone or the worst that human cruelty and cosmic darkness can devise.

This abundant life is not a promise for some distant future alone — it begins now, in the present tense, in the ordinary Tuesday of your week and the quiet morning of your prayers. Every moment lived in the knowledge that the Shepherd has gone ahead, that He knows your name, that His voice is trustworthy and His gate is open — that is abundant life taking root. Easter has already happened. The life has already been given. The only question left is whether we will receive it.

PRAYER: Good Shepherd, risen Lord, We confess how easily we are drawn away by unfamiliar voices — voices that promise much and deliver depletion, voices that speak our fears back to us and call it wisdom, voices that lead us away from pasture and toward exhaustion. Forgive us for the times we have followed the wrong sound. Remind us that You have gone ahead — through suffering, through death, through the sealed and silent tomb — and that Your resurrection is the guarantee that You know the way through every darkness we will ever face. Call us by name today, the way You called Mary in the garden. Let us recognize You and follow. Open the gate of abundant life wider in us than we have yet allowed. May we come in and go out through You — rested in Your shelter, sent out to Your pasture, always and only following the voice we have come to love. In Your risen and life-giving name. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, take one deliberate step toward learning the Shepherd’s voice more deeply. Set aside fifteen minutes each morning to read slowly in John’s Gospel — not for information, but for familiarity. Listen for the voice beneath the words. Pay attention to what stirs in you, what convicts you, what comforts you. The sheep follow because they know the voice. Knowing takes time. Give it the time it deserves.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

The Sermon That Started It All

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14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: 36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2: 14a, 36-41 NIV)

Every pastor at one time or another has secretly or not so secretly wished that one of his/her sermons would reach 3,000 who would be "added to their number that day." Maybe some even wish they could preach to a crowd of that size. But keep in mind this is not a competition. We compete not against other preachers but against the enemy of preachers. But among my friends whenever they call to check on me after I preach at some new place, "Did you convert 3,000 with your sermon?" Or I ask them.

Not many weeks earlier, this same Peter had stood in a courtyard by a charcoal fire and denied three times that he even knew Jesus. He had cursed and sworn and slipped away into the shadows. But now, on the morning of Pentecost, something has happened to him. He stands up. He raises his voice. He addresses a crowd of thousands in the very city where his Lord was executed.

This is what resurrection does to a person. The same power that rolled away the stone, that transformed a borrowed tomb into the most important empty room in history, has transformed Peter. He is not managing his shame. He is not offering a carefully hedged theological position. He is making a declaration: the Jesus you crucified is Lord and Messiah. Full stop.

The Easter season invites us to ask the same question the resurrection asked of Peter: Has the risen Christ changed me? Not just what I believe, but who I am — my courage, my willingness to stand up, my readiness to speak? The resurrection is not merely a doctrine to affirm. It is a power to receive.

Peter’s message is startling in its directness. He does not soften the central claim or bury it in qualifications. He says: God has made the Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Messiah. The word “you” lands like a stone in still water. Many in the crowd had been in Jerusalem during Passover. Some had perhaps cried out for Barabbas. Others had simply stood by in silence. None of them could claim to be entirely uninvolved in what had happened to Jesus.

But here is the grace hidden in that accusation: Peter is not addressing enemies. He calls them “brothers.” He is speaking to people who are, in that moment, reachable. The same hands that were raised against Jesus can be opened to receive Him. This is the scandal of Easter grace — that the gospel is preached first to those who crucified the Christ, and three thousand of them say yes.

We are all, in one way or another, in that crowd. We have all turned away, denied, been complicit in the small crucifixions of everyday life — the lies we told, the kindness we withheld, the idol we chose over the living God. And yet the sermon is preached to us, too. The question “what shall we do?” is ours to ask.

The crowd’s response is one of the most remarkable phrases in the New Testament: “they were cut to the heart.” The Greek word carries the image of something sharp and sudden — a piercing, a puncturing. The truth of the resurrection, proclaimed with clarity and boldness, did something to them that no amount of philosophical argument or emotional manipulation could do. It broke through.

This is always how genuine conviction works. It is not manufactured by clever technique or worked up by atmospheric pressure. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, using the proclaimed Word to reach places in the human heart that nothing else can access. Peter did not cut them to the heart. The truth about the risen Christ did. Peter simply had the courage to say it out loud.

Have you ever been cut to the heart by the gospel? Can you remember the moment when the resurrection stopped being a theological proposition and became a personal confrontation — when the question “what shall we do?” became your own? If you have, let this season renew the memory. If you haven’t, let this be your Pentecost.

Peter’s answer to the crowd’s urgent question is wonderfully simple: repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three movements, each flowing into the next. Repentance is the turning — away from the old life, the futile ways, the self-constructed kingdoms. Baptism is the public declaration — I belong to the crucified and risen Jesus, and I am not ashamed. And the gift of the Holy Spirit is what makes all of this sustainable: not our own willpower or religious effort, but the very presence and power of God living within us.

And then Peter widens the lens to an astonishing breadth: “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Far off. That phrase would have echoed in the ears of every Gentile who heard it later, every person who felt themselves on the outside of God’s story. The resurrection has no borders. The Spirit has no favorites. The call goes out to the near and the far, the young and the old, those who feel worthy and those who are quite sure they are not.

Three thousand people said yes that day. Not because Peter was a brilliant orator. Not because the conditions were perfect. But because the risen Christ was real, the Spirit was moving, and the Word went forth with power. That same risen Christ is real today. That same Spirit is moving. The Word has not lost its edge.

PRAYER: Loving God, thank you for those first sermons that touch people for the first time or convict for the first time. Thank you for the men and women who have responded to preaching and reaching us. Help us to know we have a "pulpit" from which we too, can "preach" the love fo Jesus to all; in His name we pray, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Identify one person in your life who is “far off” — far from faith, far from hope, or simply far from community — and take one deliberate step toward them. It doesn’t have to be a sermon. It might be a conversation, an invitation, a meal, or simply the courage to tell them what the risen Christ has meant to you.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Strangers From Another Land

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17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. 22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Peter 1: 17-23 NRSV)

In 1975 I left the safety of home and hearth to move to Denver, Colorado to resume my seminary education. I had dropped out of SMU's Perkins School of Theology, worked for Ma Bell, and took advantage of the United Methodist Church's Crusade Scholarship and Iliff's School of Theology's invitation to keep studying to become a minister. I have to stress that 1975 Denver was not the Denver of today. I have to confess I had never lived outside of Texas and Colorado being a state park of Texas (so so Texans used to say to taunt and torment the two native Coloradans that lived there, I felt there might be enough Texans up there to help make me feel at home. I was wrong. Let's start with God's gift to humanity, Mexican food. The old chain El Chico's was the only restaurant that said it sold Mexican food. My having been exposed to it I tried my chances at another "Mexican" place and when I was seated, the server brought me a bowl of Fritos and a tiny bowl of ketchup. I kid you not. And it got worse. I don't have to say there were no HEB Grocery Stores, and there were no Spanish language UM churches. In many ways I was truly a stronger in a strange land. In some ways I truly was an exile from Texas.

Peter wrote this letter to the exiles of his time. The believers in Jesus had been scattered across the ancient world and so Peter writes to them. They are strangers, pilgrims, people who don’t quite fit. And in the middle of the Easter season — that stretch of glorious days between resurrection and Pentecost — Peter reminds us that this sense of not-quite-belonging is not a problem to be solved. It is the shape of the Christian life.

Because of the resurrection, our citizenship has shifted. We now belong to a kingdom that is not yet fully visible. We live, as the ancient phrase goes, in the world but not of it. Peter’s instruction to “live in reverent fear during the time of your exile” is not a call to anxiety. It is a call to awareness — to remember who you are, who you belong to, and how costly that belonging was.

Peter could have stopped at gratitude. He could have simply said, “You have been set free — rejoice!” But he is more precise than that. He names what we were ransomed from: “the futile ways inherited from your ancestors.” The word futile here is heavy. It is the same emptiness that the Preacher names in Ecclesiastes — vanity, vapor, a chasing after wind. Without the resurrection, all our striving, all our building, all our grasping amounts to exactly that.

And the price paid for our release? Not silver or gold — the currencies that drive so much of human life — but “the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.” Peter reaches back to the Passover imagery every Jewish reader would instantly recognize: the unblemished lamb, the blood on the doorpost, the night of deliverance. Jesus is that Lamb. The cross is that doorpost. And Easter morning is God’s declaration that the ransom has been accepted.

This is why Peter can say that Christ “was destined before the foundation of the world.” The resurrection did not catch heaven by surprise. The empty tomb was not Plan B. From before creation, the Lamb was appointed, the price was purposed, and your freedom was planned.

Easter reorients everything, including where we place our hope. Peter says that through Christ, God “raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.” Notice the direction of this sentence. The resurrection is not primarily about our feelings of comfort or our theological categories. It is about the reorientation of the whole self — faith and hope, grounded not in circumstances, not in human systems, but in the God who raises the dead.

To set your hope on God is to live with a kind of stubborn confidence that refuses to be finally undone by grief, failure, or death. The disciples on Easter morning had to learn this. So did Peter himself — a man who had denied Christ three times and still found himself writing letters about the glorious hope of the resurrection. If the risen Lord could restore Peter’s hope, He can restore yours.

Peter’s letter arrives at its most pastoral moment in verses 22 and 23. All the theology of ransom and resurrection, of exile and hope, flows toward a single imperative: “love one another deeply from the heart.” The Greek word translated “deeply” carries the sense of something strained to its full capacity, stretched out, extended beyond comfort. Not polite affection. Not surface-level cordiality. Earnest, effortful, costly love.

This is possible, Peter says, because we have been “born anew” — not from perishable seed but from the living and enduring word of God. The same resurrection power that emptied the tomb has planted something imperishable in us. We are new creatures. And new creatures, shaped by Easter, love differently than the world does.

The world loves transactionally — giving in order to receive, relating in order to gain. But the ransomed people of God love because they have been loved at infinite cost. We love from the overflow of a grace we did not earn and could not purchase. Easter gives us both the reason and the power to love one another as the risen Christ has loved us.

PRAYER: Risen Lord, You ransomed us at a price beyond reckoning. Turn our eyes from futile things to the imperishable hope of the resurrection. Remind us today that we are exiles with a destination — and give us grace to love one another deeply while we walk the road home. In Your strong name we pray, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: This week, identify one person in your life who needs the kind of deep, earnest love Peter describes. Reach out to them in a concrete way — a note, a visit, a meal, a phone call — not because they have earned it, but because you have been ransomed to love.

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! You have been born anew. Now go and love like it.

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.

Walking with Jesus With Eyes Wide Open

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13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” 25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. (Luke 24:13-35 NIV)

Some years ago, I received a call from the conference office that they needed Nellie and me to go to Nashville for a clergy couple meeting at the General Board of Discipleship. We were blessed to sit through a series of teachings by The Rev. Dr. Maxie Dunnam, whom, at the time unbeknownst to us, was working on the finishing touches on a four-day leadership retreat called The Walk to Emmaus. Maxie had brokered a deal with The Catholic Church to pay the rights to a Methodist version of the Catholic Cursillo, a wonderful retreat started by Catholics who wanted to know more about the love and work of God. The word cursillo from Spanish, for the retreat had its origins in España, means little course or short course. We also heard from others who were part of that foundational team, included Dr. Robert Wood, and I hope I'm remembering his name correctly, but we heard some of the wonderful words we would one day hear as actual participants in the retreat called The Walk to Emmaus.

This is the passage on which the retreat is based. Two disciples walking away from where their dreams had been shattered and back to their home where they could regroup and maybe regather themselves for continued ministry. Some have speculated that one or both of these disciples were crying, no, sobbing and with tear-filled eyes their vision was limited. Their minds were perhaps cluttered with so many questions about all they had seen, heard and experienced. As they are walking along, here comes the risen Jesus, who joins them and walks with them. The incredible thing was they did not recognize Him. He asks them what they were talking about. This makes them stop and their faces give them away. Their faces are downcast. What a word! They saw Jesus crucified. The agony of Jesus was theirs too. The pain and grief in Jerusalem on that afternoon was theirs as well. They thought the whole world must have heard and must have known the pain they had felt, so they ask Jesus, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" Jesus answered in the unexpected way, "What things?" And they being to share about Him all they had heard and believed. They share how their hopes had been shattered because of the death.

Jesus did not announce Himself. He asked questions. He listened. He let them pour out their confusion and loss. Then, patiently and lovingly, He opened the Scriptures to them, beginning with Moses and moving through all the prophets. He gave them the whole story — a story they had heard before, but which suddenly took on new meaning.

This is what God’s Word does when the risen Christ opens it to us: it takes familiar territory and reveals something we have never fully seen. The Scriptures are not merely historical documents; they are the living voice of a Savior who walks with us and speaks to our burning hearts.

It was not until these two invited Jesus to their home and broke bread together that they finally realized who Jesus was! Jesus had taken the bread, broke it and gave thanks and gave it to them. This opened their eyes and right in tront of their eyes, Jesus disappeared.

After Jesus vanished from their sight, the two disciples looked at each other and realized something remarkable had been happening all along — they just hadn’t named it. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (v. 32). They had felt it. They simply hadn’t understood it.

This Easter season, pay attention to your burning heart. Pay attention to the moments in worship, in Scripture reading, in prayer, in conversation, when something stirs within you that you cannot quite explain. That stirring may be the risen Christ walking beside you, speaking to you — even when your eyes have not yet been fully opened to recognize Him.

And notice what they did next: they got up “that very hour” and returned to Jerusalem — the very place they had been fleeing. A genuine encounter with the risen Christ always turns us around. It sends us back into community, back into mission, back into life. Resurrection hope is never meant to be kept to ourselves.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, risen and present, We confess that we, too, have walked roads of disappointment with downcast faces, so consumed by our grief and confusion that we did not recognize You walking beside us. Forgive us for the moments we have been so fixed on what we lost that we missed what You were doing. Open our eyes, Lord — the way You opened the eyes of those two disciples. Open them at the table, in the Word, in the quiet place of prayer. Kindle a fire in our hearts that burns even when we don’t fully understand what You are doing. Remind us that You are not absent from our suffering; You are present in it, walking with us, speaking to us, leading us. And when our eyes are opened and we see You clearly, give us the courage to get up — to return to the places of community and witness, to tell others what You have done. May the testimony of the empty tomb and the burning heart be ever on our lips. You are alive. You are here. And that changes everything. In Your glorious name, Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Slow down on a walk. Take a deliberate walk — even just around the block — and invite Jesus to join you. As you walk, ask Him: “Where have You been walking with me that I have not yet recognized?”

I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me!

Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.