Delivered April 29, 2012
This is indisputably the most beloved
chapter in the Bible. When people are asked their favorite Bible passage, most
people will say the 23rd psalm. There was a poll done in 2009.
People were asked their favorite Bible passage. 34% said Psalm 23. 29% said
John 3:16. Those two passages account for 63% of respondents. Then it dropped
off suddenly after that; the next highest only had 5%. This psalm, known as the
Shepherd Psalm, is frequently requested at funeral services. It is recited in
times of crisis. It even has its own Facebook page! There is something about these
verses that touch people like none other. It is attributed to King David, who
lived 3000 years ago. Psalms are songs sung to stringed instruments, this one traditionally
considered composed and sung by King David. I would love to know what the
original tune was that David sang these words to! What can a preacher say about
this passage that has not already been said? I have no illusions of coming up
with something new and different here, but I will do my best to do justice to
this beautiful psalm.
As I look over this psalm, what comes to
my attention immediately is all the verbs. This is an action psalm. Listen to
the verbs: want, lie down, leads (2x), restores, walk, fear, comfort, prepare,
anoint, overflow, follow, dwell. There are only six verses in this psalm and
there are 13 action verbs, not even counting the verb “to be”, as in “The Lord is
my shepherd.” As I look at this some more, it seems to me that this psalm can
be pictured as a journey, so that is how I am going to be expounding it this
morning. The shepherd (who is the Lord God) is leading the psalmist David on a
journey. David ought to know something about this, because he was a shepherd
before he was a warrior and then a king. In our case as Christians, we can read
this Shepherd as Jesus, whom our Gospel lesson for today calls the Good
Shepherd. We are the sheep. As another psalm, Psalm 100 says, “We
are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” The shepherd leads us
on a journey through this psalm. There are three stages to this shepherd’s journey.
I. First, the journey begins in green
pastures. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down
in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.3 He restores my soul.” The luxuriousness of this scene is striking because in Israel green
pastures are rare. Palestine is an arid land. It is mostly rocks and sand.
Green pastures would be considered truly wonderful. Muslims picture heavenly paradise
as a well-watered garden. In our Bible the Garden of Eden was a garden watered
by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This type of setting is where the
Shepherd’s journey begins. His sheep are lying down in beautiful green,
well-watered pastures, with abundant food available to the sheep. They do not
want for anything. “The Lord is my shepherd; I
shall not want.” The sheep have food. They
have water. They are resting in the green pastures. They are refreshed. “He restores my soul.”
This is why
people like this psalm so much. It starts off as a picture of an earthly
paradise. You may have heard that the well-known painter Thomas Kinkade died on
Good Friday this year. He was only 54 years old. They say that he is the most
popular artist in American history. Art critics didn’t like him but the people
loved him. It is said that his paintings hang in 10 million homes. He himself
named Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell as his inspirations, so you see where he
is coming from. He wanted to reach ordinary people. He is known as the “painter
of light,” because of the soft light that emanates from this works. He was a
devout Christian who tried to communicate through light a sense of spirituality
in his paintings. Often his scenes are
rural country settings with homes, cabins, or churches bright with warm yellow light
shining from the windows. The reason that his paintings are so popular is that
it communicates the same type of thing that the 23rd psalm
communicates – a safe, warm, secure, comfortable spirituality. They communicate
an earthly spiritual ideal – a peaceable kingdom, an Americanized version of
the Garden of Eden.
That is
what people yearn for. We yearn for heaven, or at least a heaven on earth,
where nature shines with the glory of God and the warmth of family and
friendship shines out of the windows of homes. I think that is what the 23rd
psalm communicates. It is a pastoral scene of peace and security. It is the
picture of the idealized home. It is the driving force behind much of the
spiritual journey. The world can be a cold, lonely and difficult place. People
long for what this psalm presents – a God who is our shepherd and who takes
care of us and provides for our needs. The 23rd Psalm hooks us with
this dream at the very beginning.
II. But it
doesn’t stay there. In the psalm, the shepherd rounds up the sheep and heads
out. Not for greener pastures. It leaves the green pasture behind and heads out
into the real world. That is the second stage of the journey, which is through
the Dark Valley. “He leads me in the paths of righteousness For
His name’s sake.4 Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For
You are with me; Your
rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” The “valley of the shadow of death” is the traditional language,
but other translations will use phrases like “through the darkest valley.” This
also resonates with our experience. We know that life is not just good, safe,
secure times. It also includes deep dark valley experiences. When serious
illness like cancer strikes, we are walking through the deep dark valley. When
death strikes someone close to us we are walking through the valley of the
shadow of death. When depression consumes us, it is as if darkness descends
onto every part of our lives. When death threatens our own lives, we are
walking that valley. We can’t live life without walking through the valley that
the psalmist describes.
In fact the
psalm says that the Shepherd leads us into these valleys and through these
valleys. Apparently there is no way around such valleys. There is no high road
where it is always sunny, light and warm. We have to travel through deep canyons
that are dark and cold. Indeed the psalm says these are the “paths of
righteousness.” “He leads me in the
paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” The path of righteousness goes
through the valley of the shadow of death. We tend to think that if things are
dark and difficult then something must be wrong, that we have taken a wrong
turn somewhere, or that God has abandoned us. This psalm teaches us just the
opposite. It tells us that the valley road is the right path and that God is
with us in this darkness. Indeed that there is a purpose for the dark times –
that we travel these for his name’s sake.
To shed
some NT light on this, this path is the Way of Christ. The way of Jesus is not easy.
It is the way of the cross, which is the valley of the shadow of death if there
ever was one! The cross casts a shadow, and that shadow is the shadow of death.
Some people come to religion seeking escape from the dark parts of life. They
think that if they follow Jesus then he will keep the darkness away – that
there will be no illness or trouble or death. When they find out that is not
true – that faith does not protect us from troubles in life - some people then get
upset and reject religion and God. But Jesus never promised us only a garden -
a life of green pastures and still waters. Christianity does not take us on a
bypass around the dark valleys. It is not an escape route from life’s
difficulties. It takes you right through them. Lots of Christians in much of
the world have more troubles because they are Christians rather than less,
especially in places of religious persecution like strict Islamic and communist
countries. I am sorry, but there is no way around the valley of the shadow of
death. But there are different ways through it. The Good Shepherd takes us
through the valley by the right path – the path of righteousness - and most
importantly he travels with us and leads us through the darkness.
The promise
of the psalm is that when the Lord leads us through dark valleys, we do not
have to fear because the Lord is with us. His
rod and his staff, they comfort us. The shepherd’s rod is a weapon. In the
Bible David relates how in his youth he had killed both a lion and a bear with
his rod while protecting his sheep. That is what the Lord does; he fights to
protect us. The staff mentioned here is the shepherd’s crook – with the hook on
the top - used to rescue sheep when they get themselves into tight places. That
is what the Lord does for us when we get ourselves into tight places – when we
are not looking where we are going and we fal into a crevasse. He is with us to
protect us from the evil that lurks in the dark valleys. Psalm 12 says that the Lord will protect us from all evil,
that he will preserve our soul. He comforts us and strengthens us. He is
our light in the darkness.
Once again I
will mention Thomas Kinkade. In a 2002 interview he was asked about his
personal mission and purpose in painting. He said, “I'm a warrior for light,” (a reference to the medieval
practice of using light to symbolize the divine.) "With whatever talent
and resources I have, I'm trying to bring light to penetrate the darkness many
people feel." That is what this psalm promises. Though the deep valleys
are dark, God can see in the dark, for he is Light, and he guides us in the right
way through those valleys.
III. The third
leg of the Shepherd’s journey is on the other side of the darkest valley. The psalm
takes us through the valley of the shadow of death, and then it comes out into
a safe place. We come to the Shepherd’s house. Here the imagery of the psalm
changes. Up to this point it has been the shepherd leading sheep, but here at
the journey’s end the shepherd is not feeding sheep in green pastures any
longer. Here he is entertaining guests in his home. It says, “You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.” Sheep
don’t sit at tables, nor have their
heads anointed with oil nor drink out of cups. The reader is no longer placed in the role of a sheep, but an
human honored guest.
We are sitting at a table with the Lord. To
many Christians this scene conjures up images of the Lord’s Supper and the
Wedding Supper of the Lamb mentioned in the Book of Revelation. But before we
jump to those NT ideas, we need to first take it simply for what it is in that
ancient Hebrew setting. This is the ancient Near-Eastern picture of hospitality.
Hospitality was a solemn obligation in that culture. When one was invited into
the tent or the house of a person, you were treated as royalty. You were under
the protection of the householder. The Householder would literally lay down his
life to protect you – which looks ahead to the NT idea of Jesus laying down his
life on the cross for us. But primarily this ending of the psalm is a picture
of safety.
But there is more here that is often
missed or misunderstood when studying this psalm. It says “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The
presence of one’s enemies has confused many people. People picture a person
eating while his enemies are nearby waiting to pounce. Or a person eating while
his enemies go hungry. Or a picnic in the middle of a battlefield. That is not
what is pictured here. Let me explain.
In that culture one did not eat in the presence of enemies. One shared table
fellowship only with friends. So if the enemies are present it means that the
enemies have been transformed into friends. This is a table of peace, a meal
celebrating the end of hostilities.
Abraham
Lincoln said that the best way to destroy an enemy was to make him a friend.
That is exactly what is happening here. To sit at a table with one’s enemies
means that they are no longer your enemies. This is a picture of
reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace. This is especially significant because
the only enemy mentioned in this psalm is death, as in “the valley of the
shadow of death.” This is talking about making peace with what the Bible calls
the last enemy that shall be destroyed. And death is destroyed by making it
your friend.
We are all going to die. The older you get
the more conscious you become of that inevitability. When you are young you
don’t think about death. It is what happens to somebody else. We act as if we
are immortal. That is why the death of a young person makes such an impression
on young people. It is assumed that death is something that happens to old
people. But when a young person dies, all of a sudden reality hits his/her
friends in the face. As we get older we
get hit more and more often in the face as more and more people we know die. We
end up going to more funerals than weddings and we know something has changed.
When people our age die, we know that our end is closer. A couple of weeks Arthur George died here in
Sandwich. He was a friend of mine and uncomfortably close to my age. His wife
is one of my wife’s closest friends. Death felt close at his funeral as I said
some words and prayed for his kids.
At some point
we each need to make our peace with the last enemy. We need to sit down and
have a meal with death in the presence of the Lord. Talk some things over,
laugh about our lives, and embrace mortality as a friend. When we are no longer
afraid to die, then we can live. I hope everyone here is at that place. We need
not fear death any more than we are afraid to fall asleep at night. We need not
fear death any more than we were afraid to be born. We come from God and we
return to God. “The Lord gives and the
Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And in the meantime,
when we have made our peace with death then “ Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”
Forever is the
final word of this psalm. The hope of the believer is that there is a house of
the Lord after death. What eternal life is exactly, who knows? There are
pictures and images in the Bible but they are metaphors and symbols. The only
thing we know now is space and time, but eternal life is beyond space and time.
Eternity is not endless time; it is outside of time. Heaven is not a place; it
is a spiritual reality outside of space. Therefore we cannot imagine what is in
store for us after we die. I use Biblical images to describe life beyond death,
but I know I don’t really know. But I know that God is there; the House of the
Lord is there. The Good Shepherd is there. And in some way who I really am in
God and in Christ – my soul, my spirit, my true self - will also be there, and in
some way I am already there. I have that life now. We have that life now in
Christ. That is the Forever that ends the psalm. That is the destination of the
Shepherd’s journey and our spiritual journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment