“The Lord Is My Shepherd”
Psalm 23:1

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Ash Wednesday—March 1, 2017

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We begin this evening our sermon series for Lent, “A Lenten Look at Psalm 23.”

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  Many of us could go on and recite all of Psalm 23 from memory, because it is one of the most well-known and beloved portions of Scripture.  I recently heard a World War II veteran on a television show say that as a young soldier while being bombed, “I’d just said the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, over, and over, and over again.”

Tradition says this beautiful poem was written nearly 3,000 years ago by King David, who was himself a shepherd.  These words have stood the test of time, and their beauty and majesty still inspire and comfort us today.

“The Lord is my shepherd.”  A good shepherd who lovingly tends his sheep was a favorite image in the art and literature of the ancient world.  In addition to the Bible, the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and other ancient cultures all used this image of a good shepherd as a symbol for a loving guardian and protector.

In the Old Testament, Jacob describes the Lord as “the Shepherd . . . of Israel.”  Joseph says, “God has been my shepherd all my life to this day.”  Jeremiah says, “He will watch over his flock like a shepherd.”  Isaiah says, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”  The Lord says in this evening’s Old Testament Reading from Ezekiel, “As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. . .  I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.”  And Micah prophesies the coming of THE Good Shepherd, the Messiah: “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.  And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.  And he will be their peace.”

One of the many things this image tells you—of the Lord as your shepherd, and you as his sheep—is that you belong to the Lord because he paid for you a high price.  Sheep were very valuable and expensive animals in the ancient world.  Like buffalo for Native Americans and whale for Eskimos, in Bible times sheep were the mainstay of life.  Sheep provided food to eat and milk to drink.  It was sheep’s wool that gave the people clothes to wear and even tents to live in.  Sheep were so valuable they were often used in place of money.  Many ancient contracts give the purchase price not in terms of money but as so many head of sheep.

When working as an archaeologist in Jordan, I was quite surprised that the shepherding nomads who lived in tents actually drove very expensive Mercedes Benz vehicles.  A more experienced archaeologist explained that many of these nomads actually were extremely wealthy, some of the wealthiest people in the country.  “Just look at all those sheep,” he said.  “That’s better than a Swiss bank account.”

“The Lord is my shepherd.”  It cost the Lord dearly to make you his own.  You belong to the Lord because your Good Shepherd paid for you the highest price, as Peter says, “It was not with silver or gold that you were redeemed, but with the precious blood of Christ.” 

Matthew says, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Jesus looked down on us from heaven and had compassion on us, because we were “like sheep without a shepherd,” or as Isaiah says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.”  Then Isaiah tells us the purchase price our Good Shepherd paid for us: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.  The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed . . . for the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

 Jesus declares in this evening’s Gospel Reading, “I am the Good Shepherd . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

The slogan of the Hallmark greeting card company in Kansas City is, “When you care enough to send the very best.”   Your heavenly Father cared so much for you, his beloved lamb, that he sent the very best, his own Son, to be your Good Shepherd. 

“Therefore Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, I am the Door for the sheep.  All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the Door; whoever enters through me will be saved.’”

Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, “[He] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death, that I may be his own.”

As Luther says, the Lord is your shepherd and you are his own, his precious sheep, because your Good Shepherd laid down his life for you, he purchased you with his own blood.  As Peter says in this evening’s Epistle Reading, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree . . . by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

“You are not your own,” Paul says in 1st Corinthians. “you were bought at a price.”  That is why you can proclaim with confidence and joy: “The Lord is my shepherd!  He cares about me!  He loves me!  He loves me so much that he paid for me the highest price.  The Lord is my shepherd!”