Jesu Juva
Psalm 23
April 25, 2021
Easter
4B
Dear saints of our Savior~
Whatever you may think of the 23rd Psalm, you can’t ignore it. It forces you to sit up and take notice. It demands your full attention. The imagery of the poetry is both comforting and terrifying. You’ve got peaceful, pastured sheep beside still and placid waters. But it also presents a picture of the valley of the shadow of death—a dark and scary place through which we must all one day walk.
But in the 23rd Psalm it is the metaphor that matters most. And it is a magnificent metaphor. I think I finally mastered metaphors in Miss Capell’s eighth-grade English class. Like most English teachers, Miss Capell was a bit of a stickler. From her I learned that a metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word that literally designates one thing is used to designate another, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them. In Psalm 23 the very first sentence gives you the metaphor: The Lord is my shepherd. There is an analogy—a correspondence—between the Lord and a shepherd. There are some surprising similarities between stinky shepherds and the Lord God Almighty. This is what we mean by “metaphor.”
Now, metaphors are a dime a dozen in the Psalms. After all, the Psalms are poetry; and metaphors are a poet’s best friend. And if you were to start reading at Psalm 1 and work your way toward Psalm 23, you would encounter lots of metaphors along the way: The Lord is my King. The Lord is my Shield. The Lord is my Judge, my stronghold, my deliverer, my rock, my fortress, my horn of salvation. Multiple metaphors, all meaningful, but all somewhat impersonal, inanimate, and distant.
But then comes the magnificent metaphor of Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd. My shepherd. And shepherds always do their work up close and personal with the sheep. Shepherds are in short supply here on the North Shore, but in Bible times shepherds lived with their sheep, slept with their sheep, ate with their sheep, guided, protected, and rescued their sheep. Sheep could dwell secure because their shepherd was right there—watching out for them, watching over them, scanning the horizon for threats and predators.
The image isn’t perhaps as meaningful to us because both shepherds and sheep are in short supply around these parts. Aside from the zoo, do you think there’s a single, solitary sheep in all of Milwaukee County? Perhaps for us it might help to think about the relationship you have with your family pet. The walking, the petting, the feeding, the bathing, the terrifying visits to the vet’s office. For a lot of us, that’s about as close as we’ll ever come to shepherding.
In today’s holy gospel Jesus claims this metaphor for Himself; and makes it even more meaningful. I am the good shepherd, He declares. Jesus very helpfully distinguishes between shepherds and hired hands. There’s a big difference. Hired hands run off at the first sign of danger. For the hired hand, the sheep are just a job and a paycheck. But the shepherd lives for the sheep. They are his own, like a family. He defends them. He calls each one by name, (just as we do with our dogs and cats), and they hear His voice and follow only that voice and no one else’s. That’s what Jesus is for us—the good shepherd who laid down His life to save us.
To say that Jesus is our good shepherd is also to say that we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. And when the Bible says that we are sheep, well, that’s not such a magnificent metaphor. It’s accurate, to be sure, but not very flattering. Sheep aren’t very smart (they can’t do any tricks like my Labradoodle can). Sheep aren’t very strong. Left to their own devices—given freedom and independence—they will likely end up dead. Just in time for good shepherd Sunday, you may have seen that little video clip making its way through social media right now. A sheep has gotten stuck in a narrow trench in the ground. And it’s really wedged in there. Finally, with great effort, the shepherd manages to pull that sheep out of the trench. And that sheep bounces off down the road in glorious freedom, only to dive right back down into the same trench about ten yards ahead. And so it is for all of us. All we like sheep have gone astray.
All these wandering sheep are a heartbreaking reality for me and my fellow pastors. Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd, by the way. So when it comes to wandering sheep I can speak from firsthand experience. At every single meeting I have with the board of elders, a portion of the agenda is always devoted to sheep from this flock who are wandering and straying. It’s a perennial problem that will never be solved. It’s just our sinful, sheep-like nature. We prefer rugged individualism when it comes to our religion. Who needs a pastor? Who needs a congregation? Who wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with all those smelly sheep every Sunday? Especially when you can just download all the religion you need from the internet, and you don’t even have to change out of your jammies?
Left to our own devices, we’d be dead sheep, devoured by the wolves. Had the Son of God not joined the flock by becoming man, we would be doomed by our sin and death. But this is what makes today’s metaphor so magnificent: the Good Shepherd became one of us. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the way a shepherd dwells among his flock. God didn’t sit there on a throne in heaven somewhere saying, “They sure look lost; I hope they find me.” The Good Shepherd joined the flock. He didn’t leave the shepherding of His people to hired hands. He Himself came to seek and save the lost, to gather the scattered, to be the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.
In His death on the cross, He did just that. He laid down His life for a world of lost sheep. Lifted up on the cross, He drew all to Himself, gathering a sinful, damned humanity in the embrace of a loving shepherd/Savior who is willing to suffer and die to save the lost.
You are sheep of the crucified and risen Good Shepherd. He pastures you in the green pastures of His Word; He leads you to the quiet waters of Baptism; He restores your soul, raising you from death to life in Him. He guides you in the paths of righteousness, the way of repentance, daily dying and rising, for His name’s sake. Even though you walk every day through the dark valley called the “Shadow of Death,” where the grave looms large, yet you fear no evil. Good Shepherd Jesus has gone ahead of you through suffering and death to resurrection and glory. Your Shepherd lives and in Him you live too. The grave couldn’t hold Him, and it can’t hold you either.
He is with you, comforting you with His Word and presence. He prepares a table for you, the meal of His sacrifice, His own Body and Blood which He offered up once for all to pay for your sins. He gives it to you now as food and drink on the banquet table of His altar. Nothing can harm you in His presence. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
At the end of this day, and at the end of all your days, you can say with David, “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” Like a couple of sheep dogs nipping at your heels, our Lord’s goodness and mercy pursue you each and every day of your life, reminding you that the Lord is your Shepherd and you are His sheep. And at the end of it all, there is a sure and certain promise for you and for every sheep of the Good Shepherd: You will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
