A piece of music I remember from my youthful days, partly because it was covered by a progressive rock
group known as ‘Emerson, Lake and Palmer’, was titled Pictures at an Exhibition
by the composer Mussorgorsky. The music in the piece reflected different pictures
the composer viewed in an art gallery.
One day I was sitting in a dentist’s waiting room and thumbing through a magazine article about
the 23rd Psalm. It compared the 23rd Psalm to a series
of portraits about spiritual life. I neither recall what the magazine was, nor
who the author may have been, and I apologize to them if I am stealing their material. This
idea, of the 23rd Psalm being an exhibition of pictures that speak to us about the love and protection of God,
left an impression on me, and it’s those impressions I want to share with you this morning.
I invite you to walk through five pictures at an exhibition of the 23rd Psalm.
1) “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I shall not want.”
Here is a picture of peace, rest, and care. Here is a
lying back, sipping a cool drink on a wonderful summer’s day, enjoying the blue sky, no clouds in sight, green pasture.
The grass is rich; everything is under control, because the shepherd has taken
care of it. A cool stream is gurgling by, the birds are singing, the bees are
buzzing. You are satisfied. You want for nothing. “It is well with my soul.”
There is neither worry nor hurry in this picture. Feast
your eyes upon it. Sink down into that cool grass. Feel the warmth of the sun’s rays caress your face. Problems?
What problems? Just savor the moment
and squeeze every ounce of joy from it that you can. Perfect peace. Perfect rest.
Perfect care. The Lord is my Shepherd.
I shall not want. God is taking care of things. And
we are one of the things that God is taking care of! It’s looking good
in the neighborhood.
I’d like to leave you in this picture, but we must move along to our next frame. This one is not so pretty. Verse 4:
2) “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
The sky turns black. The clouds roll in. The air becomes heavy and threatening. No more lying down in
green pastures. The still waters have become an ugly torrent. The birds are no longer singing. That peaceful world has been
shaken and swept away.
This is the ruins after 9/11. This is New Orleans after the Hurricane rolled through. I remember a congregational member I had in Liverpool describing what it was like to live through
the Blitz when German planes dropped bomb after bomb upon the city. How they
sheltered in a dark and suffocating concrete bunker and could hear the sirens and the sounds of the bombs falling, and prayed
that the next one did not have their name on it. How much they feared the scene they would see when they emerged from the
shelter.
This is a picture of dark desolation. And there is a question
hanging over this picture. Where has the Shepherd gone? “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?”
If this was a movie, maybe the scene would pan to a busy Jerusalem street where, bruised and battered and wearing
a crown of thorns, a man is carrying a cross through a cussing and blaspheming crowd. Harsh
soldiers are driving Him forward. He stumbles, and they force a member of the
crowd to take up His cross.
You wonder if you could really look that defeated man in the eye. Alone.
Despised. Rejected by humanity. A
carpenter from Nazareth who left his nails and wood to minister the love of God to us, only to find himself stumbling up a hill towards the
nails and wood of a crucifixion.
Where is the Shepherd? Look. He walks through the darkest of all valleys. He does not fear
evil. He takes it upon Himself. He
absorbs its darkness, for us…for you…for me. As the wind blows cold and the darkness deepens, remember where the
shepherd is. He walks through that dark place with us. Maybe unseen. Maybe barely distinguishable amongst all the
other sights and threatening sounds.
But
like that story of the footprints in the sand of life’s journey, those times when only one set of prints appear in the
sand, are the times that He carries us. King David, the poet to whom the 23rd
Psalm is attributed, had to flee from King Saul many times for fear of his life. David
stubbornly maintained, “Lord I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me!”
The music that plays in the background is not “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Rather we hear a gentle, yet confident voice that declares, “My dear child, I will walk with you.
Hold my hand. We’ll talk about
the “Why” and the “How” at a later time. For now, just
hold on tight. There is a light up ahead that you cannot yet see. Hold on and trust me.”
We must move on through our gallery. Our next picture is plain and simple. Maybe it’s a sculpture, or even just an item or two laid up against the wall. A Shepherd’s Rod and a Shepherd’s staff. The last
part of verse 4:
3) “Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort me.”
In this verse the word ‘comfort’ is in the sense of ‘To make strong’. A Fort is a place of strength. When our
lives are under the protection of God’s grace and love, we are in a strong place.
The Shepherds Rod was used to count the sheep. Jesus told
that wonderful parable about how the good shepherd would go looking for even one that strayed from the fold. Our lives count to God. That is a strong place from which to
be living. We count. We matter. Our contribution to the life of our church is important. Every one of us has a vital part to play in God’s scheme of things.
The Shepherds staff, or crook, had a hook on the end of it. It
could be put around the wayward sheep’s shoulders and neck to guide them back into line. As the prophet declared, “We all like sheep have gone astray.” It is a strengthening thing to know that our God will come after us to guide is back
into the right way when we go astray. Take a look at the rod and staff. Reach out a hand and touch it. Run your
fingers over the wood. Feel the grain of the staff and know you count enough for God to guide your life with His strong love.
Now here’s our next picture. Verse 5:
4) “You prepare a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies.”
A sumptuous table laden with every imaginable goody to enjoy. Somebody
told me that this is what you call in West Virginia a ‘Bean Feast’. This is not the place to
be counting calories or worrying about cholesterol numbers. We have walked through
the valley and come through to the other side, as when the Father welcomed the prodigal home. This
is an Hallelujah, Amen, ‘Resurrection bathed glory’ of a celebration. Enjoy
the delights, the sounds; soak up that atmosphere.
God is here. You are the R.S.V.P guest. God has set the table. Your cup is bubbling over and it’s
okay to let it. You can snoot your nose up at all the forces that told you that
you would never make it, because you win and they lose. All the enemies of Christ are now revealed for what they really are
- devilish losers who never had a chance of victory.
Some of you ladies like to make a visit to the hairdresser’s salon before you go somewhere special. And I know that when you come out of there you are glowing; ‘woe betide’
to us men if we don’t notice you have a hairdo that could make fashion models green with envy.
David says, “Lord, my head You anoint with oil.”
That was his way of saying, “I am looking good tonight. I should be on the cover of Vogue. Look out, fashion gurus,
the new kid on the block has walked out on the catwalk and the flash bulbs have gone ballistic!” This is a meal to be enjoyed and basked in, and you have never looked in better shape to enjoy it!
Here is a call for us to let the goodness of God overflow upon us, to be anointed by the Holy Spirit,
to allow the beauty of the presence of Jesus Christ around us and within us, to be something that we celebrate and bask in
and bathe in.
One picture is left. Verse 6:
5) “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord for ever.”
I realize it is a cliché, but as Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like
home.” I don’t know what the home in your final picture looks like,
but mine is one that I haven’t reached yet. But without a doubt it looks
like home.
These days I don’t actually have it figured out where my earthly home is. Is it back in Great Britain where I have family and old friends, where I was born and raised and things are familiar? Or is it here in Beckley where I now live and have a little bit of ground I can call my own. As
for my kids, away at college, who were bought up in Fayetteville and have never really lived here in Beckley, I wonder where they consider home to be.
I can offer a few more clichés: “Wherever I lay my hat is my home,” and “Home is
where the heart is.” Going beyond the clichés, I know one thing for sure.
Our resting places here on earth were never meant to be our final home. We’re all just passing through. And
as we travel the pictures change. God keeps moving us along through the many
different scenes of our lives.
Stick with God and surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. Jesus spoke
about many mansions being reserved for us in our Father’s house; that at the end of the road our hearts will find perfect
peace and perfect rest. Such is the final picture in our exhibition.
Let me take you briefly through our pictures one more time.
Firstly – a picture of tranquility where we want for
nothing, for the Lord is our shepherd.
Secondly – a picture of a dark valley which, though
awful and desolate, is one that we do not travel through alone.
Thirdly – A Shepherds Rod and Staff by which we are
strengthened and comforted.
Fourthly – A feast
to which we are invited and at which we are anointed by God’s love.
Finally
– a home for our restless spirits in the presence of God.
And the great thing about this exhibition is that you are not supposed to leave these pictures
here. Take them home and share them with your friends.
To God’s name be the Glory.
Adrian J Pratt
