Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psalm 23:1

           This psalm might be the most well-known portion of the Old Testament. It is commonly read at funerals, quoted in greeting cards, and has been set to music. But to most, it is just a pretty poem that doesn’t fit the reality of their lives. It says, “I shall not want,” but they have plenty of wants: money, things, power, fame, pleasure, and if they do get those things they want even more; they are never satisfied.

          The problem is that most people can’t say, “The LORD is my shepherd.” To do so would be to admit that they were like sheep and they needed to follow someone who actually knew the way. The prophet Isaiah nailed it: “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). A sheep that won’t follow the shepherd always gets lost, even if the shepherd brings it back to the fold. Sooner or later that sheep becomes wolf food. Sheep really can’t take care of themselves, especially the really dumb one who prides itself on its independence.  

        In 1868, Elizabeth Clephane wrote the following poem that later became a hymn: 
There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold;
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold.
Away on the mountains wild and bare;
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

           The next three stanzas describe how the Shepherd searches and suffers to find the sheep until it cries out for help. The last verse concludes:

And all through the mountains, thunder-riv’n,
And up from the rocky steep,
There arose a glad cry to the gate of heav’n,
“Rejoice! I have found My sheep!”
And the angels echoed around the throne,
“Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!”