Psalm 23 ¹ The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. ² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. ³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. ⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. ⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 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 ever.

Martin Luther once commented on the opening verse of Psalm 23, “It seems to reason that on earth there are no poorer, more miserable, and unhappier people than those very Christians. … It appears outwardly that the Christians are scattered sheep, forsaken by God, already handed over to the jaws of the wolves—sheep who lack nothing except everything…”

My autistic son Aaron was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma a little over twenty years ago. The tumor our doctor discovered in his chest was so large it was threatening to cut off his wind. The oncology doctors felt it was urgent to take a bone-marrow sample immediately so that they could identify the cancer and get started with chemotherapy. Unfortunately, Aaron had just eaten lunch. He could not receive anesthesia. The doctors would have to drill into his hip for the sample while we restrained him. As they did so, Aaron, who was about 10 years old, kept crying, “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you torturing me?”

How would you have answered him? The answer was simple, really. “We are doing this to save you.” But how do you explain that to an autistic little boy?

I think there is an answer in there to our own “why” questions, when it seems that the Lord is allowing all kinds of harmful things into our lives. “I am doing this to save you,” he says, “or your loved ones, or other people touched by your life. It’s complicated how this all works together. You probably wouldn’t understand why it has to be this way. But I am asking you to trust me. I am asking you to listen to my promises, and believe that they are true.”

The opening verses of the Twenty-third Psalm are a calming, comforting picture of a Shepherd’s love and care for his sheep. It sounds like a vacation, an escape, some far off future retreat, or even heaven. In the movies when it isn’t all puffy clouds and cherubs, heaven so often looks a little like the picture here: lush green fields laid across rolling hills with a gentle brook winding through.

But these words don’t first begin to describe life when we take our last breath in this world and open our eyes in the next. This is for as long as we know our Savior. “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am humble and gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The love that unburdens our hearts of our sins and replaces them with God’s peace doesn’t start in the future. For those who believe, it is life every day.

It is that love that allows us to know that we are safe, even in the face of death. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Notice that David does not say in the Psalm, “I will fear no evil for nothing bad will ever happen to me” or “I will not die.” He says, “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” We are safe because we face neither life nor death alone. Holding our hand is someone who knows a little something about death himself. Jesus died the death of the whole world when he gave his life on the cross. Jesus knows a little something about death…and life on the other side.

Now he promises, “I am with you.” Sometimes, when death starts to cast its long shadow over us, he takes our hand and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. I am the conqueror of death. I give life and take it away. It is not your time yet. You are safe with me.” Sometimes he takes our hand and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am going to walk you through this door. I have made death the gate to a fantastically new and better life. You are safe with me.”

Life with this Savior is a blessed life. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Even surrounded by our enemies, our Lord gives us good things. And once our cup of life, which has more than its share of pain and danger, has been cast into the ocean of God’s grace and love, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” We come home. Surely, that is a blessed life.

After raising his questions about the promises of this Psalm, Luther brought his readers around. “Therefore, I say, do not in this matter follow the world and your reason. People… consider the prophet to be a liar when he says, ‘I shall not want,’ because they judge according to outward appearance. But, as we said previously, stick to God’s Word and promise, listen to your shepherd, how and what he speaks to you, and follow his voice, not what your eyes see and your heart feels. In this way you have conquered.”