Shepherd King, Part 7: Rod and Staff

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     The one thing that puts the Twenty-Third Psalm almost out of reach, in my mind anyway, is the shepherd/sheep metaphor. You and I could drive all the backroads of our nearby counties and not find a lot of sheep-herders. I’ve driven hogs a time or two, and rounded up a couple of cows, but the concept of a whole segment of the population who spend 24/7’s with a flock of sheep has had no visual manifestation during my lifetime in this part God’s good Earth. I have to turn on my Old Testament brain to receive much of what Scripture says about our Shepherd King.

     Psalm 23 is roughly 3,000 years old. From what I gather, back in the day a shepherd had two tools: the rod and the staff. Good shepherds were set above the rest of the pack by their ability to wield both with efficiency and justice. To do that, the shepherd would first need to know what each tool was made for.

     Let’s look at the staff first. Unlike Little Bo Peep, a good shepherd is someone who has lost a sheep but knows doggone good and well where to find it. A good shepherd would use the staff – or shepherd’s hook, as it is sometimes known – to pull a wandering sheep out of the thicket, or the ravine, or the not-so-still waters. The staff is a tool for guidance and retrieval – or we could just as easily say it’s an instrument of discipline.

     The rod is a weapon. In a world before bazookas, the rod was a good tool for a shepherd to have. With enough skill and determination, a predator could be run off. Or killed. The rod is an instrument of punishment. The sheep should be glad if their shepherd knows how to use that rod.

     …your rod and your staff, they comfort me (Psalm 23:4).

     In this latest segment of our leisurely meditation on Psalm 23, we’re getting an idea of what the shepherd – or more precisely, our Shepherd King – has at his disposal. He has a tool for discipline and he has a tool for punishment. And he never gets them confused.

     But we do.

     The Father’s wrath is not for his kids. Jesus changed that all up: …but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God (Romans 5:8-9).  If you’re a saved person – a little brother or sister to Jesus – and you’re thinking the Father is punishing you, please let the work of your eldest brother give your thinking a tune-up. True enough, For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, as the writer to the Hebrews has said, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11). This is the Shepherd King using his staff, and using it well.

     When the wolf or the bear or the predator of any species makes an appearance, the Shepherd King is not shy with the rod. Skeptical? Check this out:

Arise, O Lord!
    Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
    you break the teeth of the wicked (Psalm 3:7).

    Toothless predators don’t prey much once they become toothless. And for your part (and mine) it’s OK to ask the Lord of Glory to do, in this walk-around world, what he’s going to accomplish in eternity anyway. May his kingdom come.

     The sheep/shepherd metaphor may stretch us a bit, at least for now. But there’s coming a time when faith will be sight, and metaphors will be completely redundant. Meanwhile, the Shepherd King wields a skillful staff and a mighty rod, for our comfort.

 Grace and Peace (under his careful gaze),

 

John

 

Shepherd King, Part 6: With Me

 Hey, Cobblestone,

     Anybody over about 60 will remember when these cutsie little figurines started showing up in stores. Made to look like they were hand-carved and finished in antique-y shades of tan, most of them carried a simple caption like “World’s Greatest Dad… or Mom… or Babysitter,” and so on. And then, as it goes with most things most clever, they got ornery. As if the others weren’t presumptuous enough, one of the blasted figurines stands out distinctly in memory. It was a caveman-ish dude carrying an oversized club, and the caption below read: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil… ‘cause I’m the meanest S.O.B. in the valley!”

     Nah. That’s not how it works.

     In our long and leisurely meditation on the Twenty-Third Psalm, this may seem to be an odd way to get back into it. If that’s what you’re thinking, I will humbly disagree, and attempt to make my point. In forty years as a Jesus-follower and twenty as a Christian counselor, I’ve come to see that believers understand well enough that we’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but we don’t understand so well why we get to fear no evil.

     Where are we exactly in Psalm 23? Let’s get a run at it and catch up…

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil… (Psalm 23:1-4a)

     And let’s pause – not too long – before considering the next few words of this psalm/prayer. I’ve yet to meet the Christian who claimed to be “the meanest S.O.B. in the valley” in so many words. But I’ve met many a Christian, including the one in the mirror, who walks through the valley as if. As if there were no one greater to help, or if there is, he might be off somewhere helping someone else. We tiptoe cartoonishly through the valley hoping no one meaner springs into the path.

     In all the universe and all of eternity, there is a singular reason why you and I – brothers and sisters together and joint heirs with Jesus the firstborn – get to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil:

…for you are with me… (embedded in verse 4).

     This phrase, the object of our meditation today, sits at the mid-point of Psalm 23. Of 108 words in the psalm, you are with me brings us to #53. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the psalmist realized he had used precisely enough words talking about God, and it was time to start talking to him. The psalm continues in this theme: the Shepherd King is with his flock, his people, always and everywhere.

     The valley is long and indeed shadowy. And as I heard lately, we’ve all got to go through just enough to kill us. According to 1Corinthians 15:26, The last enemy to be destroyed is death. We would have had death destroyed yesterday, if not before, but that’s not how this rolls. Wishful thinking and whistling in the dark will only take us so far, which is to say, not nearly far enough. Fearing no evil would be stupid – evil’s a thing, I’m sure you’ve noticed – if the Shepherd King weren’t with us.

     There’s a trick we play on ourselves, and if this letter to you accomplishes anything at all, Dear Church, my hope is that it begins to put an end to the self-deception. Like the popular singer, Jelly Roll, we stride up to the microphone, hit a few licks on the guitar, and belt out, “I only talk to God when I need a favor. I only pray when I don’t have a prayer. So who-the-hell-am-I, who-the-hell-am-I to expect a Savior?” It’s not a bad psalm if you ask me, mainly because it sets up the necessary question, When don’t I need God’s favor? When don’t you?

     Since the offer is let loose in creation and can never be rescinded, let’s take the Shepherd King up on his promise to be with us. For the sake of building up our most holy faith (Jude 20) and maintaining hope, let’s give a nod to the valley and its realness, and then take another step. “This hurts… you are with me.” “The way is dark… you are with me.” “The enemy is smarter than me… you are with me.”

     It might do each of us some good to take a quick inventory of times we’ve needed to be especially aware of the Lord’s closeness – and ask, Was I or Was I not… especially aware, that is? Better still to take this very moment, if you’re able to at all…

     (We interrupt this letter to bring you an important news flash…) No, really, Church, check this out. In the middle of writing this letter, the Lord brought a young brother to me I hadn’t met before. For my part, I was simply on the front porch (my favorite office) tapping away. For his part, this young brother had taken an entirely literal step of faith, out of his house and onto the sidewalk, hoping the step after that would make him aware of the Father’s presence. Knowing that my block is about 1,200 steps around, I’d say he took about 200 of those next steps before the Lord brought us together. Turns out we were after the same thing: a sign of the Father’s favor. And we got it. Maybe someday I’ll tell you the rest of his story. Better yet, maybe he will. For now, my fingers are trembling so that I can hardly type – Glory!

     There. I’ve testified. I’m done for now.

 Grace and Peace (all over you like it’s all over me),

John