The Shepherd

People all over our county of Wiltshire are used to singing Psalm 23 at both weddings and funerals. ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd’ is a familiar and comforting phrase, and the old tune has a simple beauty as well as a large dollop of nostalgia. As marriages begin we prophecy ‘pastures green’ on the good days and ‘thou art with me’ for the tough times. And at funerals we declare with poignant faith that ‘in God’s house for evermore my dwelling place shall be.’

But why would any of us sing this 3000 year old Jewish song, a shepherd longing for the safety of the Jerusalem temple, as if it’s our own? Frankly, I don’t particularly want to lie down in a green pasture, unless we have the glorious long hot summer some of us are optimistically predicting. And perhaps we should fear the worst when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death; it doesn’t sound a particularly hopeful place to travel through. However, the shepherd king, David, that wrote or inspired this song, had a simple testimony that continues to resonate with the faith of the church and our knowledge of God: in death’s shadow God is with me, God brings back my life (a closer translation of ‘restores my soul’), all my days I will dwell with God in his temple. The Christian themes of crucifixion, resurrection and ascension are just below the surface; the Cross, the Tomb and the Throne.

Holy Week is difficult because in it God makes us lie down in profoundly challenging human pastures: the short-lived exuberance of Palm Sunday, the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the denial of Peter, the sleeping sorrow of the disciples, the malevolence of the religious leaders, the lottery for Christ’s clothes and the inhuman execution of Christ. None of this makes us particularly proud of our humanity; in their worst we see our worst. In Adam we all die. But Holy Week ends. Easter Day brings humanity back to the temple, back to God’s house forevermore. In Christ we all are made alive.

As we sing our songs of resurrection this Easter, may the Spirit of God impart to you a hope based squarely on this, and this alone: He is risen. May you look at each area of disappointment or sin or sickness or sorrow or brokenness in your life and say three words: He is risen. And may the life of Christ surge through death’s valley and bring us to His temple.