Psalter

Scripture: Laetare, A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

That has to be one of the most well-known and beloved of all passages in the Holy Scriptures. We all know John 3:16—for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son—and at most weddings we’ll hear the Paul’s gentle reminder to the Corinthians that love is patient; love is kind. But when it comes to emergencies, to hospital visits, to funerals, and, quite frankly, to daily life in general, I doubt there’s any other passage from the Bible to which we turn more frequently than the 23^rd Psalm: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

The Psalms, and especially Psalm 23, speak powerfully to God’s people in troubled times. They are essential texts for our everyday struggles. As the hymn book of the Bible, they speak both to and from the heart of Israel. Throughout the Middle Ages, monasteries the world over would recite all 150 psalms by memory each and every day. Martin Luther loved the psalms and prayed them fervently in his own devotional life. A great number of our favorite hymns are inspired by or adapted from the Psalter. We sing them, pray them, read them, chant them, and live them out. The psalms are our indispensable tools for the life of faith. They are our guides in everyday living, the texts that steer us rightly Monday through Saturday, out in the real world.

As I said, there are 150 of them, and together we call the entire collection of psalms the Psalter. Nearly half of them are claimed to have been written by King David some thousand years or so before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. There are psalms of praise and thanksgiving, psalms of communal or individual lament, psalms of instruction and even royal psalms dealing with the enthronement or marriage or victories of the king—be it the Israelite king or perhaps God Himself. Psalm 23 is a psalm of trust.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside still waters; He restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the midst of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

That’s the traditional, old-timey sort of English in which most people like to couch the psalms, but you get the idea. There are certainly other translations available. Notice that the psalmist, credited as King David, is speaking from the midst of crisis. We can all relate to that, can’t we? We all have our own crises in life, our own valleys of shadow and death. The psalmist’s voice is our voice.

Yet David trusts that God has not abandoned him even in his distress. There is the assumption here of a divine promise. Yes, things are bad; yes, enemies have encamped all around, but God is faithful and is with us even in our darkest days. God prepares a table for us right in the midst of our enemies. He anoints our heads with oil—an act of comfort, honor, and preparation. Our cups runneth over. Even in our extremity, we have more than we need, for we have the promise of God.

People of faith have long held special affection for the psalter because the psalms embrace life as we know it: a life of struggle and beauty, a life of failure and redemption, a life of difficulty and a life of deep grace. They do not deny evil, unfairness, loss, or pain—but neither do they blame God for these things. Instead, the psalms sing of everyday hardships and everyday joys. They sing of a God Who is always near us in times of trial, always lavishing us with graces and gifts, always making extravagant promises and holding to them no matter the cost. The God of the psalms takes His time; He is not a genie Who pops up granting wishes. But He is always there, always by our side, always with us in our difficulties—always reminding us that a new day will dawn, and we will be with Him to see it.         

Jesus never promised us that the Christian life would be easy. In fact, He ever warned that to follow Him is to take up the Cross—to risk rejection and pain and death. But He does promise to be with us always, no matter how hard life gets. And He promises that all of our struggles and pains, our losses and defeats, will never have the last word. Not even death! When we trust in this promise, we find abundance in the midst of hostile forces. We find fresh oil for our faces, wine overflowing from our cup. With trust in this promise, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil, for Christ is with us, guiding us, comforting us, leading us ever closer to home. And when we get there, we will have true joy and true life forever.

Life can hard in this broken world. But Christ has come to join us in it, and by His side we have nothing to fear.

I would encourage us all, brothers and sisters, to read the psalms at home—just a little at first, if they’re new to you. There are short ones and long ones, frightened ones and happy ones. There are even some we rarely read because they rage and scream and call for vengeance. I remember reading those in September of 2001. The psalms speak in the voice of God’s people—our voice. They give us permission to be frightened or happy or angry or trusting. They give us permission to sing or to dance or to ask for the strength to be patient in our waiting, as months and years roll by.

They let us speak to God as a friend. They let us yell at God when we need to. They weep with us and laugh with us and show us that we are never alone. And they remind us that sinners and saints alike have thought these same thoughts and fought these same struggles and waged these same wars for the last 3,000 years and more.

The Bible is our story. The Psalter is our voice. And the promises we find given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joseph and Mary and John—those are our promises. Read them as your own. Claim them as your own. And trust that God will keep them, for you, as He always has and will.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside still waters; He restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the midst of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Thanks be to God and to Christ the Good Shepherd. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.