Hey, Cobblestone,
I’m afraid of absolutes – the words known as absolutes, I
mean. My tongue is reluctant to form the syllables that make up words like
“always,” “never,” “forever,” and “shall.” They’re just too big. Words like
those write checks my strength can’t cash. Therefore, I am happiest to leave
the absolutes in God’s vocabulary.
Thankfully, God uses those words generously, without
flinching and without apology. Oh, not for his benefit – he has not a thing to
prove to anyone – but for ours. He even lets us borrow them, as long as we’re
talking about what he, not we, will certainly do. Thus is my “abso-phobia” put
at ease.
In our ninth and final meditation on the Twenty-Third Psalm,
we’re going to take the sixth and final verse, the closing sentence, as a
chunk, paying special attention to the absolutes within. The psalmist has been
making some monumental claims about the Shepherd King already, and saves the
biggest for last:
Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house
of the LORD forever
(Psalm 23:6).
Count the absolutes – one “surely,” a pair of “shall’s,” one
“all,” and the clincher: “forever.” That’s a lot of high-caliber words to show
up in so little space. How could one human be so presumptuous as to borrow so
heavily on accounts he doesn’t control? To answer, let’s consider briefly the
life of the psalmist, David, son of Jesse, who was the second king of Israel.
The timing of Psalm 23 is up for debate. Some scholars say it
was written in David’s early youth, others during his warrior phase, still
others say it was after he’d gained experience as king. For what it’s worth, I
favor the earlier-origin theory, in which the psalm would have been written
when David was a shepherd lad himself, walking with the sheep into green
pastures – and, of course, through the valley of the shadow of death. Not that
the later-origin theories have to be wrong, but if David wrote and sang this
song just as he launched out into the big-scary world, his use of so many
absolutes is even more presumptuous – and faith-filled.
As the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, there was nothing
but tending sheep in David’s foreseeable future. With all of David’s life in
our hindsight, we know that’s not how it turned out. Try to imagine, then, what
it must have been like to encounter his experiences in real time, and then
overlay the biblical record.
There were times he thought he had sinned beyond forgiveness,
but called to the Lord for mercy anyway. More than one once he faced
annihilation at the hands of an enemy, but called for deliverance. He lost an
infant son, but rose up to worship God. He lost an adult son who had led a
bloody insurrection, but returned to Jerusalem to carry on as king, according
to the Lord’s anointing. In all these troubles and more, David, in many ways
the archetypal child of God, certainly stumbled, was certainly bruised in
battle after battle – but never crushed. Why?
Because of the absolutes.
What does it mean for goodness and mercy to “follow” someone?
The details of your story and mine will be different from David’s, but as
children of God and joint heirs with Christ, the outcome is the same: to dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
From a mortal perspective, it’s an odd arrangement: goodness and mercy
following. We’d prefer them to be out front like a shield – or maybe a plow,
pushing troubles aside and clearing a level path. We’d prefer to be spared the
troubles altogether. The temptation is to think there’s been no goodness or
mercy involved, since the troubles weren’t prevented. But where do you find that in the human story, including the
story of God’s kids? Even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, had to ask if
there might possibly be an alternative to the cross.
The absolutes are proven by way of two measurements:
hindsight and hope. Pause and reflection are required to see where goodness and
mercy have done their work. We can’t live every moment of every day rushing
headlong into the driving rain.
Wait.
Breathe.
Give thanks.
And just before resuming the headlong rush, let’s remember
what our hope is. True: we ourselves, who
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our
bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is
not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do
not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:23-25).
Whether in the green pastures, on the battlefield, or to the
throne, the words God breathed out, and David breathed in, are immortal – living and active (Hebrews 4:12). One
very famous pastor has said that all the Psalms can be summed up in six words:
life is hard; God is good. As we close out this meditation on Psalm 23, feel
free – and I will, too – to presume upon the Shepherd King’s absolutes.
He’s good for them.
Grace and Peace (surely),
John
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