Darkest Valley

Darkest Valley

Psalm 23:4

March 31, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

They’ve built a nice, new four-lane superhighway now, but the first time I went to Israel (1995), in order to get from Jericho to Jerusalem, you had to take a narrow, winding road through the mountains. It certainly gave us some geographical context for the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that takes place on a road just like the one we were traveling. It was easy to envision robbers hiding around every twist and turn along the road. This road was so narrow that, according to my friend who was sitting in the front seat at the time, every time we went around a curve, the front part of the bus was actually hanging out over the edge, over the valley. He said it was the ride of his life! Of course, those bus drivers have been up and down those roads so many times and know how to navigate them. But that didn’t mean we in the bus weren’t just a little fearful. There were times we thought we just might die.

And then we stopped about halfway up the mountain. There, we found a small overlook, and when we all were gathered, the guide pointed to the valley below and said, “This is the valley of the shadow of death.” He was, of course, referring to Psalm 23:4, where David talks about walking through such a valley; in the translation we read this morning, it’s called “the darkest valley,” and with good reason. The guide pointed out how, because of the way the hills are situated, the sunlight never makes it to the bottom of this valley. it’s always dark down there, and it was another good place for robbers and bandits to hide out. At the bottom of the valley, in the darkest place, a shepherd and his sheep could easily lose their lives.

This morning, we’re continuing to make our Lenten journey through the twenty-third psalm. For the last few weeks, we’ve been listening to these ancient words from David. (He probably wrote these words when he was older, remembering his life as a shepherd boy.) We’ve walked with him as he watched the sheep find a rhythm to life, and as he led them in good paths. From the good paths, from the righteous paths, now the trail leads us into the dark valley. I’ve said several times that people usually want to hear the words of this psalm at a funeral for a loved one. And while the earlier words are the ones we like to hear, these are the words we most need to hear at a time like that. As has been said, the true test of any faith is its ability to sustain you in the face of death.

There is a transition that takes place between verses 3 and 4, though we know the psalm so well we don’t even notice it. In verses 1-3, the psalmist is talking about God. “The Lord is my shepherd…He does this or that with and to me…he leads me along right paths.” But in verse 4, the psalmist begins talking to God rather than about God. If verses 1-3 are a sermon, verses 4-6 are a prayer. As we’ll see over the next couple of weeks, David turns to prayer when “the rubber meets the road,” when life gets really serious. In the second half of this psalm, we’re going to confront death, enemies and eternal life—it doesn’t get much more “real” than that! For times like those, we need a shepherd who is right there with us, not on the outer side of the sheepfold. And so David turns to prayer. David begins to talk to the friend who is closer than he can imagine (cf. Proverbs 18:24). As one author puts it, this is a conversation of “deep affection” (Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone, Part 1, pg. 75; Russell, The Psalms, Part I, pg. 104; Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, pg. 73).

One of the fascinating things about David’s prayer here is that he is not asking for anything. His prayer consists entirely of affirming what he knows to be true about his good shepherd. When is the last time you prayed a prayer in which you asked for absolutely nothing? Somewhere along the way, we get the idea that prayer’s primary purpose is asking for things, telling God what our needs are (as if he doesn’t know) and, even more importantly in the western Christianity we’ve grown up in, telling God how to fix the problem. When is the last time you prayed without asking for anything? Even while working on this sermon, I found it difficult to pray like that, but that’s what David does. He doesn’t ask God to do anything; instead, he affirms what he knows God has done and is going to do. This is a prayer of trust that is unlike the prayers we most often pray.

So what is it David trusts in? Two words: presence and power. That’s what David believes God will provide in the valley of the shadow: presence and power. And he believes that because, as he has said earlier, God is his shepherd, and as a shepherd boy, David had provided those two things for his sheep when they passed through the darkest valley. Presence and power.

Presence: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” You are with me. Notice David doesn’t say, “You lead me around the valley” or “You get me out of the valley.” No, instead, David celebrates that God goes through the valley with him. As a shepherd, David would have known that in order to get to the higher places, the safer places, you had to go through the valley (cf. Keller 76). That is a theme throughout the Bible—in order to find God’s best, you have to go through the valley and not around it. It may seem easier to somehow avoid the dark and difficult places, but if we do, we will never be the person God wants us to be. This was true for Israel in the Old Testament. To get to the Promised Land, they had to go through the wilderness. To get back to their homeland, they had to go through the Exile. The path God lays before us leads through the valley, not around it.

Jesus knew this to be true. That didn’t make it any easier, but he knew he had to go through the wilderness and the forty days of temptation by Satan in order to begin his ministry. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, he knew he had to go through the darkness to be able to save the world. There, kneeling in Gethsemane, he prayed in such a way that his sweat was like drops of blood (Luke tells us that, and remember Luke was a doctor): “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). We’re actually going to look at that prayer more in depth on Maundy Thursday, but here’s my paraphrase: “I don’t want to go through the valley! I don’t want to go to the cross!” He struggled with the darkness there in Gethsemane, and I believe in that night of prayer (only a few seconds of which is actually recorded in the Gospels), Jesus remembered all the times the Father had assured him he was not forsaken. Now, I know Jesus is God and I’m not denying that at all here, but in some way I don’t understand, the Son was struggling with the Father as he confronted the valley of the shadow. And when the prayer was over, Jesus could say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” How could he say that? Because he knew the Father’s presence, just like David did in the darkest valley. And because the Father was with him, he could go through the valley.

Even in the face of death itself, God’s presence allows us to move forward without fear. Death is the ultimate dark valley, the one we have to go through and cannot go around. In my nearly 26 years as a pastor, I have officiated or helped at 172 funerals, and I always consider it an honor to do so. I really mean that. Not only is it fulfilling to celebrate a life well lived, it is also a high calling to help people navigate the dark valleys of grief and loss. A few times I have been privileged to sit with or beside persons who were dying, or the families of those who are near death, and while I would never say I “look forward” to such times, I am always encouraged by the way a person’s faith makes a difference in the way they die. John Wesley said, “Methodists die well,” meaning that the hope we have in Jesus causes us to know that death is only a transition to what God has for us next. I’ve seen that lived out over and over again. I’ve stood by 172 caskets and gravesides and attended many other funerals, and I can always tell when a person has trusted in Christ because the funeral is infused with hope. As I said earlier, the true test of any faith is how well it sustains us in the face of death, and I’ve watched as people moved forward in faith and I’ve watched as people could barely leave the casket behind. What we proclaim in this place is a hope beyond this life. We believe there is more than what we see around us. Quoting Frederick Buechner, we say it this way around here: “The worst thing is never the last thing.” And we know this to be true because the shepherd comes along and promises never to leave us or forsake us, not even we’re walking through the darkest valley (cf. Deuteronomy 31:6).

One of the reasons shepherds lead their sheep through the valleys, even the dark valleys, is because those are the well watered routes. In the Judean wilderness, the barren hills are cut with what are called “wadis” or dry streambeds. These valleys are, for most of the year, full of sand and dirt, but during the brief rainy season, those wadis can fill up with water and become destructive as the water rushes down the hillside. It’s the water that cuts out the valleys, and it’s that water that makes them green and provides food to nourish the sheep as they walk through. We walked up one of those wadis when we were in Israel several years ago, at a place called En Gedi, and it was hot and treacherous, until we got to the end of the valley. There we found a waterfall and a lush, green place of rest, right there in the midst of the desert. The water was cool and we put our feet in to rest a while. Every analogy breaks down, but I think the parallel is striking. When we have to walk in the darkest valley, we discover many have come before us down this valley, and we discover the water of God’s Spirit flowing. At the end, we will discover paradise and a place to rest, even if it’s a rough journey getting there. Still, all along the journey, God’s presence goes with us (cf. Keller 78). “I will fear no evil,” not even death itself, “for you are with me” (23:4a).

Presence. And power. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” David says (23:4b). During the dry season, shepherds could be away from home with their flocks for a long period of time as they tried to find better pastures for the flocks to eat. Because of that, they tended to take minimal equipment with them. The most basic of that equipment would be a rod and a staff. The rod would have probably been carved by the shepherd himself from a young sapling, smoothed down into the shape of what we might call a club. The rod, or club, is the sign of the shepherd’s power and authority; it was really the only weapon an ancient shepherd might carry. It was the means of defense, the way the shepherd protected the flock from predators and thieves. So when David, before his famous battle with Goliath, tells King Saul that he has killed lions and bears, he’s talking about doing that with his rod. Listen to how he brags to King Saul: “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck and killed it” (1 Samuel 17:34-35). The rod was for defense and protection.

The staff served a very different purpose. A staff probably is what most people think of when you picture a shepherd—a long walking stick with a curved top. You may have seen church officials carrying one, usually bishops. Our bishop will walk with one during the ordination service at Annual Conference this summer. But the staff served more than an identifying or ornamental purpose for a shepherd out in the desert. It is an instrument of care and compassion. A shepherd will use the hook on the end to pick up a small lamb and bring it to its mother; this reduces the risk that the mother might reject the lamb were she to catch the shepherd’s scent on the newborn. A shepherd uses the staff to bring the sheep together, to herd them into the sheepfold or into a particular area or to guide them along a particular path. And a staff can be used for rescue. Phillip Keller tells how he found some of his sheep in precarious or dangerous positions because they had overextended themselves, reaching for one more tuft of grass, and they fell down a hillside, onto a cliff or even into the sea. When those things happen, the shepherd can use the long staff to “catch” the sheep and lift him back up to the flock. A staff can help a sheep get out of danger. The staff speaks of compassion, and when connected to God the shepherd, it reminds us that God is long-suffering and kind (cf. Keller 93-97).

Do you begin to see why the rod and the staff are considered “comforting” to one who is passing through the darkest valley? The rod reminds the sheep (you and me) that the shepherd (God) is always on alert, watching out for dangers, for things or situations that might threaten us. And the staff reminds the sheep (you and me) that even when we get into trouble, even when we face death itself, the shepherd is there to rescue us. The rod and the staff remind us once again that the worst thing is never the last thing. They remind us that God is defending his sheep, protecting his flock. The Bible uses all sorts of images to remind us of that; one of my favorite is from the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah. He says it this way: “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). Some of us may have grown up with this idea that God is mad at you, that he’s just waiting for you to mess up so he can zap you. But Zephaniah and other Biblical writers remind us that God rejoices over us. He sings over us. He saves us. He defends us. He protects us. He is a good shepherd, a good, good father (as we sometimes sing). Does that sound like someone who is eternally mad at you? Certainly, God takes sin seriously, but his deepest desire is to be with us, and he will do anything, including sending his own son to live and die for us, so that he can be with us. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Now, I want to come back to something I mentioned earlier: God’s promise of protection and power is not a guarantee against calamity. Let’s be honest: bad things happen. We can do all the right things, live the best we can, and we still might get sick. Someone we love might get cancer. There’s an automobile accident, a fire, a robbery. Life happens, and because we live in a fallen world, bad things happen. The good life does not offer a “God guarantee” against anything bad happening. The good life is not the same as “the easy life.” The good life, David reminds us over and over again in this psalm, is a life lived with God, not apart from God. God does not promise us an easy walk on a green lawn. Instead, God promises to be with us through it all. I mean, if anyone should have had what we tend to call a “blessed life,” by which we usually mean a life free from trouble, wouldn’t you think it would have been Jesus? If anyone should have had their prayers answered, wouldn’t it have been the Son of God? Remember, Jesus prayed to be able to avoid the cross. And yet, Jesus was hated, spoken badly of, beaten, ridiculed, and ultimately nailed to a cross. But he knew the truth of what we have been saying: the worst thing is never the last thing. He knew even the cross was not the end. The author of Hebrews says Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before him” (cf. Hebrews 12:2). The cross was not a time or place of joy, but Jesus knew that the cross would accomplish so much more than his own death. The cross would bring about the salvation of the world. And he knew that on the other side of the cross was resurrection. You can’t have resurrection without death. You can’t have Easter without Good Friday. And we can’t know the joy of the green meadow if we’ve not walked through the darkest valley. God does not promise us an easy life. He promises us a good life, a life filled with his presence and power, even (especially) in the valley of the shadow of death. When we wonder why life is hard, maybe we need to hear these words from C. S. Lewis, a man who struggled with that himself: “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

Let’s be even more real: all of us will face the reality of death in one way or another. When I was younger, I honestly didn’t think about it much other than the times when I had to call on someone at a funeral home or officiate a funeral. But as I grow older, I’ve had friends and even seminary classmates who have passed away. There have been people my own age who have gone home to be with Jesus, and I’ve faced my own mortality both times I had open heart surgery. We live with and face the reality of death more than we realize, because death is a part of life. The question for us is how we will face it. Will we despair, as did the woman I remember who had to be pried away from her husband’s casket? Or will we face it with hope, as people who know the worst thing is never the last thing? Again: the true test of our faith is how it sustains us in the face of death. When we walk through the darkest valley, God promises his presence and his power. He will walk with us in the midst of the darkness and, in the end, he will bring us home.

John Paul Jones was already retired from full-time ministry when I arrived at my first church, but since he and his wife Mary had settled in Muncie, John Paul had come on staff part-time at High Street, mainly to do visitation. One of the highlights in my memory of every Tuesday morning’s pastoral staff meeting was listening to and learning from John Paul. After I had been there about a year, John Paul started feeling tired, and in the midst of his second retirement, he got sick. One Thursday evening, I got a call that John Paul was being rushed in for emergency surgery, and so I hurried over to Ball Memorial. All of the other pastors were occupied, so they called the youth pastor! But I will always treasure that time, because I got to talk with and pray with John Paul, and as much as I valued those Tuesday mornings, I valued that Thursday night even more because as a young pastor I got to learn how a Christian faces death. John Paul did not know what the outcome of that night would be, but he had every confidence that the Savior he had loved and served all of his life would guide him through. The other two pastors arrived just about the time they were taking John Paul off to surgery, and he looked all of us in the eye—colleagues, but more importantly, brothers—and with a twinkle in his eye, he repeated the last words of John Wesley: “The best of all is, God is with us.” John Paul did make it through the surgery, but he never woke up again. Those were the last words he said to us, and two weeks later he went home to be with Jesus. John Paul taught me the truth of these words and he showed me the way to live them out: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Let’s pray.