I'd like you to close your eyes for a moment and allow your imagination to transport you to a distant place, a different culture, another time.
You are a traveller in the Palestinian wilderness. On foot you've been crossing rugged terrain. Inhospitable - water is hard to find, vegetation is sparse, wild animals roam nearby, bandits frequent these roads, fellow travellers are few.
Things are not so bad during the daytime. Which is when you wanted to do your travelling. But it's been a long day. You've misjudged the distance. And... really... where are you? Have you taken a wrong turn at that fork in the road 2 hours previous?
The blazing heat of the desert noonday is long gone, and the bitter cold of desert night is coming fast. The road has disappeared into the twilight. Provisions of food and water ran out hours ago, and you are parched and hungry. In the distance, a jackal howls. Fears of wild animals and bands of robbers invade your mind. You regret having begun this journey, and wonder if it will be your last.

But then - there!! - a figure on a hillside!
Outlined against the darkening sky:
a shepherd - a common, ordinary man, but one who knows these hillsides and ravines.

He sees you. Comes your way and leads you up out of the shadowy valley to a place where the last beams of sun still light the way ahead. Together you walk to a grassy meadow. There you are invited to lie down and rest awhile.

The shepherd cups water from the oasis spring in his hands, and offers it.
Your thirst - so dry! You drink and drink and drink.
Resting, drinking - after a while you feel energy begin to flow through your tired limbs.

You glance up, watching the shepherd. In his hand is a dangerous-looking club with which he protects the sheep -- his rod.
Laying beside him is his staff, or walking-stick.
It is comforting to see these symbols of a man who knows his way through the desert.

Soon it's time to move on. The shepherd leads. He knows the right paths to take -- firm, certain footsteps to a black goatskin tent set amidst an encampment of other tents.
These are bedouins, dwellers in the dry and desolate places, determined people who know how to scratch a living from the desert. They are also outsiders to the rest of society, even outcasts. The bedouins have their own mysterious ways, unknown to you - the lost traveller. You'd have hardly given them a thought if you passed them in the town. The thought occurs that they may even be enemies, who wish to rob or kill him.

The shepherd brings you into his own tent. It is lit inside with oil lamps, and decorated with carpets that are as intricate and beautiful as the goatskin tent is plain. There is no fear now; the laws of Middle Eastern hospitality are in effect. As long as you are in the shepherd's tent, the shepherd is absolutely pledged to protect you from all enemies.

The two of you sit cross-legged at a low table, and the shepherd spreads out a meal - a simple meal that somehow tastes better than any you've ever had: steaming lamb stew, soft pita bread, succulent dates. In a timeless gesture of honour, the host pours a flask of fragrant oil over his guest's head, and pours wine into your cup until it overflows.

The fears of night -
- fears that were overwhelming you back on the path -
- these fears have been transformed;
where there might have been aching terror, there is now serenity and trust.

Such is the power of desert hospitality; hospitality of a good shepherd to you, a weary and lost traveller.

-------- Can you visualize it? ----------
 
 

This sort of hospitality is well documented for the Ancient Near Eastern world.
Who knows? Perhaps it was this hospitality that David once felt. Perhaps he had opportunity to extend such hospitality himself during the years he tended sheep. So moving was this experience, so unforgettable this rescue from the very jaws of death, that it becomes symbolic of God's love. You see, in this vision, the bedouin shepherd becomes not himself as he is, but an angel of the Lord. It is somehow not he who rescues the traveller, but God.

"The Lord is my shepherd..."

1. A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3. he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
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.
5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I asked you to close your eyes and imagine this journey through that dark, dangerous Palestinian valley. And perhaps you had to stretch the boundaries a bit in order to do so.
It would not, however, be a stretch for you to find and imagine your own shadow-filled valley - would it?
The place in life where you feel lost; stumbling and unsure; worried about what menacing problems lay beyond the next curve; where an evil chill crawls up your spine; the deathly places.
Perhaps it is death itself - either through an illness you face, or life-threatening trauma to someone you love.
Perhaps trying to shake free from a history of abusive trauma.
Some have translated the phrase "the valley of the shadow of death" as this -
- "the deepest, darkest valleys" -

Ah yes, living in the shadows. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Shadows from the past. Dark, threatening moments of today. Times when everything you do seems futile - just a puff of wind that's here today and gone tomorrow with all the substance of a shadow...... other people seem to walk right through you without even noticing or slowing down.
That's the sort of thing referred to in the book of Job (8.9): "for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow."
Later in the same book, Job asks:
Job 10.20-22 "Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so that I can have a moment's joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness."
Know it?
So have countless people through the generations, who have gone to Psalm 23 for comfort again and again.

Sometimes when I sit with someone who is somehow struggling - illness, whatever - I'll ask them if there's a passage of the Bible from which they can draw strength. And very, very often the response is, "Yes. Psalm 23."
Countless times I've had families request I read it at the funeral of their loved one.

With good reason -
For, as Isaiah the prophet writes (9.2):
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."
And then he says........
Well - do you remember some of the words that come after? (v.6)
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Into a world that struggles along under the dark shroud of sin and death has come a Saviour - a strong and powerful Saviour. He stood among those who would listen and called out, "I am the Good Shepherd" (Jn 10.11).

He is the Good Shepherd who was beaten with the rods of evil men. He was hung on a large staff - the cross, and passed all the way through that terrible shadowy Valley of Death.
He did it for us.
He crossed that valley carrying the curse and anger of God that rightfully belonged to us - ours because of our sin.
He crossed through that valley and rose out the other side to eternal life, into the realm where shadows are banished forever.

It is that Good Shepherd who extends His Holy hand to weary travellers floundering in dark, shadowy valleys of life.
He promises to walk with us through the valley:
"Surely I am with you always." (Mt 28.20)
He promises to prepare a place in eternal peace and light for us.
"I go to prepare a place for you" He said. (Jn 14.2)

The promise of scripture is that though there are many challenges, pains and tough times that will face us -
- though they are very real -
they cannot tear us away from the Good Shepherd and His protecting presence. The Bible boldly proclaims:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love fo God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8.38-39).

To all who surrender their life to the Good Shepherd, who accept His invitation to travel through the shadowy valley together, comes another shadow.
This is a greater shadow - overshadowing, if we dare say it, the darkness of the shadow of death. It is what the Bible terms "The shadow of Thy wing", speaking of the protecting shadow of God. You can find that phrase in several places, like Psalm 17.8, 36.7; 57.1.
It is a safe shadow, like the shadow of a mother eagle's wing as she covers her young in the nest from cold winds and rain;
like the shadow a parent casts over their precious young child as they walk side by side.

Safety in the shadows.
And the promise of light and eternal life beyond the shadows, and the last great shadow - death, the final valley through which each of us must pass alone - no friend or family member can walk there with us.
Only One - the Good Shepherd.
Jesus will never allow His children to walk that final valley alone. He is there waiting when the last breath on earth is drawn, stretches out the great shadow of His wing, chasing away the shadow of death, and bringing believers at that very instant into the brilliant glory light of eternal life in heaven.
Bringing them -- us -- truly home,
out of the shadows.

In 1993 a young couple was sitting in their living room listening to a new tape featuring David Meece, a Christian recording artist. One of the songs on the album spoke of this very truth. Meece wrote about coming to grips with his past, a past filled with haunting, painful shadows that accompanied him wherever he went. The song talks about moving beyond those shadows, through the shadow of death, and into eternal light.
As the last notes drifted away, the husband turned to his wife and said, "You know, if I were to die that'd be the song I'd want played at my funeral."
She nodded in agreement. Because the words were so right on. I'm going to throw them up on the overhead in a moment and get our sound crew to play the song. You'll see what I mean and will, I think, agree.

Just one thing I want to add. Less than 2 weeks after he made the statement we DID play it..... at his funeral. Killed in an industrial accident in Owen Sound. I still find everything coming back when I hear the song years later; including the memory of standing with a 32 year old widow beside the battered, lifeless body of her husband, and that of being the one who had to tell his two children, aged 5 & 3, that Daddy had gone to live with Jesus.

It's a song about facing the final shadowy journey, and the light hope that the Good Shepherd gives. The truth of Psalm 23. The only truth that kept this widow from going insane in the months after. A life and death truth for us, too.

Listen. And after that, we'll sing together.
 

Going Home

It should be so good; It should be so right;
Going home again to find the years that shaped my life.

But shadows line the streets. They whisper endlessly.
And all I see are ghosts of my most painful memories.
Going home, going home, Lord someday I'm going home
To a place where I know I belong.
Where the ghosts and the fears and the shadows disappear.
Oh, His angels bear us there - Going home!

If somewhere in the night you see a distant light
Lifting up my soul to meet the God who gave us life.
Mama don't you cry. Children don't you weep.
For all the ghosts are vanquished and my journey is complete.
Going home, going home, Lord someday I'm going home
To a place where I know I belong.
Where the ghosts and the fears and the shadows disappear.
Oh, His angels bear us there - Going home!

© 1993 David Meece, Star Song Productions, Nashville TN