"The Lord Is My Shepherd"

Psalm 23

There is one verse in scripture that almost everyone knows – even people who are not Christians, people who have never darkened the door of a church. I’ve had funerals for folks who have never been to church their entire life, but when asked if there are any scriptures they’d like me to use, they invariably reply: “The one about ‘the Lord’s my Shepherd.” Psalm 23 is almost universally known and loved, because of the vision it raises about the care of God.

I don’t know whether any of you have ever dealt with sheep in their natural surroundings, but David, as a former shepherd, certainly displayed a lot of humility in identifying himself with sheep. It’s interesting that he didn’t use some other metaphors – he was the leader of an army, but he didn’t say: “The Lord’s my general.” He was a king, but doesn’t say, “The Lord’s my King.” From his experience in shepherding, you’d think maybe he’d pick one of the nobler animals – a lion or a bear at least.

But sheep – one of the most foul, stupidest, filthiest, smelliest, dumbest creatures God put on the face of the earth. If the lead sheep falls over a cliff, the others are likely to follow. Sheep are unable to clean themselves, they can’t fend for themselves, they can’t even find their own grazing lands. In fact, they can’t even sleep by themselves. One of the jobs of a good shepherd is to prepare a place for them to sleep. Shepherds have always been reviled because, after having to live with their sheep out in the fields, they smelled just as bad. No one wanted the job, so it was usually given to children, and people who weren’t considered good for anything else. In Israel, a shepherd wasn’t even allowed to testify in court.

When Samuel visited Jesse to pick one of his sons for king, Jesse seemed to even forget about the one who was out shepherding – he was sort of an afterthought. It wasn’t until Samuel had rejected all the others, and specifically asked him whether he had anymore sons, that Jesse remembered – “Oh, yes – there’s the one that’s out in the field – the shepherd, David.”

After David, Israel had another image of shepherds, because it was this shepherd boy who became their most beloved king – the shepherd who wrote this song, and who gave us the model Jesus used later, the model of God as the Good Shepherd.

I can imagine David, in his later years, looking back over his life – not only at the riches of the court and the power of his office, but also the personal tragedies he suffered. He remembered a simpler time – a boy, shepherding in the fields of Bethlehem, with little more to do than play his lyre and sing to the sheep. In the consternation that surrounded him in his later years, he thought of those peaceful hillsides, and how his sheep so easily grazed and rested under his own watchful care.

“Certainly,” he thought, “that is God’s desire – that we should rest in that same way under his watchful eye. Certainly he cares as much for us.” And so, in the midst of the political intrigue, the personal heartache, he captures this vision of God leading him, as a shepherd leads his flock. And out of this revelation, he begins to pen these words: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

David seemed to have everything. But he lacked peace. His son, Absolom’s death left a hole in his father’s heart. Worst of all was the knowledge that his son’s rebellion and death were David’s fault. David lusted for another man’s wife and, succumbing to that lust and the temptations of power, had her husband killed so that he could take Bathsheba as his own. His son was the product of that relationship. Afterwards, his conflicting emotions of love and guilt drove his son away, and into open rebellion, until there was no recourse but to finally hunt him down and allow him to be killed, in order to save the nation.

It’s not as a great or powerful king that David pens these words, but as a father who has lost much, yet still knows the sufficiency of God’s love. The God who guarded him and provided for the needs of the small shepherd boy on the hillsides of Bethlehem, still guards and provides, still keeps him safe in his care.

“He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”

Have you ever felt victimized, so dizzied by the events swirling around you that you weren’t sure which end was up? Longing for a moment’s peace, a place of rest, picturing, perhaps, in your mind that quiet, pastoral scene that seems so far away, where a bubbling brook runs through a lush green meadow, a place of calm and contentment, where there’s not only soft grass to sit down on, but water for a parched spirit? Perhaps that’s even why you are here today – after the beating you took this week. You need to sense God’s presence, to draw close again to the life-giving waters. You need to have your spirit filled once again at the font.

Notice the focus of these verses. It isn’t “I shall find green pastures. I will find a place of still waters.” “I did it MY WAY!” From the very beginning, it’s all about God. We won’t find our rest until we rest in him. Did you know that, in the last century, Americans averaged eleven hours of sleep a night? Thirty years ago it was nine hours. Now it is seven. We get less sleep than any other people on earth. Cell phones and pagers have increased expectations so that the majority of Americans work at least six days a week. We work longer hours, and more days per week, than anyone else on the face of the planet – almost a third more than the Japanese, and half again as much as the average European. And even with that, most Americans have trouble sleeping. Some forty-five million Americans have sleep problems.

God promises a place of rest. He prepares a place for us, so that we can rest. But we need to rely on him for it, and not go looking for our own pasture. Our busyness hasn’t gotten us anywhere good – it has simply made us the most irritable, arrogant, sleep-deprived people on the face of the planet. We have become work-a-holics. We suffer from heart disease and stress disorders. We need some rest – rest that only God can provide.

“He leads me in the path of righteousness for his name sake.” I’m not a very righteous person. I mess up a lot along the way. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. But so did David. It’s not moral righteousness that David is talking about, but “right relationship” with God. Despite David’s sinfulness, God loved him, walked with him, upheld him, lifted him when David couldn’t walk on his own strength, always pointing him toward the promises God had made to him. God is true – even when we fail. And because of the promises he made to us in Jesus, despite our sinfulness and our failures, he will never leave us nor forsake us. We may lose faith in him, but he never loses faith in us. Nothing can separate us from his love.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.” There is a place in Israel called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It is a barren and rocky craves, where nothing but wild animals and thieves hid. A shepherd, moving his flock through that place, would be the first to encounter these enemies, because shepherds, in that part of the world, lead their sheep instead of driving them. They stood between danger and their sheep, with the rod and staff as their weapons. It is enough to have to face the perils of our own weakness and the struggles of everyday life with our own inadequate resources. Yet Paul says, “We do not wrestle (only) against flesh and blood, but against unknown dangers, against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” That is a bit intimidating! How do we stand in the face of such an ungodly host? Luther answers, “And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to und us; we will not fear, for God had willed his truth to triumph through us: the Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo! His doom is sure – one little word shall fell him!” That word, of course, is the divine Word – Jesus Christ. In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, he holds us and conquers for us.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.” David, again, recounts his years as king: “In the midst of all my enemies,” David says, all who would scoff at me, all my detractors, and in spite of all my failures – you continue to celebrate and honor me – you have anointed me as your own son!”

You know, I need very little reminder of my failures. If a person wants to tear me down, it’s not hard. A little criticism, a few well-chosen shots, and I feel like dirt. I don’t have a hard shell. And they have plenty of ammunition with me. What do we do when we are attacked, when we fail miserably – how do we find the strength to go on? By remembering who has the last word on our life, who it is that is the final judge of our success or failure. Luther, when he was attacked, said he would answer, “But I am baptized!” When a king ascended to the throne of Israel, they were anointed with oil, and the priest would say, in God’s place, those same words Jesus heard at his baptism: “You are my beloved son; this day I have begotten you.” God made them his adopted sons. And those words are the same words spoken over you at your baptism. If you are God’s child, if he loves you and thinks you are wonderful – and he does – who is anyone else to call you a failure? Who dares say you are unimportant? You have a Father in heaven who dotes on you, who thinks you are truly wonderful. His only desire is to spend more time with his child, to spend an eternity with you, to be able to celebrate your life in his presence!

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!” He couldn’t say it any stronger, could he? He wants to impress on you the love God has for you. Note that David doesn’t end with a wish, or a hope – he doesn’t say, “Therefore I hope that God will bless me after all,” or “I hope to get to heaven when I die.”

David knows that the same God who hold him in life will hold him forever. The God who is the “good, good Shepherd,” is the God who loves him, who never will let him go. I pray that you also know him – the “good, good Shepherd, who calls his own sheep by name.”