Title: God is Our Shepherd
Contents
As I begin my sermon this time, I first ask you a religious question. Why do you need God? I would appreciate it if you could try to answer this question yourself and listen to what I have to say. Today's text, Psalm 23, is a psalm that is loved more by Christians than by Jews. This psalm provides a practical answer to the question of why man needs God. This psalm is a theological concept and does not say who God is, but rather the God whom the poet himself met in his life experience.
The Bible is a realism that does not speak of idealism, but accepts reality as it is. This psalm also speaks of the necessity of God based on such realism. In this poem, the poet encounters God very closely in the experience of his dark life. In doing so, God becomes a noble being to be served close to him forever.
The dark experiences of life that the poet experiences are such as lack of life, the valley of death, human imperfection, and sin. Those experiences come through the hardships of his life with water. In a time like these days, when God's image is blurring and we are skeptical about the necessity of His existence, we can meet God who is very specifically involved in our lives through this poem. In our reality, meeting God as a concrete person is more than acquiring a treasure that money cannot buy in the world.
First, in the dark experience of the lack of existence, the poet meets God as the One who fills the lack. The poet David actually experienced many life crises in various life crises. As a young shepherd, when caring for sheep, he experiences fear and dread amid the attacks of wild animals. And while escaping King Saul's relentless pursuit, he experiences unspeakable fatigue and loneliness at the risk of life. In the rebellion of his son Absalom, he experiences a deep sense of emptiness and shame in his life.
In such a difficult situation, the poet deeply experiences the lack of existence as a human being. Lack of being is a special human experience of exhaustion and spiritual exhaustion experienced in suffering. Depending on the circumstances, such human experiences appear as deep frustration and despair, and at other times as jealousy, envy and rebellion.
In such a situation, the poet meets God as a shepherd. In the text, such a fact is described as a symbol of a shepherd and a sheep.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters. He refreshes my soul and leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (1 3).
The sheep, led by the good shepherd, have no shortage even through the desert. For the good shepherd throws his life to protect the sheep and lead them to green pastures and waters where they can graze, drink and rest to their satisfaction. In the midst of life's fear, loneliness, inner exhaustion, and weakness, the poet receives courage, hope, faith and love from God. God Himself was the source of all the lack of life.
After that, you will meet God in a darker experience of life.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (4).
In all the crises the poet faced, the common experience was death. What came to him with death was sever solitude. Where death was felt, no one could be with him. None of his parents, brothers, loved ones, or friends could accompany him. But God was there. He met God as the One who took his hand and led him through the valley of death to eternal life.
Among the anecdotes related to this psalm, there is an anecdote I would like to introduce in relation to this passage.
On a warm spring day in the mountains of Wales, England, a shepherd was tending his sheep when two hikers came to him. One of them spoke to the shepherd. During the conversation, the hiker asked the shepherd if he knew God. The shepherd said he did not know. The hiker introduced to the shepherd that God is like a shepherd. And from then on, when shepherding sheep, once a day, bend the fingers of your right hand one at a time, and repeatedly recite God is my shepherd.
One day in the spring of the following year, another hiker came to a small restaurant at the foot of a local mountain. He said hello to the boy, pointing to the picture of the boy on the wall to the owner's aunt. The woman had a sad expression on her face and said that the boy, who was her son, was killed last winter while tending sheep in an avalanche. One strange thing, however, was that after a while he took out the son's body and found that his right hand was clenched into a fist, making it difficult to open it. The guest who heard the story could know the secret. He was the one who told the boy the story of God. Perhaps the boy, as he died trapped in the snow, bent the finger of his right hand, repeating that God is my shepherd, passing through the valley of death into the eternal world.
Next, God is described as the host of the great banquet. In the old Hebrew tradition, the master pours oil on the guest's head and pours wine into his cup as a sign of supreme respect for the guest. The text says, "You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup overflows." What I am trying to say here is that God has always forgiven and covered the poet's transgressions and sins. In other words, 'God is love'.
The psalmist says that he will never leave such a God.
“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
If anyone believes in God or wants to believe, there will be a reason for it. The reasons may be different as they will relate to the problems of each person's life. But the answer we hear through today's text is;
* God is the One who makes up for our shortcomings,
* God is the only one who accompanies us as we cross the valley of death.
* God is a love that forgives our sins and transgressions.
Such a God has been shown to us by Jesus Christ Himself. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus became a friend of the sick, the poor, and the marginalized, filling their needs, loving them, and rising from the dead to be with us forever.
Dear brothers and sisters, God does not promise us that He will exempt us from suffering or make us superhuman. Instead, he says that he will be with us as the good shepherd in the realities of hardship and lead us to a place of rest, to a place of righteousness, and to an eternal place. We are all on the road as pilgrims on a pilgrimage to an eternal place in this world. We need a guide.
Let me conclude my sermon with a parable. These days, we use the word “paradigm” a lot. The meaning of this word is a mindset, behavior, or habit shared by all people in that era. A man of noble character got a good car for the trip, and filled it with enough fuel to make sure the trip wasn't disrupted. One problem, however, was that the travel guide map he had was wrong. He is driving to his destination with it. While driving, strictly obey traffic laws. However, because the map is wrong, you are heading in a completely different direction from your original destination.
Dear brothers and sisters, if the paradigm of our life is wrong, we will make the same error as the traveler of the parable. So we need the right paradigm. The correct paradigm is formed by living with God as the shepherd. Amen