One flock, one shepherd

[AI translation] Among the great mountains of Switzerland, it is often the case that a huge mountain range is caught in the moving clouds and obscures one or another beautiful part of the vast giant. Then the fog begins to dissipate, the sun shines on the part of the mountain that was still shrouded in clouds, and the tourist is amazed by the rising of more and more peaks, the sun gradually revealing the fullness, massiveness and mass of the majestic panorama.So it is with the fullness of the divine revelation given in the Bible. We do not always see the whole massif in the same light, but only the detail which the sun of God's grace illuminates in a special way before our wondering gaze. In the first centuries of Christianity, God revealed to us a great summit of this mountain range of revelation, and thus the great truth of the Trinity was made clear to us. At the Reformation, another majestic summit of the same revelation-mass, the truth of justification by grace through faith, emerged from the overlaying mist and shone forth in the bright sunlight.
Today, once again, a hitherto obscured peak of revelation is beginning to unfold more and more sharply before the tourists of the Bible, and is beginning to attract more and more attention. That peak is the unity of the church of Christ throughout the whole world. It is not a new theological discovery, it has been there from the beginning, in the whole of the great revelation, but it has not been seen as clearly as it is today, when this summit is beginning to be illuminated by the rays of God's Spirit. That is why we hear more and more often in ecclesiastical circles these foreign words: ecumenism, ecumenicity, or ecumenical thought. What does it mean? In short, it means taking seriously what Jesus said about a flock gathered under one shepherd and putting into practice what Jesus prayed for at the time: 'Holy Father, keep them in your name, whom you have given me, that they may be one like us' (John 17:11b).
There is a growing awareness that the Church, the Church of Christ, is in fact one great unity. And this unity and indivisibility of the Church is not the result of human efforts to unite, but has always been, from the beginning, the essence of her unity. Above all, therefore, it is not for us men to create this unity with much good will, but above all to recognise the unity of the Church as a quality given to her by God. The Church has had this quality until now, but it has been obscured by the many splits, divisions, conflicts, fratricidal struggles and polemics that have taken place in the Church's earthly history, all of which have given the impression that the body of Christ, the community of believers, the Church Mother, has been torn asunder. Today, however, not least under the influence of world events, the awareness has been strengthened that the fundamental truth of the Church is not whether it is national or international, Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant, but whether it is ecumenical, that is, universal, that is, a unity in the whole world! Jesus makes this clear when he says: "I have other sheep which are not of this fold." (Jn 10,16) Let us look beyond the walls of our own sheepfold and see that not only do we have Jesus' real sheep here, but the sheep gathered in the second, the third, the hundredth sheepfold can also be His sheep. So He goes on to say, "I will bring them also, and they will obey my word, and there will be one flock and one shepherd" (v.16). So it is not one fold, as the KJV says, but one flock according to the original Greek text. It is not the fold that is important, but that the sheep which are together in one of the folds obey the call of the Shepherd, who gathers his flock around him from the most diverse folds.
It is very crucial here for the whole concept of the church that Jesus makes a distinction between the fold and the flock. What this means is that the flock of Christ can be one, even if it is divided into as many and as many different flocks as there are. Each fold may have its own characteristics, its own rules, its own style of building, one fold may be a modest, simple building with white walls, another a huge, colourful work of art with pictures and statues: this is not the point, but that the sheep of the most diverse folds all belong to the same flock and to the same Shepherd. He who, because of the diversity of the flocks and the different natures of the sheep, has failed to see the unity of the whole flock, has failed to see the essence of the Church. The unity of Christ's Church is not uniformity, but the unity of diversity, in which each part has its own particular contribution to the whole, each part is at the same time included in the whole, because it belongs to one flock and one Shepherd, and listens to the same Shepherd when it listens! The parts belonging to the same Lord Jesus can never differ from each other in essential quality, they can only differ in detail. If they truly belong to Christ, they may be separated into a hundred different denominations, branches, chapters, and some branches may attack the doctrines of other branches, to such an extent that division rather than unity seems to be essential among them - but it will still always be a sad appearance, because Christ, the common Shepherd, cannot be divided into parts!
Whatever the differences between the denominations, in the final analysis there is still more that binds them together than divides them. We Protestants, Roman Catholics and Orthodox alike confess Jesus Christ as Lord, Son of God and Saviour, and we owe the same forgiveness of sins and the same heavenly inheritance to His death and resurrection. We all recite the Apostles' Creed, the shortest summary of our entire Christian faith, word for word, and we all address God, "Our Father, who art in heaven" (Mt 6,9). And in so doing we confess that we are all children of one Father, and therefore sweet brothers and sisters of one another! We all bear the same sign, i.e. the water of the cross, which is the blood of Christ, and we are invited to the same marriage table. There may be differences and even contrasts between us in the details, but we are one flock, one flock of the same Shepherd, one flock led to heaven!
In the present confused world situation, it would be a most sinful luxury for the church of Christ to further deepen the polymorphous divisions within its own body. There is an ever more urgent need for the great unity of Christendom to be evident. This unity does not mean that the various denominations should cease to exist and merge into some confused denominational community, all herding into one fold, but that they should take their one-ness seriously and deadly seriously. Let them pool their treasures, offer their gifts, their strength, their individually found truths and gifts of grace in fraternal unity for the enrichment of the whole. May all who confess Christ as Son of God and Saviour join together in the common witness which only they can bear to this labouring world. Today, when this fractured humanity must be held together like a rotten barrel by all manner of iron bands, only the churches of Christ can bear witness that submission to the one Christ as absolute Lord - and only that - can bring true peace and unity in diversity. Only the Churches, and only in common witness, can make known to the world the Gospel teaching that man is a child of God, for whom Christ gave his blood, and that this sacred blood determines the human worth of every human being. It is the ultimate safeguard against all that would make man a mere number, a cog in a great machine, or a tool at the mercy of the individual interests of the powerful. If the Church does not teach the world in time what a precious value man is, civilisation will devour and destroy the whole culture! I ask, says Jesus, "that they all may be one... that the world may believe that you have sent me" (John 17:21). How much confusion, how much conflict, how much strife would be resolved if the world were to believe that Jesus was sent by God, sent as Saviour - and that is on condition that all those who have already believed it, that is, Christians of all denominations, should be one!
And this is not impossible! For this unity has already been achieved in the common danger, on the front, among the soldiers. A friend of mine told me that there was no difference between this or that denomination, because death did not choose its victims according to whether they took communion with wafers or with bread. A Catholic priest said the Lord's Prayer in a Reformed manner when burying a Reformed dead person, and a Reformed cantor sang the Marian hymns in harmony at a Catholic mass. There they really felt, in the face of the reality of death, how one flock and one Shepherd!
This summer, the World Council of Churches will meet in Amsterdam, 130 different churches from all over the world. This World Council will be an opportunity for the churches to consult, work, pray and grow together in their knowledge and understanding of each other, and to speak to the world in a great common witness! But it is in vain for them to deliberate if the ecumenical idea is not strengthened here in our own souls, if we continue to look at and pick at that which divides us, and not strengthen that which unites us, brings us into communion with one another! "That they may all be one" (v.21) - that is what Jesus prayed for. Your role in this world programme is to be as fully united with Christ as possible. The closer you are to Him, the closer you will be to the other man who has come to Him from another acolus, at His call.
The more you love the Shepherd, the more you can love His sheep for whom the Shepherd gave His life. The more you listen to His word, the more triumphantly, the sooner "there will be one flock and one Shepherd" - as Jesus says in our Word (John 10:16)!
Amen.
Date: 2 May 1948.