Psalm 23:4a
Last week I stood by the coffin containing the body of Precious Joe as it was lowered into the ground. Handfuls of dirt and then shovelfuls of dirt landed on the coffin and then, at the end, there was a new mound of fresh dirt in a cemetery of buried bodies. Our Liberian brother, Ben, lost his wife; his four children lost their mother.
Death is terrible. Death is bad enough when our aged grandparents or parents die, but when parents die early in life, when a spouse dies, when children die, death is especially painful.
This morning in our series on Psalm 23 and the other Good Shepherd passages of the Bible, we come to verse 4:
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
We will focus on the first half of this verse this week and the second half next week.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
When you read through Psalm 23, where is the climax of the psalm? What is the highest point of truth in this psalm?
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.
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.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
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
forever.
The way we are used to reading – and writing – is that we move in a straight line from beginning to the end and the end is the climax.
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
forever.
But Kenneth Bailey points out in his book, The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament, that Psalm 23 – and many other passages in the Bible – follow a different pattern with the climax in the center. He calls the structure of Psalm 23 step parallelism. He divides the seven sections of the psalm this way: A B C D C B A
1 The Lord is my shepherd, LORD – SHEPHERD
I shall not want. No Wants
2 He settles me down in green pastures, FOOD &
he leads me beside still waters, Drink
3 he brings me back / he causes me to repent RESCUE
He leads me in paths of righteousness Security
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk DEATH/EVIL
through the valley of the shadow of death, No Fear
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; SECURITY
your rod and your staff, Comfort
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me FOOD &
in the presence of my enemies. Drink
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me GOODNESS AND MERCY
all the days of my life, LORD – House all the Days
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
for the length of the days.
The seven sections of Psalm 23, Bailey calls them “cameos”, begin and end with the sustaining presence of the shepherd. Verses 2 & 5 talk about the provision of food and drink. Verse 3 and the second half of verse 4 talk about security.
In this structure, the first half of verse 4 is the climax, the highpoint, of the psalm.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
Why is this the highpoint? Why is this a higher truth in the psalm than the final cameo?
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
for the length of the days.
We look forward to heaven. The thought of an eternal existence helps us when someone we love dies. But if not for the first half of verse four, there would be no heavenly existence.
Let me take you back to the world before Jesus. Death has been a constant in history. The one experience all of us share; the one journey all of us take – willingly or not. Death has always been our greatest enemy. Fierce warriors have faced armies and defeated them, but they have, in the end, been defeated by death. The wisest men have succumbed to death. The wealthiest people in the world, who can buy anything they want – cannot buy an escape out of death.
This is what led the writer of Ecclesiastes to say: (Ecclesiastes 9:1–3)
So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. 2 All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good,
so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them.
3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.
What we do in life, our accomplishments, all the wisdom and knowledge we accumulate, all our good deeds, our attempt to live a righteous life – all of these, ultimately, make no difference because we all will die. In his despair, he writes: (Ecclesiastes 9:7–10)
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
The writer of Ecclesiastes examined the pursuit of pleasure, the pursuit of justice, and the pursuit of finding meaning in work and ended up concluding that all of this is meaningless – because in the end, death wins.
It is not clear when the book of Job was written, but perhaps five hundred years earlier, Job was written to discuss the problem of suffering in the world.
The story begins with a description of the good life Job was enjoying. He was wealthy, influential, with a large family. He had what every person wanted and then he lost it all. His wealth disappeared. His children died. His health deteriorated. All he had left was his wife and friends who lectured him on what he must have done wrong to deserve this punishment. Job sits in his painful misery and concludes: (Job 14:1-2, 3-12)
“Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
2 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
5 A person’s days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.
7 “At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
8 Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
10 But a man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As the water of a lake dries up
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
12 so he lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, people will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.
This was the world before Jesus. Death triumphed. Death always triumphed. Death always had the last word.
Then hope entered our world; Jesus was born. Jesus spent three years with his followers, teaching them, demonstrating his power over demons and disease. There was increasing anticipation of the moment when Jesus would announce himself to be king and the Roman occupiers would be cast out of Israel.
But then, to the dismay of his followers, Jesus was arrested, tortured, crucified, and buried in a tomb. They were grief-stricken, shattered, completely lost without any idea of what to do next. Their leader was dead. Just like all who had ever lived, Jesus had died and all the hopes and dreams he had inspired died with him.
10 But a man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As the water of a lake dries up
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
12 so he lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, people will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.
Some of the women who were followers of Jesus went to the tomb early in the morning, the first morning after the Sabbath, to honor Jesus by anointing him with spices. When they arrived they were stunned to discover that Jesus was not there and then Jesus appeared to Mary. They raced back to the disciples, shouting the incredible news. Death had been defeated! Jesus was alive!
Jesus had raised people from the dead. Just a short time before his crucifixion, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. But those Jesus raised from the dead would die again. Death would still win. Until now. Until this defeat. The devil used his most powerful weapon against Jesus and thought he had won, but then Jesus took that weapon from the devil, broke it, and announced that all who follow him would rise from the dead, just as he had.
So Paul wrote in (1 Corinthians 15:51–57)
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I read this passage at funerals because it mocks the power of death over us. We have been set free from the power of death and are able to live life to the fullest. But we cannot take this for granted. This is why I have spent so much time talking about how death was viewed before Jesus. In fact, Paul wrote in response to people who were challenging the resurrection of the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:29–32)
29 Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31 I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
Paul is saying that if there is no resurrection from the dead, then we go back to the world view before Jesus. Paul quotes Isaiah 22:13 “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” but this sums up the message of Ecclesiastes as well.
This is why the first half of verse four is the climax, the highlight of Psalm 23.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
What is David referring to when he talks about “the valley of the shadow of death?” The Armenian pastor, Krikorian, who had been a shepherd in his youth, writes:
There is an actual valley of the shadow of death in Palestine, and every shepherd knows of it…. I had the good fortune of having at least a passing view of this valley…. it is a very narrow defile through a mountain range where the water often foams and roars, torn by jagged rocks…. The path plunges downward … into a deep and narrow gorge of sheep precipices overhung by frowning Sphinx-like battlements of rocks, which almost touch overhead. Its side walls rise like the stone walls of a great cathedral…. The valley is about five miles long, yet it is not more than twelve feet at the widest section of the base…. The actual path, on the solid rock, is so narrow that in places the sheep can hardly turn around in case of danger…. In places gullies seven and eight feet have been washed.
Another commentator of Psalm 23, George Lamsa notes,
Valleys of the shadow of death are paths which wind in between mountains where there are dark shadows and deep gorges. Travelers march slowly and silently in order to avoid being seen or heard by bandits. The fear of death is constantly in their minds. They tremble, they expect trouble or death at any time while they are passing through.
A great example of this kind of path is the entrance to the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. Ken Bailey writes that in 1957 a flash flood sent a wall of water through this narrow pass and killed fifty some French tourist walking to the city.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
Let me make note of three truths in this passage. First, people do not go though the valley of the shadow of death because they want to; they have no other choice. There are no other options. This path cannot be avoided. Sometimes we walk though the illness of someone we love. Sometimes it is our own illness. We cannot avoid it, as much as we might want to. We have to go through the difficulty and danger of this path.
Sometimes God calls us to do something and we encounter great stress and anxiety along the way. When I first felt led to sell the company I owned, I had no idea how stressful the process would be. I remember a weekend in Chicago at a trade show when I was going over the details of the contract, about five inches thick, talking to some key people in the company who needed to agree to help the new owners, dealing with ugly family dynamics at a funeral of my aunt – and I thought I would never make it through.
In 2010 when the Moroccan government deported 150 foreign Christians, including the “parents” at the Village of Hope, a home for abandoned children where I was chairman of the board – that was a year when I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I was grieving the loss of good friends and anxious that I would also be deported.
There are times in marriage when couples walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The optimistic vows of the wedding ceremony are a distant memory. The phrase that comes back is “till death do us part” and it seems tempting to make that happen sooner rather than later.
There is nothing pleasant in these experiences. They are incredibly painful. The passage through a valley of death is ugly and when someone comes along and tells you, “God is doing a great work in you as you go through this experience,” you want to inflict some of your pain on them.
In many ways, not just death, we come to points in our pilgrimage to heaven when we have no choice except to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
A second truth is that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We pass through, the valley is not our destination and it is not our final resting place.
In the midst of stressful, anxious, difficult times, it can seem that this will be the permanent condition of our life, but it is only temporary. In these difficult times, God is at work and because he is leading us, we will not end up where we are at the moment.
The sale of my company did go through and that enabled me to come to Rabat where these sixteen years have been the best years of my life. After five years of the children at the Village of Hope not receiving the care they needed and deserved, the children are now at a facility where they are safe and being well cared for.
Annie and I can testify to the work of God in our marriage that took us through the valley of the shadow of death and how God led us to green pastures and still waters.
Even in the most extreme passages through the valley of death, the person we love who suffers so cruelly, does not stay in that condition. That much loved person moves through the valley into green pastures and still waters when they pass from life to death to eternal life. And we who are left grieving need to know that we are passing through our own valley of the shadow of death as well. We too will be led to green pastures and still waters.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
When David wrote this psalm, there was no concept of heaven or hell, only Sheol, the place of the dead. With all of this uncertainty, David put his trust in his good shepherd. This speaks of his amazing sensitivity to God who loved him.
We are in the privileged position of living after Jesus defeated death. We live with a much more certain hope.
There is certainly much to be afraid of as we anticipate going through the valley of the shadow of death and much to be afraid of when we are going through the valley of the shadow of death. It is a rational response to be afraid, but we do not need to fear. We do not go through the valley of the shadow of death by ourselves, we are being led through the valley of the shadow of death by our good shepherd. Because we trust him, we can find courage and strength to keep on following him. I will talk more about this next week.
Some of you have gone through a valley of the shadow of death. Some are going through that valley now. All of you will go through this valley in the future. You will be afraid. It is not helpful to deny what you feel. Pretending you are stronger than you are will make you weaker, not stronger. When you keep your eye on the good shepherd who is leading you, then you release those fears and find strength to endure.
The apostle John wrote (1 John 4:18)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
Two weeks ago I told the story of three men in Uganda who were executed by the orders of Idi Amin. They surrendered to Jesus and they died in triumph, giving praise to God. A number of the Egyptian Coptic men who were beheaded on a beach in Libya in February of last year were whispering the name of Jesus as they were executed. I talked with a woman who was held captive by the Taliban and she told me her sweetest times of experiencing the presence of Jesus came during her captivity. Over and over again, as I talk with people who have gone through the valley of the shadow of death, I hear stories of experiencing the peace of Jesus in the midst of the experience of passing through a valley of the shadow of death.
How do you prepare yourself for such a trial? You follow your good shepherd who settles you down in green pastures and leads you to still waters, who brings you back to the path when you stray, who leads you, even when you go through the valley of the shadow of death.
John wrote: (1 John 4:4)
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
When you follow Jesus, your good shepherd, you can pass through whatever will come. You are following Jesus who has all power, who created the universe, holds it in his hand, sustaining it until he will release his hold and the universe will be destroyed in a final judgment. Then Jesus will recreate the world, the heavens and the earth.
When this is who you follow, you need not fear any evil. You are well protected. You are well taken care of. You will be led safely to your eternal home.
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1 Peter 1:3–4
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
