Psalm 23 is a psalm of confidence; confidence in the Lord’s care. It is a very personal testament of David’s relationship with his God. For David, he can say with great confidence, ‘The Lord is my shepherd‘. For us as Christians, we know that we too can experience this personal relationship with our shepherd Jesus. Jesus’ words in John 10:14, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and they know me” is one example that confirms this for us. Because Jesus is our shepherd, we know him, and he knows us.
David uses two images to illustrate the Lord’s care. Firstly, the Lord as a shepherd who cares for the sheep and in the second part of the Psalm, the Lord as the host who cares for his guest. Let’s focus on the first. For many of us as we think of a shepherd, we need to rid ourselves of the idyllic image of a beautiful mountainside full of cute frolicking lambs and contented sheep, watched over by a shepherd leaning serenely on his crook. Images like this fail to capture the full force of the Lord’s care.
David knew only too well the reality of the shepherd’s life. It was hard work with long hours. He had to be constantly on the lookout, ready to put his life on the line. When David was preparing to fight Goliath, he used his credentials as a shepherd to add weight to his claim that he could defeat the giant. “When there came a lion, or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth.” David was fiercely determined to defend his sheep and would do whatever it took to protect and care for his flock. As a Christian, it should give us great confidence that Jesus is just as determined to protect and care for us.
It is in verse 2 that we see Jesus’ greatest act of care for us, “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters“. We could read these words and think David is describing a time of feeding, but David has something else in mind, something more. He seems to emphasising a place of rest, rather than feeding. A sheep lies down to sleep, not feed and the stillness of the water conjures up an image of tranquillity. Jesus’ greatest act of care for us was provide us rest.
We need to go back to the beginning to see what that rest is. As humans we were created to live with God in a place of ‘rest’, enjoying God’s perfect creation and a perfect relationship with him. Rest is enjoying life as it was designed to be lived; God’s people living in God’s place, under God’s place, under God’s rule, enjoying God’s blessing.
But in Genesis 3 we see how this place of rest was spoilt by sin. It is only through Jesus dying and rising again that we can come back into that place of rest. Jesus’ greatest act of care as our shepherd, was to offer us a restored relationship with the creator and to bring us back to live in his place of rest.
