It has been a difficult and tumultuous Christmas marred by illness across the immediate and wider family. Some conditions have been newly diagnosed, others are ongoing, debilitating, worsening. Yet others – more mundane but nevertheless concerning – were short lived, seasonal, life-style-induced and inconvenient. We are sleep deprived, anxious and subdued.
The season of Advent gave no clues as to what was coming. Instead it focused as it should on the coming birth of Christ.
Illness has acted like C.S. Lewis’ ‘megaphone’ – rousing me in my deafness to hear God calling for my attention in the difficulties. Instead of escaping into the delights of a new novel over the break, I’ve been clinging in moments of snatched reading to the comforts offered in David Gibson’s The Lord of Psalm 23 which has, more than any book since Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly consoled me and given me courage as we’ve walked through this darker than usual valley.
Two quotations taken from the first chapter give a flavour of the tone and tenor of Gibson’s writing:
Whoever you are, and whatever you are experiencing today as you read these lines, there is nothing better to know in all the world than that the shepherd you belong to is the Lord of the burning bush who revealed his name to Moses. P 15
”The Lord is my shepherd” …is a portrait to communicate that the one at your side has matchless strength and indescribable power, which he is stooping to lend to your aid. P19
Gibson is at pains to press upon the reader that the Lord is his or her personal Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd. To understand this truly means that I can dare to believe that I shall not lack in life what I actually need as far as God is concerned however things may seem; because He is my constant forever companion, I don’t need to be frightened even if evil appears to be a very present and threatening reality; and knowing that God Himself is my attentive Host, taking care of all things, I can rest in the confident assurance that all will finally be well and I will never outstay my welcome in his house. I forget these things and, if I am properly honest with myself, I don’t always really, practically, functionally, emotionally believe them. This is because I so often want what is not in accordance with the Lord’s purpose for me. My desires, like wayward sheep, go astray and need to be re-attuned. Gibson reassures us:
As you read these lines, there are likely very many things in life you want. They may be good things to want or bad things to want or unwise things to want; but Psalm 23 teaches you there is nothing you need that Jesus will not supply. P39
The chapter headings of the book follow the Psalm’s own trajectory. Gibson thoroughly explains who this Shepherd Lord is, what He provides and where He leads. He describes the constant Companion who travels alongside teaching us where He is leading and what His rod and staff can do for us. We’re shown whom the Host welcomes and what it means for goodness and mercy to pursue him or her for the remainder of their days.
John’s gospel tells us that the sheep follow the Shepherd because they know His voice. Gibson’s book so closely follows the text of the Psalm and so faithfully and thoughtfully exposits its truths through the lens of Old Testament texts that I feel very safe in trusting him as a writer and as a voice to listen to. The book is entirely God and Christ-focused and written by a pastorally astute and sensitive theologian. He is widely read on the whole theme of the Good Shepherd and, as a result of this read, I have now added to my list the following:
James Rebanks’ The Shepherd’s Life
Harold S Kushner’s The Lord is My Shepherd
Kenneth Bailey’s The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament
and
W Phillip Keller’s A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.
Minne Louise Haskins’ poem, ‘God knows’ more popularly known as ‘The Gate of the Year’ and quoted in King George VI’s 1939 Christmas broadcast, is often cited at this time of year. It seems a fitting way to end this blog to quote the poem here in full:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied:
‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
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