He’s wise, always knowing what we truly need. If we want to know what Jesus is like, one way we find out is by discovering what the psalm’s shepherd is like. When the enemy prowls, baring ravenous fangs, our Shepherd is powerful and unrelenting. When we go astray, Jesus is gentle and kind and tender. He carries us through the middle of the valley of the shadow of death (not around it, but through it). Because He’s our good Shepherd, we have everything we need. Everything the shepherd is in Psalm 23, Jesus is for us now. “I am the good shepherd,” He said (JOHN 10:11). We don’t have to simply read ancient writers to make this connection. The early believers in Jesus understood Psalm 23 to point to Jesus, the true Shepherd. Our Shepherd always watches out for our well-being, pursues us with relentless care, and fends off all evils. He provides abundance-giving more than we need (V. Moreover, our Shepherd provides a feast in the midst of our troubles. The staff (a hook used to pull a wayward sheep from the cliff’s edge) and the rod (a club used to beat away predators) reveal how the Shepherd is at once tender and formidable. We need not fear because we have a Shepherd who’s both kind and powerful. Everywhere, so many of us are in need of real help, and yet, even with genuine terrors, the psalmist tells us that we do not need to fear. I watched the news, along with the rest of the world, as COVID-19 threatened the life we knew. I had a conversation with another friend who was about to lose his apartment because he couldn’t pay the rent. In the past two weeks, I received a desperate message from a friend who was rushing her husband to the hospital with a life-threatening illness. “I will fear no evil,” the psalmist says, “for you are with me” (V. And yet, even here we rebuff fear-not because we have everything under control but because we have encountered the Shepherd whose reliable, faithful presence consumes every dread. Unfortunately, it’s still true that we must, as the psalmist says, “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (V. He refreshes our weary, sorrowful, and anxious souls. Our Shepherd guides us into verdant green pastures and alongside quiet, healing waters. Rather, these comforting words announce a bare assertion: Because we have a good Shepherd, we possess everything we need. These words don’t ignore the grim realities most of us face. This line provides the foundation on which the rest of the psalm-and our entire lives-rests. “The LORD is my shepherd,” the psalmist says, “I lack nothing” (23:1). This well-known prayer and the comfort it offers presents one basic truth: the Shepherd watches over us. Shepherds don’t spend their days merely frolicking through the lush countryside, doting on cute creatures. James Rebanks’ account dismantles any idyllic, romantic vision we might have of tending sheep. The Rebanks, like most shepherds, are doggedly caring and generous, giving all they have for their sheep. They watch over the Herdwick with relentless diligence, tender affection, and grueling tenacity. Year round, they strive to defend the sheep from disease and fight off predators. The Rebanks work hard to keep their Herdwick sheep alive through the long, dark winters when ice and cold threaten and grazing is sparse. Only hearty shepherds can do this type of work. In his remarkable book The Shepherd’s Life, James Rebanks recounts how their family cut a farm out of marginal acreage overrun by rushes and thistles. For generations, the Rebanks family has tended sheep in Northern England.
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