Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
State College, PA
7/19/15
The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon pointed out that in the first 22 psalms there are no green pastures or still waters. In Psalm 2 we find the nations raging against God, followed by lamentations of psalmists surrounded by enemies, leading up to the 22nd Psalm, which Jesus quoted on the cross. Spurgeon says “It is only after we have read, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ that we come to ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ We must by experience know the value of blood-shedding, and see the sword awakened against the Shepherd, before we shall be truly able to know the sweetness of the Good Shepherd’s care.” Psalm 23 follows Psalm 22 because we know God as our shepherd in a world that causes us to cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And the message of Psalm 23 is that God is with us and is committed to taking care of us all through our lives, through all different kinds of experiences.
This psalm describes God with two pictures. In the early part of the psalm, verses 1-4, God is described as a Shepherd. And, in verses 5-6, He is pictured as a gracious host. But the main idea, all through the psalm, is that He is present with His people. The words, “for you are with me,” are at the precise center of the psalm. Excluding the superscription, “A Psalm of David,” which was written hundreds of years after the psalmist wrote this prayer, there are 26 words in Hebrew both before and after these words. Hebrew poets liked to play with words in that way, and it seems likely that the author of this psalm puts these words intentionally at the center as the way of giving them special emphasis (see James Limburg, Psalms, p. 74).
God often comforts and reassures His people by reminding them that He is with them. Isaac, the son of Abraham, seems to have struggled with fearfulness. At one point, after an especially difficult time, God appears to him and says: “I am the God of your father, Abraham.... Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you” (Genesis 26:23-24a, NLT). When everything was going wrong in Joseph’s life, the author of Genesis assures us: “The Lord was with Joseph and blessed him greatly as he served in the home of his Egyptian master” (Genesis 39:2, NLT). Later, after he’s been unjustly thrown into prison, the author says again: “But the Lord was with Joseph there, too, and he granted Joseph favor with the chief jailer” (v. 21). When Jeremiah was called to become a prophet, preaching a message which he knew would be unpopular, God reassured him with these words: “And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and take care of you” (Jeremiah 1:8). As he carried on his ministry, Jeremiah often didn’t feel like the Lord was with him. But he had this assurance from the beginning, and God was with him to the end, even during the dark times when he was ready to give up hope. Paul faced many difficulties during his ministry as an apostle; he was beaten with rods, flogged, shipwrecked; his ministry in Ephesus and Jerusalem led to riots. Most people would have given up in the face of such things. But while he was in Corinth, God reassured him: “Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent! For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people in this city belong to me” (Acts 18:9-10, NLT). “I am with you.” That’s the thing this psalmist understands, and he puts it at the very center of the psalm to give it prominence and emphasize it. God is with us and is committed to taking care of us all through our lives.
He reinforces this idea, in verses 1-4, by picturing God as a shepherd. Shepherds were responsible for the physical survival and welfare of the flocks under their care. One Bible dictionary points out that, “In comparison with goats, which tended to fend for themselves, sheep depended on the shepherd to find pasture for them..., Shepherds also had to provide shelter, medication, aid in lambing time, and provision for lameness and weariness. Without the shepherd the sheep were helpless” (ISBE Revised, vol. 4, pp. 463-64). Sheep are dependent upon the shepherd. So the point, in verses 1-4, is that God is dependable. He is with us. He won’t desert us, because He is a good Shepherd, who cares for His sheep, knowing that they depend upon Him.
The psalmist lists some of the things that God, our Shepherd, does for us: 1) He leads us to refreshment and rest. Life in this world can be wearying. Sometimes we feel like we have been drained of all our resources, and that we have nothing left to give. When we’re in need of restoration and rest, our great Shepherd leads us beside quiet waters and restores our souls.
2) Our Shepherd also leads us in the right way, He “guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” When we depend on our own resources and wisdom we end up going the wrong way. Isaiah says “all we, like sheep, have gone astray.” We are in the habit of going astray, and we live in a world that tells us, over and over again, that this is the right way to go. So we need to turn continually to our great Shepherd for direction.
3) Our Shepherd also keeps us safe during times of darkness. In the English Standard Version, which is what we read in the service, the translators have a footnote with an alternate translation of the words, “valley of the shadow of death.” The alternate is “the valley of deep darkness.” Other versions offer similar suggestions, and all of these are a more common way of rendering the words in verse 4. For example, Psalm 44:19: “But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.” Or Isaiah 9:2: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light....” Why is this important? The psalmist isn’t only talking here about times when we’re facing death. This world is full of darkness, because it’s under the shadow of death. Our times of darkness are connected with the reality of death in this world. He’s saying that God is with Him during all the dark times of life, those times when we think we’ve lost our way, when we feel like God has deserted us. At all those darkest times of life, God our Shepherd is with us, even though we don’t feel His presence.
Abraham Kuyper was the prime minister of Holland, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and he was also a theologian and a preacher. The first serious theological book I ever read was his book, The Work of the Holy Spirit. I was a fairly young Christian, and I felt guilty reading it. Everything I’d heard about theologians was bad; I’d heard that they weren’t interested in living as true Christians but were only concerned with arguing and studying about insignificant details. I’d heard that Theology was irrelevant and divisive. But I forced myself to keep going, and I learned that the things I’d been told were false. Here’s something I read in that book, on the work of the Holy Spirit as Comforter: “Comfort is a deposited treasure from which I can borrow; it is like the sacrifice of Christ in whom is all my comfort, because on Calvary He opened to all the house of Israel a fountain for sin and uncleanness. But a comforter is a person, who, when I can not go to the fountain nor even see it, goes for me and fills his pitcher and puts the refreshing drops to my burning lips” (vol. 3, ch. 22). When we’re walking through the valley of deep darkness we can’t see where we’re going, and we lose sight of God’s precious promises. We don’t know where to turn for comfort. But we’re not on our own. The Comforter goes to the fountain for us, fills His pitcher, and brings us the refreshment we so desperately need.
There is a great example of this from the life of Jeremiah. In the book of Lamentations, he is grieving over the fall of Jerusalem. The temple has been destroyed, and the people have been deported to Babylon. God's people have been subjected to terrible suffering and cruelty at the hands of the Babylonians. In chapter three we find him at the end of himself. "I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, `My splendor is gone, and all I had hoped from the Lord'" (vv.17‑18). He is overwhelmed with grief, and has given up hope even in God. Then, three verses later, he says this: "Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope; Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (vv.21‑23). What brought about this change? Why did he call these things to mind? Was Jeremiah capable of reviving himself at this point? No, he was experiencing the work of the Comforter. The Holy Spirit has reminded him of the truth and has renewed his hope. The psalmist, in verse 4, is saying the same thing. God, our great Shepherd, is with us when we go through times of darkness. We’re not on our own, and even when we lose sight of the truth, even when we lose hope, He comforts us with his rod and staff as our Shepherd. We are helpless without Him, like sheep without a shepherd. But He has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age.
In verses 5-6, the psalmist uses another image: he pictures God as a gracious Host, showing hospitality to His people. Despite the peacefulness and confidence of this psalm, it’s clear that the author is not experiencing easy times. He’s weary and in need of rest and refreshment; he’s going through a dark valley; and even in verse 5, when he’s experiencing God’s gracious hospitality, there are enemies present. God is with him and is committed to caring for him all through his life, but that doesn’t keep him from experiencing difficulties.
The psalmist says three things in verse 5, all of which revolve around the comfort he finds in worship: 1) “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” God is giving him good things in the midst of his difficulties. His enemies have evil intentions, but God is there, doing good things for him. That enables him to keep going. His enemies are speaking evil of him, telling lies about him, but God is blessing him in their presence, showing that He rejects what they’re saying about him. 2) “you anoint my head with oil.” In Scripture, oil is a symbol of God’s spirit, and the anointing oil was used to set a person apart as a priest. The psalmist is anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and he is part of a community of other people who have this same anointing. He’s connected, in the Spirit, with the congregation of God’s people. This leads to the next thing: 3) “my cup overflows.” Listen to this invitation that Jesus gave: “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:37-39). When we come to Jesus, as part of His body, He pours out His Spirit upon us, and we’re able to say, with the psalmist, “my cup overflows.” He prepares a rich feast for us, in the presence of our enemies, He anoints us with His Spirit and we’re filled to overflowing.
But it’s never enough merely to experience comfort in the present. We need assurance of God’s gracious care in the future, and we need to know that life will not always be what it is now. We won’t always be going through times of deep darkness which threaten to overwhelm us. We won’t always be living in the midst of enemies. The psalmist takes comfort in the gracious care he’s experienced from God, and it enables him to say this about his future: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Listen to how this verse reads in The Message: “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.” Often the Psalmists complain of enemies pursuing them. But here the image is reversed. Goodness and mercy, beauty and love, are chasing after him, and they’ll continue to pursue him all through his life. God’s Word calls us to seek and to hunger after Him. But it doesn’t depend on our seeking. We get distracted and lose our way in the darkness. We go off on tangents. We get sick, and we don’t have the energy to order our lives the way we want to. But He is seeking us, as our Shepherd. He pursues us, to invite us to the great feast at His table.
God, our Shepherd, won’t keep us out of the valley of deep darkness, but He will walk through it with us and His rod and staff will comfort us, often without our awareness of what is going on. We’ll feel like we’re on our own, like He’s deserted us and is no longer blessing us as He has in the past. But somehow we’ll get to the other side of the valley and we’ll find that He was there all the time, and that we’ve gotten through only by His help. He is with us, watching out for us, carrying us when our faith is weak, seeking us when we lose our way, refreshing us with His presence at the times we least expect it.
In the light of all this, let’s make it our aim to walk with Him, whatever else is going on in our lives. Pray this Psalm regularly. Pray this psalm, along with the rest of the psalter, and immerse yourself in God’s Word, reminding yourself often of God’s promises to be with His people. And be regular in corporate worship; when we gather together as God’s people to worship, we’re anticipating the worship we’ll experience around God’s throne in heaven. Even more, we’re taking part in the worship that is happening right now before God’s throne. The refreshment that God gives us when we gather in His presence anticipates the Marriage Feast of the Lamb: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 21:1-5). This is what we have to look forward to, and our great Shepherd is caring for us, watching over us, until we arrive safely in His presence.
