The Lord Is Our Shepherd: Psalm 23

On “Good Shepherd Sunday,” the 4th Sunday of Easter, we pray those familiar words from the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd.”

So many funerals come to mind where we’ve prayed this psalm together. But it’s so much more than a psalm for funerals. I also remember memorizing it for Sunday School. When you know a beloved psalm by heart, it’s there, always within you, to call upon – whenever life is challenging, especially in those times of “the darkest valley” – which many of our neighbors now are experiencing.

Psalm 23 was surely on Jesus’ own lips and in his own heart long before his followers understood HIM as their Good Shepherd. He speaks of his own shepherd, leader, and guide: “The Father and I are one.” Like all our prayers, we pray this psalm in the name of Jesus. Because it was true for him, it is also true for us. Jesus knew the psalms, and surely this must have been a special one for him.

But even though Psalm 23 is comforting and soothing for our souls, it doesn’t guarantee perpetual serenity. Remembering Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane jolts us back to reality. Jesus did “lie down,” but not always in green pastures. In Matthew’s story of the Passion, Jesus “threw himself on the ground … grieved and agitated.” He prayed in distress, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” It was apparently not clear to him what was going to happen next. He saw death as a very real possibility – but apparently he also longed to be spared, as he cried, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” To the degree we can, we grasp what it meant for him to surrender humbly to suffering and death.

In fact, like many of our fellow humans today, Jesus WAS led through “the valley of the shadow of death” (KJV). Our Shepherd passed through the darkest valley to expose the long shadows, such as death, that fall over all of us sheep – including the very real anxiety about what’s next for us and our world. Yet Jesus brings God’s light to our darkest times – a future for us, with hope.

Looking over Jesus’ shoulder, we might surmise that his intimacy with the Father comforted and sustained him. And we also are sustained, knowing our place in Jesus’ heart. We pray: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” In this Easter season, we look beyond “my whole life long.” We look to forever.

Our Shepherd offers green pastures to lie down in, leads us in the right paths, gets us through the darkest valleys, comforts us and feeds us, even in the face of our enemies. Like Jesus, we will live in the house of the Lord forever. Like Jesus, we ask for God to be near us, to carry us, feed and nourish us, forever. And forever starts today.

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

Pastor Janet