Today, on a day when one of my churches celebrates its Church Anniversary, is a good day to consider the theme of God’s faithfulness. ‘Great is thy faithfulness,’ indeed. And when we come to the Lectionary today with Psalm 23 about the Lord being our shepherd and we also read from John 10 where Jesus is the good shepherd, we have an appropriate theme for considering God’s faithfulness. The Lord, our Good Shepherd, is the epitome of divine faithfulness.
And as we reflect on that now, we are going to recognise God’s faithfulness in the past, present, and future. Yes, Psalm 23 is written to express these truths to individuals, but they also work in terms of God’s faithful love to his people corporately, the church.
Firstly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our anxiety:
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
As I wondered over the last few days what held some seemingly different ways here in which God provides for our needs, I came to the conclusion that the common thread was that these were all situations that can promote anxiety in us, but that God in his faithfulness gives us what we need, our anxiety subsides, and we learn to trust more in him.
Anxiety is there when we lack something, be it necessary income or food. I know that when my grandfather was out of work for five years in the depression of the 1930s, my grandmother would go without a meal herself for the sake of the children and would be on her knees praying that God would provide what they needed as a family. We know there were times when even at the very time she was praying someone would anonymously leave a food parcel by the front door.
Today, we live in a world of anxiety. You will all have seen the discussions in the media about the rise in mental health issues, especially since the Covid pandemic and particularly among younger people. Prescriptions of the relevant drugs are on the increase, and costing the NHS more, leading some politicians to make cruel statements about over-diagnosis of certain conditions.
It is something I recognise in myself. When something troubling happens, my body reacts in negative ways before my mind gets the chance to analyse whether the presenting issue really is so bad after all and whether there is a solution anyway.
We are not immune from a corporate anxiety in the church, as we worry about the future.
It is surely, though, part of the Good News we offer to the world as the church today that the Lord our Good Shepherd is faithful to us in our anxiety.
In recent weeks, the Bible Society released a report that claimed there was what they called a ‘quiet revival’ of faith among young adults. There are probably many reasons for this, including a rebellion against the atheism of their parents. But could it also be true that as they were notably afflicted by the anxiety of the Covid pandemic as I said, that a Gospel which emphasises a Good Shepherd who is faithful to the anxious, who enables them to cast all their cares on him, is appealing to them?
So on a day when we rejoice in God’s faithfulness to us, let us consider how that might be a relevant message to new generations.
Secondly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our darkness:
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
Now I know we’re used to hearing not the words ‘the darkest valley’ but ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, but ‘the darkest valley’ is increasingly thought to be the best translation, and that surely includes ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ In the very darkest times of life, the psalmist says, God is with me and he comforts me. For the psalmist, the experience of darkness does not mean that the light is absent. Jesus the Light of the World is still present with us even at the worst of times. No wonder we often read this psalm at funerals.
Perhaps this is one of the deepest examples of the fact that Jesus is Immanuel, ‘God with us’, as the Christmas stories tell us. He came to share human life, and did so to the very worst, when he suffered that cruel and unjust death on the cross. And because he was later raised from the dead, he can be with us in our darkness.
And that is the simple promise: he is with us. Often in our dark times that’s all we want and all we need. Clever explanations can wait. The people who come up to us and blithely tell us that everything happens for a reason are no help at all. What we need is presence. And we get that from Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
We may say, ‘But God is silent!’ Yet he may be the silent friend who is just sitting with us in our sorrows. Are they not sometimes the best comforters? But simply by being there, Jesus the Good Shepherd is our comfort. He does not have to shout from the rooftops, and if he did we would probably not be able to cope with it. For his presence now shows that he has conquered death, and in our bleakest time that may be all we need to know.
You may have heard preachers talk about the medieval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich. In her lifetime she witnessed the devastation of the Black Death, and at one time, around the age of 30, she was so ill she thought she was on her deathbed. But she recovered – or was healed – and afterwards wrote down her account of some visions she received from God when she was close to death. Out of that experience came perhaps her most famous words: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’
That is the testimony of one who knew the presence of the faithful Good Shepherd in the darkest valley.
And that too is part of what we proclaim to the world. Jesus suffered and died in the very worst way, but he was raised from the dead, and will faithfully accompany all who trust in him in even the worst seasons of their lives.
Thirdly and finally, we consider God’s faithfulness in our mistreatment:
I’m avoiding the word ‘persecution’ here. It is that for millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, but for those of us in the west, the opposition that comes our way is really not strong enough or fundamental enough to warrant the word ‘persecution.’ So I have settled on ‘mistreatment’: that may not be a perfect word, but I hope you get my sense, when the psalmist says,
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
We do face opposition and ridicule, and occasionally some forms of discrimination because of our faith. Many older Christians grew up in a society where there was more common acceptance of values that had some connection to the Christian faith, even if the faith was only honoured more in the breach. But that common acceptance and understanding has not been present in our society now for some decades. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when we are explicitly faithful to Jesus Christ today, that will sometimes attract enemies to us.
What we have here is that in the face of the ridicule and humiliation that comes with being treated unjustly for our faith, Jesus the Good Shepherd in his faithfulness to us honours us. That’s why there is a table for us in the presence of our enemies. That’s why the psalmist speaks of having his head anointed with oil: that was what happened to the honoured guest at a banquet.
So, when elements of the world turn against us – and they will, from time to time – God in his faithfulness still dignifies us with honour. He values our costly witness. He is proud of us when we stand up for him and it hurts. He knows when we have paid a price to stay faithful, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Naturally, we would like the situation remedied. Sometimes we shall get justice in this life, but not always. If what happens is we simply get the strength to stay true to Jesus under duress, we can be sure that there is another and greater banquet coming in God’s New Creation when he will prepare a feast for us and honour those who have continued to say yes to Jesus even in the most demanding circumstances.
In conclusion, what is our response? The final verse of the psalm gives us a pointer:
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
for ever.
Here we have in summary this promise that the Good Shepherd will faithfully continue to be with us, as his goodness and love pursue us. The believer ‘will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’ – that is, we shall do all we can in response to live in the presence of God. Yes, God pursues us, but also yes, we pursue God in gratitude for his faithful love. In worship, prayer, and Scripture, both together on Sundays and in small groups, and on our own during the week we seek to draw close to the presence of our faithful God.
But not only that: the ‘house of the Lord’ language should not deceive us into thinking this is purely in the context of the church building or merely of overtly religious practices. Since Jesus is accessible everywhere since the Resurrection and Ascension, we can live in his presence everywhere, too. And so our pursuit of the God who has already pursued us is an activity and a discipline that we follow not only in the church but also in the world. Yes, we ask, how would Jesus want me to love him in the church, but also, yes, how would Jesus want me to love him in the world?
Big Circumstance 