Yahweh is My Shepherd

 Part One:   Yahweh is my Shepherd.  

Israel had a long history associated with shepherds. The patriarchs were shepherds. Moses, the leader of Israel, was a shepherd. David, the king of Israel, was a shepherd.

In the last couple of years, the idea of being “sheep” has been used sometimes in a derogatory way, as a sign of weakness or naivete. But Israel was delighted to say, “Yahweh is my Shepherd” (Psalm 23:1) and, “We are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care” (Psalm 95:7). It was not a problem to be sheep, if you knew the right Shepherd to follow. Because this meant that Yahweh, I AM WHO I AM, the Eternal God, the Maker and Ruler of all things, had his eye on Israel, and they could look back on their history with Yahweh and affirm that He had taken personal responsibility for their welfare.

In Psalm 23, we see Israel’s corporate profession become deeply personal. “The LORD is my Shepherd.” In John 1:11, Jesus makes this even more personal. 11 “I [Jesus] am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus is Yahweh, the Shepherd, in the flesh. Even more than Israel was able to, we can personalize this psalm as an expression of the relationship we share with our Shepherd, Jesus.  

Dr. Craig Broyles, professor of OT at TWU, argues that Psalm 23 describes the worshipper’s pilgrimage and eventual arrival in the presence of God in the temple. It expresses gratitude for the ways that Yahweh – for us, Jesus himself – acts as a Shepherd through our pilgrimage, and as a Host in his house.  

PILGRIMAGE

Yahweh is my Shepherd. I have everything I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honour to his name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.  

A pilgrim has left home, by choice or by circumstance, and is finding his or her way to somewhere else. In religious tradition, pilgrimage is often associated with the journey to a site of spiritual significance, though people can make non-religious pilgrimages to sites of historical, artistic, or natural significance. We go to these places because we feel like we are drawing near to the possibility of wonder and holiness for ourselves.   Whether you’ve travelled literally in this way or not, we all know we are on a journey, that we aren’t completely settled. Whether we’ve picked up and moved our family from one city or one church to another, had our intellectual world shaken up by a new education, taken on a new, stretching responsibility, or something else, life, with all its twists and turns, is a form of pilgrimage. We are “in transit,” not home yet.  

What has been your pilgrimage in the last season, as a follower of Jesus… as a leader? How would you summarize it in a phrase, sentence, or metaphor?  

The LORD – Creator and Saviour – is your Shepherd. Our Shepherd. Under the nurturing leadership of your Good Shepherd, I have everything I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.  

If there’s one thing that makes us driven (and worn-out) people, it’s a sense of scarcity, inadequacy, of not having enough, being enough, or doing enough. If you feel driven in this way, you should take a look to see what kind of shepherd you are following. Sheep who have a Good Shepherd don’t need to be driven. The picture here is of sheep so well provided for that they don’t even need to eat the good healthy grass that surrounds them. The water of life is easily accessible; no sheep is going to be swept away in the river. They aren’t in a rush to get to the next place; they are content to rest where the shepherd has led them so far.  

Paul writes, “God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Later he shares more from his own experience, when God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). An accurate paraphrase of this would be, “My supernatural resources are fully capable of standing guard over you in the face of difficulty, for my power has space to show its fullness in all the places where you are weak.”  

The psalm continues: He guides me along right paths, bringing honour to his name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.  

Not every pilgrimage has a map we can readily refer to. Even when there are commonalities, each person’s story and journey is a little bit different than another’s. Our lives are sort of like the Camino de Santiago, which “is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried” (Wikipedia). People are all going to the same place, but you can get there from many different starting points, each of them taking a different amount of time, because of difficulty, length, and each traveller’s ability.  

The same is true for each of us. We are all aiming for the same destination. We want to find ourselves at the heart of the kingdom of God, the place where Jesus’ reign is fully manifested. We want to experience the transformation of our heart, mind and will into the image of Christ. We want to be living out the calling that Jesus has for us, to walk the way of a “saint.” And yet we all start from different places. The “sheep-author” of this psalm is not comparing his progress to what others have done or are doing. He’s not living out a script someone else has determined for him. His attention is focused on the Shepherd alone. You guide me. Your name is what matters. You are close beside me. You protect and comfort me.  

Why does this matter? Because life is not lived by a static script. We aren’t components in a factory, waiting to be assembled in some uniform way. We are individuals being formed in our own unique way, being led on our own unique journey, facing our own unique challenges, internal and external. That’s why we don’t need a factory operator, we need a Shepherd. The Shepherd knows the terrain, pays attention to the places where the sun shines more warmly, where the grass grows more green, where the threats are more present. The Shepherd knows what a healthy sheep looks like and needs, and can see when a sheep isn’t doing well and needs extra care, needs the pace slowed down, needs a course correction.  

As you think about your pilgrimage in the last season, I hope you can identify some ways in which you’ve experienced the Shepherd’s guiding hand. Perhaps you have a need for guidance you need to bring to him in prayer today. On our pilgrimage, we have a Shepherd who provides and guides.

Take some time today to give thanks for the ways you’ve experienced his shepherding care. If you are waiting on his provision for your needs or on his guidance, bring those requests to him. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). 

Part Two