Great to be together on a Tuesday! I hope you’re ready for a blessed day. It’s good to start with you in the Pastor’s Workshop.
This week we’re working with one of the most well-loved prayers and psalms of all time. We’re “walking with the Good Shepherd” in Psalm 23. The title of our message is “Valley Trails”.
Yesterday we “immersed” ourselves in the psalm. We read and re-read. We listened closely not only to what the Psalm said, but also to what our hearts and minds had to say. We jotted down our impressions and our meditations.
Today we take a more “objective” look at the text. What is the structure? How does it advance the main thought?
The first guiding metaphor is a shepherd with his sheep. The original listeners would have had a deeper sense of that relationship than most of us do today. Most of us don’t have first-hand experience of shepherds and sheep. What we can imagine is how the shepherd protects and provides for the sheep and how the sheep depend totally upon the shepherd.
In the care and guidance of the shepherd, the psalmist invites us to travel the trails of life.
There are beautiful and lovely paths, beside “green pastures” and “still waters”. This “path” guides us into right things of God. The images evoke a deep sense of God’s beauty. To follow this trail is to “restore our souls”.
The shepherd and sheep travel not only lovely trails. They also know what it means to walk through dark times, when “shadows” fall and when death seems near. These are times when if the sheep were alone, they would be afraid. And yet, as the psalm highlights, they are not afraid. Panic doesn’t overcome them, because they know the shepherd is with them. They are under the shepherd’s protection. The shepherd’s “rod” and “staff”, “strength” and “sovereignty in the situation”, are their courage.
In verse 5 the guiding metaphor shifts from sheep with a shepherd to guests at a king’s banquet. There is a wide range of speculation about why this change was made. One theory posits that to capture the fullness of the relationship God shares with the faithful this transition was necessary.
In this new metaphor the guests are seated at a royal banquet table. Even the presence of enemies cannot dampen the outpouring of favor and the overflow of goodness. The joy of the king’s feast is supreme.
And the Psalmist concludes with this thought: this favor, goodness, and joy in the presence of the Lord are not temporary or passing. The richness of the relationship the faithful share with God is eternal. The abundance of grace we know today witnesses to an abiding fullness of grace forever.
The Psalm is so rich in its imagery that to meditate on its message is lengthy. Yet, you don’t want to rush through this poem-prayer. This psalm is like a work of “fine art”. The more time you spend with it, the more it will speak to your heart.
I invite you to “walk” through this Psalm again. Travel it as a sheep with a shepherd. Pull up a chair at the banquet of a king who serves up “goodness and mercy”. Take time to be blessed by Psalm 23.
Enjoy the blessing. I’ll join you again tomorrow in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for the richness of the relationship we share with You. Thank you for Psalm 23 and how it invites us into that blessing of traveling the trails of life with You. Thank you for how You host us at the banquet of grace as Your guest. Through our faith open our hearts more fully to the gift of life with You as expressed through this beautiful poem –prayer. This we would pray in the name of our Shepherd King, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen