Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
August 10, 2008
Copyright © 2008, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

I am a news junky. When I drive in my car, I alternate between my jazz and classical CDs and round-the-clock news on KNX, our local CBS affiliate.

One day as I was driving to Pasadena, Charles Osgood came on the air with the Osgood Report. He made this statement, which caught my attention. "There is a shortage of shepherds." He went on to state that, while in certain parts of the world, young boys are raised dreaming of the day when they'll have their own flock to tend, here in the United States, there's a shortage of shepherds. He described how difficult is the shepherd's work. It's a solitary, lonely job. It takes patience. It demands long hours of constant vigilance. It doesn't pay that well. But it's important work.

The Bible has many names for God. Various word pictures are painted to describe Him. He is referred to a King, Deliverer, Rock, Shield. There are more intimate metaphors. He is called Father, Friend and Lord.

Over the past year, word-of-mouth sales of William P. Young's The Shack have put it at the very top of The New York Times list of paperback trade fiction titles. With an initial three-hundred-dollar marketing budget, this book has caught the imagination of believers and nonbelievers alike, as it endeavors to address the metaphorical language of difficult theological topics, such as the nature of the Trinity and the problem of evil and unmerited suffering. It consists of conversations between a beaten down middle-aged adult male named Mack (-enzie) and three figures who represent the Trinity: a large African-American woman named Papa; a Jewish laborer named Jesus; and an ethereal Asian woman named Sarayu (Sanskrit for "wind"). I commend the book to you because, in a fictional way, Young has made profound insights into these tough, theological, left-brain topics. At the same time, I warn you that this is fiction; and, as my father always said, "Don't try to make your metaphors stand on all fours." Illustrations and word pictures give insight into the nature of God and how He functions. Pushed too far, they can produce confusion, contradiction and even heresy.

One of the most frequently used and intimate of all word pictures to describe God is the word Shepherd.

Is there any passage of Scripture more beloved than Psalm 23? It has been quoted at almost every memorial service I've attended or conducted. These simple words, written 3,000 years ago by David, the shepherd boy from Bethlehem who became king, have a way to touching your heart and mine.

Can't you picture him now tending his sheep on a Bethlehem hillside? It's been a long hard day. He was up before dawn. He has guided his flock along the rugged terrain they've been grazing. He's been on the look-out for wild animals and stray sheep. Finally, he comes to a familiar watering hole. There, by those calm still waters fed by an underground spring, the sheep drink and rest in the shade of some olive trees. Protected by the noonday sun, David leans back against the trunk of a tree, pulls out his little flute from his knapsack and begins to play. Then in the loneliness, which is the lifestyle of just about every shepherd anywhere, David begins to sing a song about his life. More than that, it's a song about the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--the God who would someday reveal himself as the Messiah Christ. In a clear voice of a deeply religious Jewish youth, he sings (NRSV Psalm 23:1-4):

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 right paths for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil; for you are with me;
your rod and your staff--they comfort me.

Then he changes his metaphor from that of shepherd. He begins to muse about the family at home. The shepherd's job is lonely. It takes him in the summer from the high elevations of the Judean hills surrounding his hometown of Bethlehem to wintertime wanderings down those same hills far away from home toward Jericho and the Dead Sea. He yearns for the family reunion. He sees his father at the head of the table. He pictures times in the homes of his friends, and he observes the presiding patriarch. He sings on (Psalm 23:5-6):

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Can you say the same? It's so simple and straightforward and, at the same time, it's so profound.

When we say it together in unison, as we do at the conclusion of every celebration of the Lord's Supper here at St. Andrew's, a great calm comes over us as a congregation. When I read it at memorial services, tears of gratitude, faith and hope trickle down the cheeks of many faces.

As I share it with you today , I cannot do it full justice. I'm simply going to lift out one picture, that of the shepherd, and share some insights, because I believe it will help you and me understand a bit better the nature of the God who loves us, who cares for us, whose name is Jesus Christ, who empowers us through the work of His Holy Spirit.

The insights I'm sharing I've received from the Scriptures, from various commentaries, my thirty-plus trips to the Middle East and from two books in particular. One is the familiar A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller, published in the early 1970s. The other is a more recent book by Timothy Laniak titled While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks: Reflections on Biblical Leadership. Dr. Laniak, a professor at the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has spent a portion of his life researching shepherds up close and personal and recently spent a significant part of a sabbatical actually living with shepherds of the West Bank and Jordan.

The picture of the shepherd boy David remains a contemporary picture. Travel the hillsides of Judea and Samaria, and you'll see the shepherds, solitary figures, leading their sheep and goats. What is remote to our experience here in the United States has been a constant in Middle Eastern life. That's why Jesus felt so at home in talking about shepherds and sheep, as recorded in John 10. That's why so many analogies are made all through the Scriptures to sheep and shepherds. Jesus knew himself to be the Good Shepherd, even as years before, David attributed that quality to his Lord.

Yes, the Lord is a Good Shepherd. There are bad shepherds. Occasionally you'll find one who doesn't really care for his sheep. He may be addicted to opium. He may be sloppy in his methods. Most often, that person is just a hireling, someone who's employed to take care of the sheep of someone else. He doesn't really care about them, as long as he gets his daily wage. The Lord is a Good Shepherd. Jesus says the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The good shepherd is a guide. The good shepherd is a physician. The good shepherd is a protector.

Yes, you and I are sheep. That picture of ourselves probably becomes somewhat more romantic the farther we are away from sheep. Granted, little lambs are cuddly and vivaciously playful. However, what has such positive connotations in one sense has some unpleasant implications. Sheep have a mass mind. There's a certain mob instinct. They tend to be fearful. Sheep are timid. Sheep are stubborn. Sheep at times are stupid.

David put a mirror to himself. Years later, in all of his sophistication as king, he could look back on all these attributes in himself and could see them in others. Jesus, a thousand years later, could express His love in the heartbeat of a shepherd. He realized that we, His people, have some of those same characteristics, which get us into a lot of trouble. What did He do? He said, "I'll take care of you, just as does a good shepherd."

Let's look at some of the phrases sung by David, so appropriate today. Listen to these words. Apply them to yourself. Attribute them to your Lord.

"THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD."

Yes, He is! Do you know Him as this? If you do, you recognize His voice. You know the authenticity of His Word when you read it, when you hear it, when you encounter it.

Persons familiar with sheep describe how various flocks may be sheltering in a common fold. When a particular shepherd comes to the gate and calls, a shivering can be seen here and there among the sheep. Little groups--two, three, four, five--turn toward the gate and edge their way through the other herds toward the shepherd's call. None of the other sheep move. Their shepherd has not spoken.

Jesus referred to himself as the Shepherd. He declared that the stranger will not follow, but His sheep follow Him. They know His voice. They are His.

Can you refer to Him as "my Shepherd?" Do you bear His identifiable mark on your life? Often the sheep are taken, and the ear is placed on a cutting block. A sharp knife is used to make a distinguishing mark. It declares ownership. Do you bear some sign that Jesus is your Shepherd? Can you declare, "I am His, and He is mine? I'll follow Him. I'll not be stampeded in a crowd after a false shepherd."

". . . I SHALL NOT WANT."

I'm not certain I can really say that. That means that God provides. Do I really believe this?

Job wondered. There were times when the wicked prospered. He couldn't figure out the fairness of that. It's frustrating, isn't it? Here we are, God's people. We love Him. We trust Him. But somehow we don't get what we feel we need. We or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer. We or a loved one loses a job and/or faces foreclosure on a home mortgage. We or a loved one faces a marriage shattered by unfaithfulness. We want to say, "I shall not want." We dream of being able to say that, but can we honestly make that declaration?

The Interpreter's Bible refers to a sermon preached by a preacher by the name of Joseph Parker. It was in the heyday of social Darwinism, where many were declaring us human beings to simply be homo sapiens, simply a soulless higher manifestation of animal evolution. Parker had seen an advertisement of a pamphlet titled "Has Man a Soul?" He announced that he would be preaching on that topic. As he stepped into his pulpit, he proceeded to answer the question for himself. He declared, "I have no soul!" Again, he cried out, "I have no soul!" His congregation was startled. Has our pastor lost his faith? Then, using all of the emphasis of his magnificent voice, he declared, "I am a soul, and I have a body."

Isn't that the truth? When you see yourself as a soul, immortal, unlimited to this physical existence here on earth, you can much more easily declare, "I shall not want." There will be times in which this body that we have will flourish. There will be times of plenty. There will be times of want. We'll not be so quick to declare our prosperity or lack of it in physical terms. We will learn to declare with the Apostle Paul that we know how to abound and how to suffer loss. The more convinced we are that we are souls shaped in the very image of God, who will live in this life and beyond this life, we will be better prepared to declare, "I have learned that in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." It's amazing what you and I can go without physically and still be rich when we come to grips with spiritual realities. It's amazing how sated we can be physically with everything life offers materially and be dissatisfied and impoverished in the process when we've neglected matters of the Spirit.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died just a few days ago, wrote so eloquently about this as he observed the toll that Marxist, godless, dialectical materialism had taken on Russian life. Then he continued to make similar observations about the toll modern western secularism took on the human spirit.

Those who trust the Lord do not want. A relationship with Jesus Christ, the Shepherd, takes us through the suffering and the poverty. He makes provision for us in this life and the next. That's what I like so much about the novel The Shack. William Young opens our eyes to dimensions of divine care of which it is easy for us to lose sight.

"HE MAKES ME LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES."

Sheep lie down only when they are free of fear, flies, parasites and hunger. Troubled sheep, restlessly stir, anxiously moving around. It takes the work of a good shepherd to provide a restful setting.

Most of the year, the hills of Judea are dry. Hot sun bakes brown the shrubbery brought to green life by December and January rains.

Each time I go to the Middle East, I'm startled by the arid nature of the land. Once again, this past May, 150 of us rode by bus just twenty minutes down the Jericho Road from Jerusalem, where we stopped and I gave a meditation on Psalm 23. From our vantage point, seated in a small amphitheater covered by a sun shade, we could see miles of bone-dry hills and valleys. Far down one wadi, we could see a small oasis, a small spring and a few green trees.

David dreamed of green pastures. That color is the most restful of all. There were those few weeks out of the year that he could provide carte blanche such an environment for his sheep. And there were those months upon months that he had to seek out the little oasis, that trickling brook, that tiny piece of land irrigated by some spring where his sheep could eat and rest freely.

". . . HE LEADS ME BESIDE STILL WATERS. . . ."

I'm told that the body of a sheep is seventy percent water. Sheep need water. Sheep need still waters, fresh waters. During the winter rains, there are waters that rush down hillsides in such torrents that the safety of the sheep is jeopardized. They can be washed away in flash floods.

Jesus calls us His sheep, blessed and happy who "hunger and thirst after righteousness." We pursue every other substitute for His still waters. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah addressed the issue with such clarity that he quoted God, ". . . for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (Jeremiah 2:13).

Water is essential to life. We have observed persons who have declared fasts to their very death. They've lived five, six, seven, eight weeks without any food, as long as they have had plenty of water. Jesus told the woman at the well He could give her a water to drink that was a living water. His was a provision that would spring up into eternal life. In all our talk of water scarcity here in Southern California, we have no idea of what it is to live in Israel or Jordan. The major supply there is the Sea of Galilee, a few streams that tend to dry up in the summer and some underground wells. In the ancient times, aqueducts would channel the water into cisterns. The roofs of houses were shaped so that water could be caught in the rainy seasons and channeled into cisterns and saved. There are the great, carved out, huge underground cisterns at Masada.

Knowing the importance of water, the Good Shepherd meets our needs. We can neglect the fountain of His living waters. We can allow the cisterns to fall into disrepair. Or we can treat as precious His provision and drink deeply of His Word and bathe freely in the living waters of His Spirit.

". . . HE RESTORES MY SOUL."

This is one of the most fascinating references in this entire Psalm. Some Bible commentators say that this refers to conversion in which the shepherd finds the stray sheep and brings it back into the spiritual fold. Others say that it refers to the physical and psychological needs of our lives in which the Good Shepherd replenishes us. I believe that we could find many passages of Scripture to support both of these approaches. His restoration is spiritual, and it is physical/psychological.

The exciting aspect of this to me comes through my study about sheep. Have you ever heard of the expression "a cast sheep?" There is something within the equilibrium of a sheep that renders it helpless under certain circumstances. There is a potential shift of gravity that, when a sheep is laying down or falls down, if it shifts too far, it literally tips over, its feet going up, and there is no way that sheep can right itself.

How does a sheep become "cast?" There are at least three circumstances. One is when it finds too soft a place and settles too comfortably into a rested position and literally tips over. We could make many a human parallel to how vulnerable we are when our lives become soft and too easy. Two is when the sheep becomes bogged down by mud, manure, debris and its own wool. On one trip I led, we stopped along the roadside between Hebron and Bethlehem. We saw some shepherds gathered together with their flocks, several hundreds of sheep. There on a large rock, by a spring, they were washing their sheep, preparing them for sheering. Our guide, a Christian Arab from Bethlehem, asked their permission for us to come down and spend some time with them. We gathered around and watched the process. It was amazing how dirty the fleece had become. These sheep certainly did need a good cleaning. You could see how top-heavy they were. Again, we could make many a spiritual analogy--the mud; manure; debris; and the very top-heaviness of our lives. Three, the sheep can become too fat. We are highly vulnerable to falling into a cast-down position, aren't we?

In another one of the Psalms, the psalmist cries out, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God" (Psalm 42:11).

Do you catch the reference? Do you ever feel cast down? Do you ever feel as if you've lost your equilibrium? Are your feet still straight up in the air? Is life out of balance? The Apostle Paul urges us to stop and think about these matters. Every time some public official is exposed for their unfaithfulness, hypocrisy and dishonesty and we look down upon them with a Pharisaical attitude, we're reminded that we should take heed, lest we who think we stand will also fall.

The Psalmist reminds us that the Good Shepherd restores us to an upright position. He understands us. He knows what is best for us. What we cannot do for ourselves, He promises to do for us in a spiritual and in a physical/psychological way.

"HE LEADS ME IN RIGHT PATHS FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE."

You need a guide. I need a guide. Sheep left alone can ruin the land. They can chew it down to the very roots, and then erosion comes. A good shepherd keeps the sheep moving. He has a sense of ecology. He understands that there's a need to be a steward in the grazing process. There will be other sheep on another day that will need the same land, so we better protect it. In a desert climate, one dare not expect too much from the land. There's a right way, and there's a wrong way. And there will be times when the right path may be the dangerous path. Often, it will be the difficult path. The Good Shepherd is the leader. He's dependable. He will never take His sheep where they should not go. What explosive implications there are here for us, Christ's sheep. You can fill them in, allowing this affirmation to be applied in specifics to where you are in your life at this moment.

"EVEN THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE DARKEST VALLEY, I FEAR NO EVIL; FOR YOU ARE WITH ME."

How many times have you heard this referred to as death. It applies to death. After all, death is one of the darkest valleys of all, isn't it? However, it also means that there are dark valleys, ravines through which He will lead us in this life. His presence overcomes the worst thing, and that's fear, whether it be the fear of living or the fear of dying. The crucified Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd who has laid down His life for the sheep. He stands prepared to guide us through the most perilous of circumstances.

This affirmation has been driven home to me on all of my visits to the Holy Land. There are those places we stop along the Jericho Road where we do look down into valleys that are treacherous from our observation point. One could trip over the edge of a cliff into the deep ravine below. These treacherous wadies are referred to as "the Valley of the Shadow of Death." Shepherds know their dangers. Historically, robbers have hidden behind rocks and waylaid travelers. Beasts of prey have attacked flocks of sheep and goats. Even in the summertime with long days, by 3:00 in the afternoon, some of these valleys already become shadowed. I've seen shepherds hundreds of yards below guiding their sheep. Those sheep left unattended would be endangered. But guided by the expert, they had nothing to fear.

". . .YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF--THEY COMFORT ME."

Back in May of 1981, I was leading a group from St. Andrew's through Egypt, Israel and Greece. It so happened that the day of my birthday, May 24, we traveled from Jerusalem down the Jericho Road to Masada, Qumran, the Dead Sea and Jericho. As we made our way back up to Jerusalem, our guide, Elias, arranged for us to stop at a Crusader-era ruins referred to as the "Good Samaritan's Inn." There, tour members, some of whom are present in the sanctuary now, presented me with a birthday present. They gave me a goat, purchased that morning in the sheep market in Jerusalem. That little goat had spent all day in the luggage hold of the bus, taken out, fed and exercised by the driver when we were visiting the historic sites. Not only did they get me a goat, they sort of got my goat. I didn't know what to do with the little fellow. Along with him came an authentic shepherd's rod and an authentic shepherd's staff. I never realized before that Psalm 23 distinguishes between the two. I have here in the pulpit this morning both the rod and the staff. Elias purchased them from a Bethlehem shepherd, and I've cherished them ever since. The goat became the property of our guide and bus driver who, upon receiving it, announced to me that, sometime in the next year, it would be part of a shish kebab feast in Bethlehem.

Look at this rod. It is the symbol of authority. It's a cudgel, worn at the belt. It is a weapon used for defensive purposes. It becomes an extension of the shepherd's arm. It can be used to knock out an invader. It can discipline a sheep or a goat that keeps straying from the flock. It can be thrown with its weighted end, delivering a crushing blow to the skull of a wild animal or a robber.

Look at this staff. It's a symbol of comfort, of guidance. It's an implement of control. The shepherd leans on it, walks with it, rounds up his sheep with it. With it, he guides the flock, he separates and nudges the trapped animal from the rocky crevice.

God's equipment is sufficient for our every need. The Good Shepherd has all the instruments of authority, of protection, of discipline, of comfort that you need.

At this point, the psalm shifts its emphasis. The metaphor of shepherd changes to that of host. Yet there are other parallels that can be taken from the rest of the psalm. Often the sheep's noses become dry, harsh, cracked, as flies gather around and bite. They try to relieve the itching by rubbing their noses against rocks, only to create a more festering situation. The shepherd takes the oil and anoints part of the nasal membranes, bringing soothing relief.

Then, they finally come to the sheepfold, a rock-fenced circle of safety. The shepherd sleeps across the doorway, and the sheep have the protection of the shepherd's home.

So David concludes his Psalm with these words of family reunion, security, comfort and the provision of needs:

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

To Charles Osgood, there may be a shepherd shortage here in the United States.

But to those of us who acknowledge our need and put our trust in Jesus Christ alone, there is no shortage of shepherds, for ours is the Shepherd Lord!