In the Shepherds Care
Psalm 23
It’s tragic to know Psalm 23 but not know the Shepherd.
The frostbitten shepherd
In Elizabethton, Tennessee, lived an aged schoolteacher named Beula Thomas, who was raised on the Colorado prairie. Before her death, she recorded her childhood recollections, including the vivid incident that brought her to faith in Jesus Christ.
An early blizzard hit the Rockies during the winter of 1912, and a local shepherd, Mr. Woods, was caught with his flock in the mountains near the Thomas homestead. He desperately tried to herd his sheep into a hollow space close together so they could keep warm. Woods knew the thick snow would provide a protective covering for his sheep, saving them from the bitter wind; and the warm breath from the sheep would melt the snow near their faces, allowing them to breathe.
But instead of listening to their shepherd, the sheep bolted after the lead sheep and ran into a thick snowdrift where they perished. The despondent, half-frozen shepherd showed up at the Thomas house, seeking refuge from the storm. Mrs. Thomas heated water for the poor man’s hands and feet while her husband rubbed them vigorously to ward off frostbite. Over a supper of salmon patties, the man told his sad story.
“I’ll come back after the blizzard and skin the sheep,” said Mr. Woods. “The birds and coyotes will take care of the meat.”
The three Thomas children were gripped by this unexpected visitor. Shortly afterward, while they discussed it all with their mother, she quoted Psalm 23, explaining that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who cares for us, though all we like sheep have gone astray.
“Some people are stubborn and refuse to follow Christ and are lost forever. But Jesus came to lead his sheep to eternal safety.”
Psalms 23 KJV
1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
I own a marvelous little book written nearly a quarter of a century ago by a former shepherd, Philip Keller. He titled the book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm Twenty-Three, He tells about his experience as a shepherd in east Africa.
The land adjacent to his was rented out to a tenant shepherd who didn’t take very good care of his sheep: his land was overgrazed, eaten down to the ground; the sheep were thin, diseased by parasites, and attacked by wild animals.
Keller especially remembered how the neighbor’s sheep would line up at the fence and blankly stare in the direction of his green grass and his healthy sheep, almost as if they yearned to be delivered from their abusive shepherd. They longed to come to the other side of the fence and belong to him.
Christians understand that the identity of the shepherd is everything. It is wonderful to be able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd."
There’s a line in the Old Testament written by Isaiah that tells the result of God’s gamble, Isaiah 53:6: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way."
Although God has a right to own us because he created us, he gave us the option of freedom, and we all left. We chose sin and did not love him as he wanted to be loved. In response, he chose to send out his own son to look for us, to hunt us down, to find and redeem us at a terrible cost--the cost of his own life.
A shepherd notches the ear of a lamb born to his flock and has rightful ownership. That lamb deliberately walks away. The shepherd searches near and far to get that lamb back. A long time later, he finds not a baby lamb but a grown sheep for sale at an animal auction. The shepherd recognizes his mark on that sheep’s ear. He goes to the auctioneer and says, "I can see the mark. That sheep is mine."
The auctioneer says, "Listen, you must bid and pay just like anybody else."
The shepherd bids and pays an outrageous price, far above any reasonable market value in order to get his lamb. He now has a double right to own this sheep: from birth, from redemption.
God has a right to own us as creator and because he has paid the blood of his own Son--an outrageous price far above our market value--in order to redeem us back again.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
There is a beautiful figure in one of Wordsworth’s poems of a bird that is swept from Norway by a storm. And it battles against the storm with desperate effort, eager to wing back again to Norway. But all is vain, and so at last it yields, thinking that the gale will carry it to death--and the gale carries it to sunny England, with its green meadows and its forest glades.
Ah, how many of us have been like that little voyager, fretting and fighting against the will of God! And we thought that life could never be the same again when we were carried seaward by the storm. Until at last, finding all was useless perhaps, and yielding to the winds that "bloweth where it listeth" (John 3:8), we have been carried to a land that was far richer, where there were green pastures and still waters.
G. H. Morrison
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
The ancient Etruscans foretold the future by looking at sheep livers. They divided the liver into sixteen parts just as they had divided the heavens into sixteen parts. Certain gods ruled various parts of the heavens and would get into corresponding parts of the liver and give signs that provided guidance for people.
How far removed that is from the guidance David wrote about: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105).
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Listening to a student read the Scripture in seminary chapel, Joseph Sittler, now blind, heard something he’d never heard before. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
"The text does not speak," said Sittler, "of the valley of death but the valley of the shadow of death. There is a difference. ... The wonderful truth ... is that God is with us now. It is not simply that God will be with us in the experience of death itself; it is that God will walk with us through all of life, a life over which death sometimes casts its shadow."
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
In 1989 archaeologists, digging near the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, unearthed a two thousand-year-old flask filled with oil. It may have been oil that was used to anoint the kings of Israel! The oil was made from a plant now extinct and by a process now unknown. There will never be any more oil like that. But if you had that flask and were anointed with that oil, it would mean little.
Day by day we experience that other and more significant anointing described in Psalm 23, "Thou anointest my head with oil" (KJV). Day by day God’s blessings pour down upon our heads.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
The names by which God has chosen to call Himself, "I AM": "He does not say, I am their light, their guide, their strength, or tower, but only ’I AM.’ He sets, as it were, His hands to a blank, that His people may write under it what they pleased that is good for them. As if He should say: Are they weak? I am strength. Are they poor? I am riches. Are they in trouble? I am comfort. Are they sick? I am health. Are they dying? I am life. Have they nothing? I am all things. I am wisdom and power. I am justice and mercy. I am grace and goodness. I am glory, beauty, holiness, eminency, super-eminency, perfection, all-sufficiency, eternity. Jehovah, I am. Whatever is amiable in itself, or desirable unto them, that I am. Whatsoever is pure and holy, whatsoever is great or pleasant, whatsoever is good or needful to make men happy, that I am."
Summery
A boy who applied for work was told by the manager he did not think they had enough work to keep another boy employed. The boy said, "But I am sure, sir, that you must have enough work to hire me. You don’t know what a little amount of work it takes to keep me busy."
Many so-called disciples are like this boy. They want to follow Jesus, not to see how much they can do for Him, but how little. To such the Lord never says, "Follow me." Any who enter Christian service for the sake of having an easy time will be disappointed. Christ is a busy Commander of busy soldiers.
