The spring season refreshes, revives and reinvigorates the natural world. Remnants of winter snows melt away, streams swell with runoff, days become longer as nights grow shorter, flowers blossom and baby birds fledge.

Is it no wonder that the liturgical season of Easter occurs during the season of spring? The newness of life so lush during these two seasons invites us to reconsider the image of the divine as shepherd presented in this Sunday's responsorial psalm and the Gospel reading of John.

These seasons of new life also invite us to reconsider the theology of sacrifice and the theology of the cross presented in the second reading from 1 Peter and embedded in the Christian tradition.

It is time to press the "refresh" button on these three topics.

The image of the divine as a good shepherd in Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10 is a beloved one. But as beloved as the image of shepherd and sheep is among biblical readers, the metaphors are problematic. Comparing the divine to a shepherd and people to sheep sets up a hierarchical relationship between humans and the divine and reduces the intelligence of humans who, if like sheep, will always be dependent, subservient and deprived of full agency.

Heard in the context of the Roman Catholic Church today, where bishops and other Vatican officials view themselves as "shepherds," the reading supports their efforts and expectations to have people follow them unreservedly.

Hence, new images for the human-divine relationship need to come to the fore. Of note, the Gospel reading reflects a pre-Resurrection time, whereas the Lukan narrative that describes the walk to Emmaus, featuring Christ walking with the two people on the road, is a post-Resurrection narrative. We are post-Resurrection, and even post-Pentecost people.

The second reading, 1 Peter 3:20b-25, depicts Peter preaching to the early Christians and expounding on the suffering endured by Christ, to the point of crucifixion. Peter the preacher affirms Christ's suffering, connects it to the call and mission of being a Christian, encourages people to suffer as Christ suffered, and challenges people to follow in Christ's footsteps.

Christianity has long maintained that Christ's suffering is vicarious, that Jesus was a substitution who was punished to pay for humanity's sins and reconcile humanity to God. The cross, then, becomes the ultimate sacrifice for atonement.

The message preached by Peter and read during the Easter season in not good news. Embedded in Peter's understanding of suffering and the cross is the inherent support for violence.

Christ's crucifixion understood as vicarious suffering is nothing to be celebrated and certainly not to be "spiritualized." The Roman occupying power is inscribed into the divine story of salvation that then idealizes the victim of a totalitarian regime. The victim's suffering is then interpreted by Peter the preacher as a sacrifice of salvation.

This preaching is re-inscribed into the minds and beliefs of preachers throughout the centuries who, in turn, preach this reality as if it is good news and the fulfillment of the Christian vocation. Guilty parties responsible for the crucifixion of an innocent person are not held accountable, and the acceptance of this suffering, now looked upon as a redemptive act, normalizes violence and encourages the acceptance of structures and attitudes that create victims. These structures and attitudes continue to exist and go unchecked and uncriticized.

The seasons of spring and Easter invite us to become liberated from toxic theology whose spiritual effects anesthetize us to unjust crucifixions happening daily in our world today.

This season of life beckons us to choose life, to do our internal spring cleaning and gardening, to leave no stone unturned, to uproot and root out oppressive religious images theologies, so that room can be made for the Spirit to transform internally and externally our belief systems and their related structures.

How many times have you told a family story only to have a sibling say, "I don't remember it that way at all!" (That is actually a very nice rendition of what often happens.) Memory shapes our perspective without our willing it. If my brother used to scare me by pulling a mouse out of his pocket, I'm going to react when I see him approaching with a grin and a hand in his pocket. If he should then hand me a gift card, my future expectations might be different.

Today's readings are all about perspective. The Gospel tells the story of two disciples whose perspective threw them into blind grief. As Jesus, the stranger, walked with them, they described him as a failed messiah — assuming that everyone assessed the situation as they did. Jesus listened to it all, allowing them to vent their desolation as they walked along.

Then, in the way only a close friend can do, he shook them out of their stupor with an all-too-familiar, loving reproach: "You dunderheads! How long did you walk with Jesus without learning anything? Have you forgotten all he said about dying and rising — that all of Scripture teaches God's love cannot be overcome? Let's take it once more from the top."

Finally, sitting at table with them, he explained it all again in one gesture. He took bread and blessed and broke it, reminding them that giving oneself totally for others is God's route to the fullness of life.

Peter taught something similar in his Pentecost reprise of the mystery of Jesus. Peter recounted the historical events as everyone knew them. He then proclaimed that all that happened to and through Jesus was part of the process of accomplishing the divine plan for the world.

Having reminded them of Jesus' goodness, his rejection, death and resurrection, Peter summarized it all saying, "It was impossible for him to be held by death."

Luke the evangelist gave us these two different renditions of the same story. For the early church, it was a story they heard from participants (who probably each had their own version). Ultimately, the story is that, in Christ, the Holy Spirit is filling Earth and her inhabitants. But, as we and the Emmaus travelers know only too well, it takes a long time for Jesus' followers to understand that.

And so, for us? Because this is the weekend of Earth Day 2023, we might listen long and carefully to one particular line from the first letter of Peter. He says, "Conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourn."

The author wrote that nearly 2,000 years ago. We hear a modern rendition of it today as Pope Francis tells us in "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" to show reverence for every bit of creation because "it is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God's creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet."

Peter told his audience that the people of his time failed to recognize that Jesus was sent by God in spite of the good he did. The travelers to Emmaus didn't recognize the risen Christ as he walked with them until he prayed with them. Until the 19th century, most Christians accepted slavery as a natural state for some people — until they knew they had to change the laws.

When humans accept new perspectives, they must put them into action.

Today, in Laudato Si', Francis makes an extraordinary claim as he invites us to recognize all of creation as "a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness." He adds that, for Christians, "the destiny of all creation is bound up with the mystery of Christ."

Just as people of Jesus' day missed the point, many today remain unaware or insufficiently concerned about how we are shaping the future of our planet. While the crisis of Earth is but one of the ways in which God's plan for the future is being thwarted, with the exception of nuclear warfare no other evil compares to the possibility that all life on Earth could be snuffed out as a result of human carelessness or apathy.

Jesus invited the Emmaus disciples to see through his eyes. Francis does the same in Laudato Si' as he calls Christians to "an 'ecological conversion,' whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them."

He adds, "Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not ... optional."

The early Christians had to develop a new perspective. How are we called to do the same?