ROD AND STAFF
(Ps. 23:4)
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
If you can think back for a moment to the Charlie Brown cartoon characters and Linus carrying around his blanket, now and then sucking his thumb,
you get an image of early childhood comfort.
In growing up the security blanket and thumb-sucking have to go, but not our need for comfort. Does more money in the bank, a better and more affordable health care plan is that what brings you comfort today? Perhaps it is a call from one of your children living out of town and telling you things are fine or the doctor giving you a clean bill of health report that has recently brought you comfort.
Interestingly, in our text this morning, David prays:
Thy rod and thy staff (O Lord); they comfort me.
Using the image of God as his shepherd and having been a shepherd most of his youth, David well knew the tools of a shepherd- a rod and a staff –
and sometimes just a staff serving as both.
The rod as I was showing the children was what we would call a good strong club
used mostly for defense against predators of the sheep and sometimes used to
scan the deep wool of the sheep for insects or signs of skin disease deep down
below the surface of the wool. There were times too when counting the sheep,
that it was said they passed under the bar or the rod as they went into the foal for
the night.
The staff with its curved top was useful in rescuing a fallen or lost sheep in a ravine or crevice. Also to separate the flock or individual sheep from the flock, the staff was a handy instrument. For guiding and pointing and even walking
the staff was useful particularly on uneven, rocky, or hilly ground.
Like a fireman with his fire-suit and helmet or a carpenter with his ruler and toolbox, a good shepherd was armed and equipped for his job.
The comfort came for David in knowing that the Lord God, His Heavenly Shepherd, had and used rod and staff-like means to protect and bless David.
When President Harry Truman in 1945 ordered the use of the atomic bomb,
dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, Japan to finally end World War II
and bring victory to the allies was that God using His rod to protect and keep
safe the people of democracy?
Or consider the fierce and destructive winds of the tornado or hurricane leaving
a path of destruction is that the rod of God at work giving the sheep a wake-up
call to turn from their own way to the Shepherd’s direction?
If such is only the destructive devices of men and nature, how then is God’s
corrective and refining work being done in you and me today? Let us not forget that Moses raised the rod and in the name and power of the Lord parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could escape the on rushing Egyptian army. And then with the same rod raised called forth for the waters to return to swallow up the enemy. So it was again when the Amalakites attacked
Israel and the battle went on all day. Moses on the hill raised the rod until his arms grew tired and the rod was lowered. Moses realized as long as the rod was raised the Israelites were winning but when lowered they were being defeated, so Aaron and Hur stood on either side of Moses and held up his
arms as they held the rod upward to the Lord and won the battle over their enemy. (Ex.14 and 17)
The rod of our divine shepherd is the terrible and awesome power of Almighty God which can take a people out of slavery and make them the most powerful force on earth as well as allow them to become scattered like the dust all over the land for their unfaithfulness.
Time and again David saw and experienced the rod of God in his personal life and for him that awesome power was a magnificent reservoir of comfort. For those who belong to the Kingdom of God and seek to bring glory to God the wrath of God has been born by our Savior Jesus Christ on the cross.
So may it be for us this morning who claim Jesus Christ as Lord- not fearing the wrath and judgment of God but taking comfort in knowing that God is not mocked and that the destruction that comes to nations and peoples continues
to spell out the absolute sovereignty of God over all His creation.
A true picture of God cannot be seen without the rod and likewise the staff.
It is the staff that guides, directs, makes steady, rescues, nudges us forward into the Kingdom. How often in battle David wanted His Lord’s guidance and protection; and how often in a cave or darkened wilderness- sometimes pretending to be mad to avoid capture, David sought the rescuing hand of God.
We know young David slew the great philistine giant Goliath with a stone flung
from a sling. Such courage and skill were not of David’s making but mounted
and directed by the Divine Shepherd he knew as the Lord God of Israel working in David.
Have you not felt the staff of God pointing you into this direction of worship instead of that direction of play or work; did you not sense His swift and almost unnoticed rescue of you from that awful blunder you nearly made? When you were so shaken and insecure did you not find yourself steadied and once again on
firmer ground as you stole away into the familiar scripture that has become
your life verse? What is it that keeps prodding you out of yourself and
giving you this need to pray, to worship, to be holy? Like that fellow Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night wanting to find out more about what
really counts in the future or that Samaritan woman by the well at Sychar
who was so pointed and turned around by the shepherd’s staff of Jesus’ power
that she was changed forever. And David you remember, danced so unrestrained and joyfully when they brought the ark of God back to the city of Jerusalem, not as his wife, Michael, thought to be a showoff, but because, he, David, felt such joy in his Shepherd’s care.
Is it any wonder he would write: your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
They go together the two of them: rod and staff- judgment and mercy; correction and care; tough and gentle; the cross and the empty tomb.
We are always trying to have the one without the other: love without discipline;
heaven without hell.
Without both rod and staff there is no divine comfort only the temporary relief of man’s devices. Like Esau foolishly giving up his birthright to satisfy his
immediate hunger pains for Jacob’s bowl of homemade stew, we trade away God’s comfort for some temporary worldly pleasure that our culture says
is Ok. Go gay if you please, have the abortion if you want, enjoy the pornography available to you,
and do not be bothered about the adultery around you and the fact that our
young people are living together unmarried.
Why then does this thing called God’s comfort seem so far removed, so unrealistic? We’d rather take a pill or a drink, call a friend or lose our self
in work. I ask you where, how, do you find comfort?
Behold the table of the Lord, behold the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your Savior and King. It is a reminder to us that there is a God of comfort – not to be
mocked or taken lightly, not to be dictated to according to our own whims and wishes. His nature is known to be like a shepherd’s rod and staff.
And for those who are called and chosen by Him and are found faithful; they like
David will say: thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
