Psalm 23

Remember when you were a child? And everything was okay? Because your mom was there, your dad was there, and if they were there everything was okay. I know that not everybody had this experience growing up, that some homes were not safe. But a safe, secure childhood is what we were supposed to have, and some of us remember this. We remember the thunderstorms, and running into mom and dad’s bedroom, crawling under the covers, and knowing that everything is okay. We remember the skinned knees, and mom making everything okay with a Band-Aid and a kiss. We remember the wisdom of our dad who could sort through our confusion. With mom and dad close, everything was okay.

And then we grew up. We moved out of the house, and our safety was now our responsibility. We had to look out for ourselves. We had to put on our own Band-Aids. We had to deal with the storms, the thunder and the lightning ourselves, be brave ourselves. We had to figure out our own problems. We were grown ups, and we had to act like it.

And I wonder if deep down inside us, and maybe not so deep down, there’s a wish that someone would just take care of us again, make sure that everything is okay, be the safe place in the storm, be the wisdom that sorts through the questions. If we could just go back to that safe time in our lives where we don’t have to take responsibility for our own lives.

And Psalm 23 says, there is a place, and there is Someone, and it’s okay, you’re safe, and you don’t have to figure it all out. Psalm 23, John 3:16, Genesis 1:1, these are the verses that almost everyone in the world knows, or at least has heard at some time in their lives. And particularly Psalm 23. I wondered if anything new could ever be said about Psalm 23, and then I thought of

Lamentations 3:22:

And Psalm 23, then, is new every day. We have found such incredible comfort when we hear this psalm in times of mourning, in times of fear. We remember hearing this read at funerals, or at the side of a hospital bed.

The thing is, Psalm 23 is supposed to be for everyday. That incredible comfort, that reassuring strength that we experienced at a death, in sickness, that’s the comfort and strength that we can have every day, hour by hour.

Because, verse 1:

Which are such beautiful words to hear, and give us that assurance and safety we want, right at the start, but which also put us in our place. If the Lord is my shepherd, then I’m a sheep, and that’s not the most complementary comment about who I am. Because it’s not that I’m cuddly and cute that makes me a sheep. No, it’s the fact that I’m not really that bright. And neither are you. We follow the flock, even when the flock is walking over the cliff. We don’t have a clue as to how to take care of ourselves. We don’t know when to come in out of the cold, we don’t know how to find shelter or food or drink. We simply do not have the capability to take care of ourselves, or to take care of our problems.

This first phrase sets the mood for the rest of the psalm. Get ready, get used to it, we bring nothing, He brings everything. We don’t have a clue, but He has all the answers. The Lord is the shepherd and we are the sheep.

But that’s okay. That’s the way we want it to be, because when we have this order right, when we know our place, when we admit that we bring nothing to the table, that we are as weak as sheep, and we know that the Lord is our shepherd, that’s when, verse 1:

That’s a radical statement, and usually the opposite of what our lives look like. It’s usually pretty easy to come up with a whole list of wants. And some of those wants feel a lot like needs. I need a new car, I need a new job, I need a new perspective on life. All this wanting, how are we not in want?

All of this wanting comes when we forget that we are sheep. We don’t even know what we need, we don’t even know what we should want, or when we should want it, or what that wanting should look like. We’re sheep! And when we get ourselves back to the Lord being our shepherd, then all of this wanting and needing starts to melt away.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t want things. God Himself wants things. But when the desire starts to build inside us, our eyes just turn, trustingly, patiently to the Shepherd, knowing that He knows our wants and desires before we even started to feel them. And of course He wants to take care of us, in every way possible. And only He knows what that care should look like, and when that particular want or need should be filled. So we watch, knowing our place, and knowing His.

And as we’re watching, verse 2:

Green pastures and quiet waters sound so good, don’t they? A lot better than eating brown grass and trying to drink water from a roaring waterfall.

But the quenching of our thirsts and the filling of our emptiness with good things doesn’t just happen. How do we get to the green pastures? How do we find the quiet waters? He makes us. He makes us lie down, He gets us to the waters. Because we are sheep, and we don’t naturally go to the good places. We think that we can fill our emptiness and quench our thirsts in our own ways. We’ll fill our emptiness by filling our savings account. That’s brown grass. We think we can quench our thirsts by staying productive, being busy, working hard. That’s a roaring waterfall we’re trying to drink from. Getting married will make us happy, having a family will make us complete, getting the promotion will pull it all together.

And the Shepherd gently, but firmly, pulls us away from the unsatisfying, the dangerous, and leads us to the safe and satisfying. And guess who’s there, waiting? It’s the Shepherd Himself. HE’S the green pasture, HE’S the quiet waters, HE’S the source of contentment. Lying down in green pastures, drinking from quiet waters, that’s us living in the awareness of the presence of the Shepherd. That’s why He called Himself the living water and the bread of life. Eat from Me, He says. Drink from Me, He urges. Then, then you’ll be content.

He makes this happen. He keeps working in us, nudging, calling, tugging, until we are pulled away from the distractions and we’re close to Him. And that’s how, verse 3:

It hurts to sin. It hurts to have priorities all mixed up. We cause ourselves pain and we cause others pain when we do wrong. And He’s not much of a Shepherd if His sheep keep creating problems for other people, and keep getting themselves into trouble.

So He keeps us going in the right direction, He restrains us from sin, He gets us to do good things, for His name’s sake, because it reflects well on Him. When we do something good, it’s because our Shepherd guided us in paths of righteousness, and He gets the glory. And here’s the flip side, if we’re not sure of what to do, or we just can’t seem to beat a temptation, a sin, we turn it over to the Shepherd, because He’s the Shepherd and we’re the sheep and that’s the only way we’re going to do the right thing. When we sin, it’s not a big shock. Of course we sin. Without the Shepherd, we would do no other. So, again, we turn to Him, and we watch Him, we watch Him guide us.

We watch Him, even when we’re scared out of our minds. Verse 4:

The scarier things are, the harder it is to keep watching the shepherd. The bills are piling up, and it’s hard to trust, but we keep watching the Shepherd. Our marriage isn’t going so well, but we’re following the Shepherd, trusting that He’ll guide us in paths of righteousness for His name sake. But as fears grow even bigger, as dilemmas get even deeper, watching and trusting the Shepherd gets even harder.

And nothing is harder than keeping our eyes on Him as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, as the report comes back malignant, as we start to talk about months, maybe a year, as we make the drive to Bayview. And staying strong and trusting is almost impossible, we’re so overwhelmed.

But we won’t end up actually fearing any evil, not because we’re working so hard at trusting, not because we’re looking at the bright side of things, thinking of all the good theology, but because His rod and His staff comfort. A shepherd uses a rod, a staff, a stick, to nudge the sheep this way and that way, to guide them, to get them facing in the right direction. The sheep don’t do it, the rod, used by the shepherd does the guiding. And when we most need direction, He guides the most. When we are at our weakest, He is at His strongest.

He’s been through this valley before, our Shepherd. He knows how dark that valley can be, how easy it can be to stumble. He went through the deepest, darkest valley anyone can ever travel, and He died, hanging on a cross. And then He came back through that valley, back to life, so that He could walk through the valley again, with us, when we go through. Only this time, the valley of the shadow of death isn’t dark and fearful. This time, valley is light and open, because it leads home. Our Shepherd does the leading, our Shepherd does the assuring, it’s up to Him to get us through the valley unharmed. All we need to do is watch.

Just watch as He, verse 5

Again, He’s stood there before His enemies, naked, bloody, beaten and mocked. He did this in order to conquer His enemies, to conquer your enemies. And you have a lot of enemies. See, this Shepherd that makes us go to healthy pastures and quiet waters and gets us through dark valleys, this Shepherd does this only for those who belong to Him. And you can’t belong to yourself and to Him at the same time.

And most people want to belong to themselves. They like to be the captains of their own fate, looking out for themselves, making their own choices. So when you start talking and living like you belong, body and soul, to Someone else, they get nervous, and they want you to stop. They want you to talk and act like them, because then they feel better.

But you don’t belong to yourself. You belong to a flock, a flock owned by the Shepherd, bought by His blood. Which means we don’t get to decide what we do with our lives, but then we also don’t have to figure out how to have good lives either. That’s the work of the Shepherd.

And in the presence of the resentful, with our enemies looking on, the Shepherd sets our table. He sets out confidence by the bowl full, so we don’t have to be nervous in front of enemies. Your head is anointed with assurance, your face, your whole appearance is full of composure and strength. He puts out platters of peace, so when we are acting like we’re owned by the Shepherd, we can be okay with that, even if others aren’t. Our cup overflows with calm and quiet.

One more time, not because we’ve figured out the answer, not because we’ve taken care of ourselves, not because we are such strong Christians. We are sheep, but that’s okay, because we have our Shepherd. And, verse 6:

Psalm 23 is for every day, all the days of our lives. The goodness and mercy and love, that faithful love lead us to the green pastures and quiet waters, even on Monday morning. He gets us to act righteously, justly, even on Friday evening, goodness and mercy come to you, all the days of your life. And goodness and mercy and righteousness come through you, all the days of your life.

Because we’re sticking with the Shepherd. We’re dwelling in the house of the Lord forever, and there’s never a reason to leave His house. Whether going to work, or playing, or sleeping, or walking through the valley of death, or coming to the other side of death, we stay in the house, the house of the Lord, the house of the Shepherd, with the His green pastures and His quiet waters and His overflowing table, with His goodness, His mercy, forever.