Week 2: The Shepherd who guides and guards his people

GLIMPSES OF GOD – Hope for today’s world

The Lord is my Shepherd is probably the best known of all the psalms. But modern town-dwellers often have an idyllic picture of sheep and shepherds. So to appreciate Psalm 23 fully, we need to consider the role of the shepherd in Bible times.

Sheep-farming in ancient Israel was dangerous and demanding. Sheep were in constant peril -- from wild animals (wolves, and even lions), hilly pathways, dangerous precipices, and even from rustlers looking for a quick return in the local meat market. Add to that the sparse nature of the grass for much of the year and the limited availability of drinking water, and we begin to understand how crucial the shepherd was. Why, said Jesus, the shepherd even ‘lays down his life for the sheep’ (John 10:11). The divine Shepherd cares deeply and is utterly committed to his role. If God is our shepherd, then he is a totally dedicated one.

However, you may not like thinking of yourself as a ‘sheep’. Sheep are, in popular thought, docile, placid, stupid even. Incapable of making up their own minds, they simply go where they are led, eat what they are fed, and seem helpless when left to fend for themselves. That’s not the kind of image we like to have of ourselves! But you have to say one thing for sheep, they’re great followers. They don’t argue, but simply trust their leader -- and that is as good a definition of faith as you will get. The valley of the shadow One vivid scene in Psalm 23 makes the point very well: ‘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’ (AV). Stark but beautiful words. The shepherd leads the sheep out of the sunshine into the cold, dank darkness of a ravine. They’re not keen to go, but they obediently follow, and eventually he leads them safely out at the other end back into the sunshine.

His ‘rod’ pushes the reluctant ones forward; his ‘staff’ with its hooked end rescues any who get into trouble.

No wonder this verse has meant so much to so many down the centuries - as it did to me, when I faced the loss of my wife. There is no valley darker than that of bereavement; no shadow greater than that cast by the loss of a loved one. It’s a universal experience. Few people reach middle age without experiencing this - the darkest valley we are called to walk through. It’s not surprising that the very thought of it fills us with dread. Like the sheep, we prefer the sunshine.

It’s interesting that neither here, nor anywhere else, does the Bible even hint that we can avoid that dark valley. There is no convenient bypass, no alternative route. Even the divine Shepherd can’t find a way for his flock to avoid it. What he does, however, is promise that he will be with them in this bleak experience. ‘Thou art with me.’ What a reassurance! The presence of God Of course, this whole idea of the ‘presence of God’ is an elusive one. How and when do we experience it? Some people talk confidently about God being ‘with’ them, but for many of us the idea seems rather remote from the struggles and events of daily life.

In Some Other Rainbow, journalist John McCarthy wrote about his years as a hostage in a dark, shuttered room in Beirut. John describes himself as ‘not