“The Shepherd Who Pursues”
Jesus, the Good Shepherd: Part 5
(Psalms 23:5-6 and Selected Scriptures)
The Greenhouse ~ 23rd Sunday after Trinity
Over the past four weeks we have been exploring the theme of Jesus, the Good Shepherd through one verse of Psalms 23 and its interrelationship with other Scriptures. As I read and studied the end of Psalms 23, however, I could not help but come back time and again to two images that occur in both verses: pursuit and presence.
In verse 5, the LORD prepares a table in the presence of the psalmist’s enemies. Then in verse 6, he writes that only (or, surely) goodness and faithful love will pursue him all his days, and he will dwell forever in the house of the LORD. In verse 5, his enemies pursue him, but in verse 6 the psalmist says that only goodness and faithful love pursue him. He announces a distinct change in his perspective of what pursues him.
Then the theme of presence. In verse 5, the table is prepared in the presence of his enemies, but the change in verse 6 is that the psalmist will dwell in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the Good Shepherd, forever. As I pondered these shifts, I decided it would be most beneficial to explore pursuit this week in both verses 5 and 6, and then next week explore presence also in both verses 5 and 6. Then, on Christ the King Sunday (11/26), we will conclude the series on Jesus, the Good Shepherd as we relate it to Christ as King.
Our focus, then, is on pursuit. Pursuit is a strange word in our cultural vocabulary. We use pursuit for a man honorably seeking after a relationship with a woman. He pursues her, we say, when he buys her flowers, writes her notes, takes her on dates, and asks for her hand in marriage. This pursuit is sweet, innocent, and often the plot of movies that bring warm feelings to many. But pursuit is also the word we use for police chasing after suspects. They pursue leads, tracking down the suspect, and when they find him and he takes off in his car, we call it a high-speed pursuit. Here we see justice in action, surely a good thing, but not as much the warm, fuzzy feeling of romance. Still further, we pursue careers, academic degrees, and new opportunities of various kinds. Finally, we recognize the dark reality of our world, and we find that many who seek to harm another pursue them as well.
In Psalms 23:5, we see the LORD prepare a table for the psalmist in the presence of his enemies. Though not explicitly called pursuit here, the parallels between verses 5 and 6 suggest to me these enemies’ pursuit of the psalmist in verse 5 are contrasted with the goodness and faithful love in verse 6. The enemies who pursue the psalmist don’t have blessing him in their minds.
We have talked before about how the Psalms, when collected and included in the Hebrew Bible, have a broader and more Messianic context than the original context alone. Hence, David is more the metaphorical future Messianic king than merely historical David. Nevertheless, it’s appropriate to see in Psalms 23, titled as being by or about David, something of David’s own story in this pursuit. Saul and his soldiers pursued David through the wilderness because Saul sought to kill David. David was fully aware of Saul’s murderous intent, and so he ran, hid, and moved repeatedly to avoid discovery. David certainly knows the feeling of being pursued by one’s enemies, and many of the psalms that bear his name speak of the intense fear, suffering, and anguish caused by such relentless pursuit. To be pursued by one’s enemies is a threat to one’s physical being, but the fear of being discovered at any moment keeps the psychological struggle at the forefront of one’s mind almost constantly.
But all the while that David, or we, are pursued by enemies, there is another pursuing us—the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one who is lost. He is the one, as we saw last week, who lays down His life for the sheep. Though evil may pursue us, our shepherd pursues us, too. And our shepherd, the psalmist beautifully reminds us, pursues us only with goodness and faithful love.
Sometimes I think we misunderstand God’s love for us. He does not love us passively, generally, impersonally. His love is not a thing floating around in the universe that we must find. God’s love is not something that we pursue, trying to earn it. We are not the neglected child, working tirelessly and desperately to receive a parent’s approval. Rather, He pursues us. He tracks us, His lost sheep, down to restore them to the protection and peace of the fold. He returns us to those green pastures and quiet waters. He comes looking for us. He pursues us. And He pursues us in goodness and faithful love. Though we are faithless, He is faithful, and surely, certainly, and only, His goodness and faithful love pursue us all the days of our life.
One of the struggles of this life is that we face the fears of evil pursuing us, both known evils and unknown evils. The darkest valleys of verse 4 don’t always go away. The promise that the shepherd is with us and protects us does comfort us. So, too, should the promise that goodness and faithful love pursue us all the days of our life bring comfort in times of fear. Paul’s words in Romans 8 prove a helpful reminder to us that we, who feel like sheep led to the slaughter, have been pursued and saved by the one who became the lamb led to the slaughter in our place. Paul writes:
35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The goodness and faithful love with which the Good Shepherd pursues us goes beyond our imaginations. It starts when He takes on flesh and dwells among us. He pursued us from heaven to earth. Then it continues as He seeks and calls out disciples. He pursues us, like them, in our lostness. It turns dark, when He pursues us to the cross, but then takes our place. He pursues His disciples after the resurrection, as they sit confused in a locked room. He pursues us even today in this same confusion and fear. He ascends to the Father, marking His enthronement as King, but even then He does not leave us—He pursues us by sending the Holy Spirit. Surely, certainly, without question, only goodness and faithful love pursue us from this Good Shepherd all the days of our lives. Amen.
Discussion Questions
How have you experienced the fear of pursuit from “enemies”?
How have you experienced the pursuit of goodness and faithful love?
Do you ever struggle to view God’s love as active rather than passive, as a pursuit on His part rather than striving on our part? What have you done in response? What do these passages perhaps teach us to do?
Feature Image Photo by Daniel Burka on Unsplash
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