It may well be that you will find yourself in need of a prayer. The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, might come to mind, to be uttered at that moment when other words fail. Not surprisingly one particular psalm takes shape and possesses our voice and expresses the keenness of our dependence of God and his nurturing, comforting care for us: Psalm 23. A favourite in times of grief and bereavement, it appears four times in the Sunday cycle of readings.
The idea of the Divine Being as a shepherd of his people was not unknown in the ancient Orient, but arrives with some clarity and purpose in the Hebrew’s First Testament. This beautiful psalm is rich in metaphor which we associate with shepherds: the rod and the staff and the lyrical words that provide comfort, a sense of trust. In the second part of the psalm God hosts a thanksgiving or sacrificial meal – the psalmist no longer pursued by foes but by goodness and kindness. It concludes with a pervading sense of God’s presence expressed as ‘dwelling in God’s house’.
Little wonder that the earliest of Christians, Jesus’ apostles and disciples, the evangelists and early communities attributed to Jesus the title and role of shepherd. John explores this theme throughout chapter 10 moving from metaphor to parable:
The sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.
Indeed, for John, Jesus is the Good Shepherd – who knows his sheep and who will lay down his life for them.
This image of Jesus is profoundly embedded in our Christian psyche and the link to Psalm 23 is a natural progression. For those of us of a certain age, the holy card depictions of the Good Shepherd, a pious, blanched Jesus with a lamb carried on his shoulders and staff in hand are far from the reality of shepherds of biblical times, but this image is conveying not the drudgery of a shepherd’s life, but the sensitive invitation to the care and favour of one who knows us and loves us.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
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