Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is Psalm 23.
Before he was a king, David was a
shepherd boy. The youngest of the brothers, the task fell to him when his
brothers grew into adulthood and went off to their own homes. David took his
job as shepherd just as serious as the brothers who went to fight in Saul’s
army against the Philistines. When asked, David told about how he defended the
flocks against lions and bears that roamed the Judean hillsides, protecting the
helpless sheep against predators with his staff, his sling, and his bare hands
if necessary. They were the family sheep – known by name, cared for by hand.
They were entrusted to him, and it was his job to protect them, no matter the
cost – even up to and including his own life.
While there is much we could
explore in this Psalm, and perhaps some day we will go line by line, phrase by
phrase through it, there are two specific images that I want to explore with
you today. I do this for this specific reason: the other evening’s storm
reminds us how desperately we need a shepherd who watches over us and protects
us, not only from satan and his wiles, but from a fallen creation as well.
We think of sheep and shepherds
with romantic gentility. We think of lush green grass, rolling hills, babbling
streams, gently bleating, soft fuzzy sheep, and the noble, muscular, vigilant
shepherd. If you have that kind of picture in your mind right now, this is
described as a pastorale scene. Pastor is Latin for shepherd.
Our western idea of raising
animals, for the most part, is a far cry from the ancient world in both
distance and in time. I suspect that most of us know a cowboy, or at least a
cattleman. We have our movie image of John Wayne and Gus McCray sitting astride
a horse, looking over his herd of livestock. Most of us have no working
knowledge of sheepherders or sheepmen. So, allow me to try to paint a picture
for you. Don’t think boots and spurs, chaps and saddles. Think of a singular shepherd
who walks among his sheep and in front of the sheep, just a few dozen of them, staff
in hand, a small pouch containing a few items acoss his shoulder, being down on
their level, treating them more like family pets than mere animals. He walks up
to each one, speaking its name, rubbing his hands through their wool, feeling
for stickers or bugs, for wounds or sores. If he finds something out of place,
he removes it. If there is a wound he treats it.
In the 23rd Psalm,
you know the phrase, “He anoints my head with oil.” This is our first image:
anointing with oil. In the Old Testament, priests and kings were anointed with
oil. It was a marking of their being chosen, set apart, for holy service among
God’s people. We’re somewhat familiar with that because we’ve read about it.
David uses it differently, here. Philip Keller, in his book, A Shepherd
Looks at the 23rd Psalm, describes what this anointing with
oil entails. It can be used to cleanse and protect a wound, but it also is used
to protect from something more sinister. There is a particular fly in the
middle east that loves to lay its eggs in open wounds and sores. Those eggs
become worms which dig into the flesh, literally driving the sheep crazy.
They’ll do anything to stop the terrible discomfort of the worms – even jumping
into water where the water-logged wool drags the sheep to its death. The
shepherd takes the oil and pours it over the sheep’s head and body, sealing off
the wounds so that the flies cannot lay their eggs. To calm the sheep, the
shepherd grabs the sheep, gently, by the ears and gets down on their level,
speaking face-to-face with the sheep. The sheep hears the voice, sees the face,
and knows the shepherd’s care.
Carry that image, then, to Jesus
as our Good Shepherd. Isn’t it a comfort to know our Good Shepherd gets down in
the dirt with us, sees us for what we are and as we are, yet loves us? He
became like us, the shepherd becomes the sheep – more than that, He does so
while remaining the perfect Lamb of God. Yet, He loves us enough to not leave
us as we are. He binds our wounds, places us on His arms, and carries us to the
Father and welcomes us back to the fold.
A moment ago, I said that a scene
of green grass, lush hills, and a babbling creek is called a pastorale
scene. Now, change the picture. Invert it. Picture a hillside, but one that is
stark, rocky, and terrifying. There are no softly baaing sheep; rather, screams
of pain and agony matched by laughter and mocking. Instead of a stream of
water, there are rivulets of blood dripping from the head, hands, and feet of a
shepherd who is slowly and painfully dying. This is a different kind of
pastorale scene. Jesus is God’s Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He’s a
suffering shepherd. The sheep are His own; He is not a hireling, so He
surrenders His own life at the cross for them. He is the dying and rising
shepherd.
This is what makes the picture so
wonderful – not the hard-working shepherd, but the life-laying-down shepherd.
He lays down His life for His beloved whom He knows by name – His name. He dies
to rescue, to redeem, to save the Church. When night fell on Good Friday, and
when He breathed His last, He is buried in the valley of the shadow of death.
Think of the grave as the doorway. He’s a dying shepherd, laying down his life
for the sheep in the doorway of death, but He is also the rising shepherd who
takes it up again, rising in the morning of the resurrection to lead His sheep
into the new pastures of new life. In His resurrection, the Shepherd anoints us
with baptismal waters, sealing us with the sign of the cross, and washing our
sins from us, redeeming us, and making us His. Covered in Christ’s
righteousness, our guilt, which would otherwise drive us to despair, is
soothed. Satan’s power is destroyed.
Now, finish the pastorale scene:
our Good Shepherd is the living, resurrected shepherd. We are the people of His
pasture, the sheep of His hand. We follow the voice of the Good Shepherd. To
strengthen us in our following, the Shepherd prepares a table before us and
feeds us with His own body to eat, living Bread which comes from heaven, and
His own blood, wine from heaven that gives joy and life.
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| Isaiah 40:11 - Full of Eyes Used with permission |
I said there were two images. The anointing is the first image. For this second, I need to set the stage a bit, so I ask for your indulgence for a moment.
One of the challenges we have
with the 23rd Psalm is that it is so familiar that we can say it on
autopilot, like the Lord’s Prayer. The words come out our mouths but our brains
are engaged elsewhere. So, I might encourage you to spend a little time with
Psalm 23 on your own, but do so with different Bible translations. If you don’t
have a shelf full of Bibles, go to your favorite Bible website or app and,
using the different choices, read the Psalm with three or four different
translations. For this exercise, don’t worry so much about how “good” the
translation is. The idea here is for a little variety, in the words of Kellogs
Corn Flakes, to “taste it again for the first time.” Since you’re probably
familiar with the King James and its cousin, the New King James, the ESV, and
the NIV, try something new – the MESSAGE, the New Living Translation, or even
Young’s Literal translation. The reason for this is that it forces you to read,
not just autopilot your way through David’s words.
My cousin, Roland, is one of the
smartest people I know. As a devotional exercise for himself, he is
paraphrasing the Bible into poetry. An attorney by vocation, his poetry is sometimes
very dense. His rendering of the 23rd Psalm is so outside our usual
language that it is almost a stumbling block compared to the beauty of the KJV,
ESV, or NIV.
However – and now I’m coming to
our second image – I love the way he concludes the Psalm. We know it as,
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Good stuff with that promise of a
blessed eternity. Roland’s paraphrase reads:
Both
love and goodness, to your heavenly lair,
my life, all days will follow.
There, I dwell,
forever with the Lord – my
fear, all quelled.
It’s no secret that we are living
in uncertain times. The war in the Middle East, drought on our front steps,
prices rising of the basic necessities of life, questions about our own health
all weigh heavy. The other night’s storm was both humbling and terrifying. When
I was greeting the kids Friday, I asked some of them if they were scared the
night before, and I also admitted that I was scared, too. I don’t think I was
the only one of us over the age of 12 who felt that way. If we wanted a symbol of
life today, it should be a question mark, as in, “Now what?”
Roland’s poem places us in the
“lair” of the Shepherd where love and goodness chase after us in unending
companionship. By the way, that’s actually the way the Hebrew reads – God’s
blessings of love and goodness chasing after us, not merely tagging along. They
chase after us. Consequentially, forever dwelling there among the Shepherd with
His loving goodness chasing after us, Roland reminds us with the high
conclusion that our fears are all quelled.
Life under Good Shepherd Jesus
isn’t necessarily easy, or happy, or free of pain and trouble. We have no
special immunity from disease, doubt, depression. Tornadoes, hurricanes, and
fires don’t swerve around our houses just because we trust Jesus. We have neither
monopoly on nor guarantee of miracles. We all must walk through that dark
valley of shadow of death, with its steep, threatening cliffs surrounding us.
There are no exceptions. But when traveling through the valley, you needn’t
fear any evil. Good Shepherd Jesus has gone ahead of you, and He is with you
with his loving goodness pursuing, chasing, after us.
And of this you can be certain,
as certain as crucified Jesus is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all
eternity: Baptized in Him, trusting Him, you dwell forever with the Lord – your
fears, all quelled.
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