8/24/22
Well, I thought I had won. Over the past couple of years, because of both my church work and my volunteer work, I know for a fact I’ve been exposed to Covid many times and never caught it. But it finally got me! No clue where I picked it up, but no one that I’ve spent any time with has come down with it. . . so who knows when and where I caught it!
I’m thankful that it’s not been that bad. A little fever, a few body aches, some congestion. The biggest thing has been fatigue and a foggy brain that can’t seem to focus on anything for any length of time.
So, this Pastor’s Note will be short!
I memorized Psalm 23 in the first grade - King James, of course. But in the ensuing 54 years, there was something I missed until this week, even with Covid brain! So, when reading the Psalms, don’t get in a big hurry. Even the most familiar of Psalms can still surprise us.
This psalm is one of the shorter psalms, only having six verses. Each verse is made up of two or three phrases: “the Lord is my shepherd/I shall not want” or “he restoreth my soul/he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness/for his name’s sake.” The phrases are a little hard to pick out sometimes, but in Psalm 23, there are 21 of them. Most modern translations print them with the second half of the verse slightly indented so this can be spotted more easily. In Hebrew, there are only 55 words (Hebrew is more compact that English is, for example, “the valley of the shadow of death” is only 2 words in Hebrew).
The very middle of the psalm (with 10 phrases before it and 10 phrases after it, 26 Hebrew words before it and 26 Hebrew words after it) is the central message of the psalm, three little words in Hebrew, 5 in English: “For thou art with me.”
And notice, there’s a shift in the way the psalmist addresses God. Up to this point, the psalmist has spoken of God in third person: “The Lord is my shepherd . . . he maketh me . . . he restoreth . . .” But now, for the rest of the psalm, David refers to God in second person: “for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me, thou preparest a table . . .” It’s a very familiar “you” that I’ll write about next week.
So the central message of Psalm 23 is that God is always with us. No matter what we face, God is by our side. God doesn’t send us through the valley of the shadow of death with a cheery promise to meet us on the other side! No, God promises to walk with us all the way - “for thou art with me.” The central message of the psalm is the same as the central phrase and the central words, giving us the assurance that no matter what we face in life, we do not face it alone.
That goes for Covid, for back surgery, for safety in travel, for challenges at school or work - no matter what.
“For thou art with me.”
Blessings,
Pastor Terry