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APRIL 20 , 2008
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psalm 23:1
Today we will begin a sermon series on the 23rd Psalm. Each week we will concentrate on one of the six verses of this timeless Psalm.
Some years ago, a great actor attended a rather exclusive party. He was known for his eloquence of speech, and, not surprisingly, was asked to read for the pleasure of the fellow–guests. He consented and asked if there was anything they especially wanted to hear. After a brief pause an old pastor asked him to read the 23rd Psalm. “I will,” he replied, “on one condition, that after I have recited it, you do the same.” “Why,” said the pastor, “I'm not gifted in speech, but if you desire, I shall do so.”
Impressively, the actor began the Psalm. His voice and intonation were perfect. He held his audience spellbound, and, as he finished, a great burst of applause broke from the guests. But now it was time for the pastor to read. His voice quivered; his tone was quite unimpressive; but, when he finished there was not a dry eye in the room. The actor rose and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I reached your eyes and your ears; but he has reached your hearts. The difference is this: I know the Psalm, but he knows the Good Shepherd!”1
Well, we may not be able to draw tears when we recite this Psalm, but we do know the Good Shepherd. That is to say, we have a faith relationship—and therefore a saving relationship—with the Lord Jesus Christ. We, therefore, know him. He first worked saving faith in our hearts in Holy Baptism. Our baptism is not a one–and–done deal. We may forget our baptism, but God doesn’t! He remembers it constantly. And he continually charges Christ’s righteousness to our accounts.2
On a personal note, when I was waiting in the pre–op room for my recent back surgery, a pastor–friend stopped by to have a brief devotion. He read the 23rd Psalm. He also read the words of 1 Peter 5:7: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Usually, it is I who read these passages to the patient. But now, the tables were turned and God was calling me to trust in the goodness and mercy of my Shepherd–LORD and to cast all my anxieties on him. I did. “Here, Lord, I prayed, “take these burdens from me. From that time on until “lights out” in the operating room, I kept repeating the words of 1 Peter and of David in Psalm 23. Yes, I was in good hands with the Good Shepherd.
But now let us turn our attention to the Psalm itself. Psalm 23 is probably the most loved of all the psalms. And well it should be, for the image of a shepherd caring for his sheep is so very tender and comforting. Sheep are virtually helpless creatures and they need and depend on their loving, caring shepherd for life, health, and safety.
But who is this Shepherd? King David, the human author of this Psalm, tells us that this Shepherd is the LORD, that is Yahweh himself.3 This is a most powerful thought. Think of the works of the LORD. He spoke all creation into existence by the power of his omnipotent Word. The LORD God said, “Let there be light!”4 And, behold, light came into being at his command.
This LORD watched over the Israelites as they became a great nation in Egypt.5 This LORD enabled the Israelites to pass through the Red Sea on dry land while causing pharaoh’s pursuing charioteers to be engulfed in its returning waters. This LORD miraculously provided food each day for his people in the form of manna and sometimes quail.6 This LORD gave drink to his desert–plodding people with a crystal stream of water flowing from a rock.7
So, then, this Shepherd–LORD is omnipotent, omniscient, holy, and eternal. But this great God wishes to be known as a shepherd. Imagine that! The LORD of the universe wants to be the caretaker of sheep. To be a shepherd is not a high and mighty calling as if one were called to be a prince, a king, or even a supervisor. A shepherd does not supervise men; he supervises sheep.
Sheep: Someone once said that when God called his people sheep, he was not giving them any compliments. Yes, sheep are not known for their intelligence but for their denseness. But the point of comparison between shepherd and sheep is not about intelligence, but about relationship.
Let’s think about this relationship between shepherd and sheep. To survive, sheep must depend entirely on their shepherd to protect them from prey and to lead them to good pasture. Likewise, we Christians depend entirely on the Good Shepherd to feed us with his Word and Sacrament and to take us to the good pasture of heaven by laying down his life for his sheep. Thus, to confess with King David and say, “The LORD is my Shepherd” implies a most profound relationship between a human being and his Maker, i.e., between the Creator and his created. It links the dust from which Adam came to the kingdom of heaven. It means a mere mortal becomes the object of divine vigilance, love, and grace! Yes, the LORD wants us to be with him forever.
King David was, by his first calling, a shepherd.8 But in this Psalm, he speaks as a sheep of the LORD. “The LORD is my Shepherd,” he says. And David derives great comfort in knowing that his life and times are in the Good Shepherd’s hands. He knew that a sheep can neither feed or govern itself. It cannot protect itself from predators or dangers. It is timid and shy and likely to stray from its flock and its shepherd. And once lost, it cannot find its way back. Though it may find other shepherds and sheep, that does not help it, for it will not heed the voice of an unknown shepherd. It continues to stray hither and yon until it is seized by a wolf or falls into a ravine, only to die by injury or exposure.9
However, to quote loosely from Martin Luther, sheep do have a noble trait. He says,
However weak and small a sheep may be, it nevertheless has this trait about it: it is very careful to stay near its shepherd. And if it can only so much as be near him, it worries about nothing, fears no one, and is happy and secure. It also hears and knows its shepherd’s voice, is guided by it, and does not let itself be turned away from it. Moreover, it pays no attention at all to the voices of strange shepherds. Though they may tempt and lure it in the most friendly manner, it does not heed them, much less does it follow them.10
But, by nature, we human beings want nothing to do with the Good Shepherd. We don’t want to hear his voice. Because we are spiritually blind11 and dead in our trespasses and sins,12 we would rather use our own muscles to climb to the kingdom.
But this will never do. If we wish to be saved we must become weak. We must become as weak as sheep. As little as a natural sheep can help itself but must trust in its shepherd for all its benefits, just so little can a man direct himself in the things that pertain to his salvation. Indeed, he must trust in the Good Shepherd for all good things. And Jesus, the Good Shepherd is a thousand times more willing and ready to do everything that is to be done for his sheep than is any faithful human shepherd.
What will the Shepherd not do for his beloved sheep? As a shepherd, David killed a lion and a bear to save his flock.13 He made sure his sheep had plenty to eat and fresh water to drink. Times without number, he sought out the strays, found them, and returned them to the flock.
And what will the Good Shepherd not do for his own sheep. Behold, he comes to seek and save the lost.14 He gives them his faith engendering, and faith sustaining, Word, saying, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger; he who believes in me will never thirst.”15 Here, of course, he is not speaking of bodily eating and drinking, but of spiritual eating and drinking. But know this: He is not only the Good Shepherd, he is also “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”16 See him bow his head in death after he has paid the penalty and curse of sin for us.
As we have noted, a sheep will hearken only to the voice of its shepherd. This was confirmed some time ago when a Westerner was traveling in Syria. He stopped to watch three shepherds who were watering their flocks. The three flocks were all mingled together at the watering place. The traveler could see no difference between them, and he wondered how the sheep would get back into their original flocks. But then one of the shepherds stood up and called out, “Menah,” meaning “Follow me,” and, sure enough, thirty sheep immediately separated themselves from the indiscriminate mass and began to follow the shepherd up the hill. Then, a second shepherd cried out, “Menah,” and his flock began to follow him. The remaining sheep acted as if no one had spoken at all.
The traveler was astonished. When he saw the third shepherd preparing to depart, he stepped up to him and asked, “Would your sheep follow me if I called them?” The herdsman shook his head. “Let me try,” said the traveler. He put on the shepherd’s clothing. Standing before the flock, he began to cry out, “Menah! Menah!” but none of the sheep stirred. They only blinked at him lazily in the sunshine. “Will the sheep ever follow someone other than you?” asked the traveler. “Oh yes,” the shepherd replied, “sometimes a sheep gets sick, and then it will follow anyone.”17
My friends, the world is filled with people who are sin–sick unto death. They hearken to the voice of any shepherd who happens to appeal to them. Their eternity will not be pretty. But not us. We will listen only to the voice of the Good Shepherd. To some unbelieving Jews, Jesus said, “You do not believe because you are not of my sheep.”18 But to believers, he said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish.”19
Beloved, sheep can’t make it without a shepherd. Thank God that the LORD is our Shepherd. We shall not want because he promises to supply all of our needs, especially our greatest need, namely, to live forever . . . and with him! In the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd,
Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Endnotes
1 Attributed to Zig Ziglar.
2 See Galatians 3:27 and 1 Peter 3:21.
3 It is important to note that the Shepherd is the great “I am,” i.e., YHWH, the name by which God wants to be known. By calling himself “I am,” God reveals that he is eternal. He knows no beginning or end.
4 See Genesis 1:3.
5 There were 82 Israelites at the beginning of the Egyptian bondage. At the time of the Exodus some 430 years later, the Israelite population reached two million people. See Leon Wood, A Survey of Israel’s History, Revised Edition, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), p. 67.
6 See Exodus 16:13 and Numbers 11:31-32.
7 See Exodus 17:6.
8 See 1 Samuel 17:20 in its context, all of 1 Sam. 17 (the account of David and Goliath.
9 Luther describes the nature of sheep especially well. See Luther’s Works 12:151-152.
10 See Luther’s Works, 12:152-153. Luther translator writes, “Still, however weak and small an animal a sheep may be, it nevertheless has this trait about it: it is very careful to stay near its shepherd, take comfort in his help and protection, and follow him however and wherever he may lead it. And if it can only so much as be near him, it worries about nothing, fears no one, and is secure and happy; for it lacks absolutely nothing. It also has this virtue—and this is to be marked well, because Christ praises it especially in His sheep (John 10:4)—that it very carefully and surely hears and knows its shepherd’s voice, is guided by it, does not let itself be turned away from it, but follows it without swerving. On the other hand, it pays no attention at all to the voices of strange shepherds. Though they may tempt and lure it in the most friendly manner, it does not heed them, much less does it follow them.” (12:153).
12 See Ephesians 2:1.
13 In 1 Samuel 17:34-36, David said to King Saul, “When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.” (NASB).
14 In Luke 19:10, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” (ESV).
15 See John 6:35.
16 See John 1:29.
17 Adapted from Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations, (Chicago: R.R. Donnelley and Sons, 1990), p. 537.
18 See John 10:26.
19 See John 10:27-28.
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