One Tough Shepherd
Psalm 23
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 26, 2026
The number of insane killings have amped up in the last few weeks. Neighbors are shooting neighbors. People are shot for knocking on the wrong door, turning in the wrong drive way. One of these is an anomality, but three in week may be a sign of building pressure and stress in people. What’s wrong? Is it really a mental condition? Will positive thinking and superficial group therapy sermons help us now? I think we need something stronger. My suggestion one tough shepherd.
Sometimes we walk in the dark places: “Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” When it is dark, do you turn to the shepherd?
Jesus knew shepherds had to be tough. Jesus says, “The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.” When the danger comes, only the true shepherd stays to defend the sheep.
If you are thinking of shepherds as innocents working the midnight shift, lying around on the grass taking care of sheep, you need to think again. In the Bible, shepherds take on the beasts – literal and symbolic. I’m taking a rhetorical risk in this sermon – I’m using some really huge metaphors and metaphors are challenging in our literal culture. Yet John tells us that Jesus had the same problem with his disciples. You can read it there in the gospel lesson: “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”
We are in a struggle – a conflict that engages the forces of the universe – and we need some powerful people by our side. We need some shepherds who have fought with bears, wolves, tigers, and leopards.
Let’s concentrate our biblical imaginations on two ways of dealing with a beast-king. All around you there are church people who have surrendered to the beast kings of greed, materialism, conformity, and secularism. They, as sheep tend to do, have wandered off. Isaiah has the perfect description of our people: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.” Gone and turned suggests a passive inattention. We just didn’t notice that we were lost and then we were so far from home we couldn’t find the way back. The secular culture is leading too many astray.
As your pastor, I am supposed to be your shepherd. The Lord has laid that job on me, and pastors are called shepherds in the Bible. But there are false shepherds among the flock. The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: To the shepherds—thus says the Lord God: Woe, you shepherds of Israel: You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.
I want to take on the beasts of the night on your behalf. I want to fight for you and for your faithfulness to God. I want to be here for you when you need strength, courage, and someone to go to war for you. I got your back. This is my chosen profession. I am not the good shepherd, but I am your shepherd. I belong to the tribe of shepherds whose job it is to beat back secularity and bad philosophy and bogus ideas.
Moses was a shepherd. He takes on Pharaoh, first of a long line of what can only be called beast-kings. This story is so deep in our history that Jesus is presented in Matthew’s gospel as the new Moses. Moses had that staff – the rod of God. Never take your eye off that rod! Waters part and waters gush when that rod swings in the air. Amazing and powerful actions come from that rod. Harry Potter’s wand would be jealous. No wonder the 23rd insists, “Thy rod and thy staff” they comfort me.
One day, when the people were rebelling against God, when God seemed ready to destroy them, Moses argued with God. Moses says, “If you won’t forgive them, don’t make an exception for me; blot my name out of your book as well.” There’s a country song that has always moved me. It’s called “Don’t take the girl.” The last stanza of the song is the one that gets to me every time.
David was a shepherd. He became king. And he was Israel’s most powerful king. David did not always do what was right in God’s eyes, but he never stopped loving the Lord. He never stopped loving his people. One day, when David saw the angel who was destroying the people, he said to the Lord, “I alone have sinned, and I, the shepherd, have done evil, but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father’s house.” 2 Sam. 24:17. David asked God to spare the people and take him instead. Look at a biblical description of an actual shepherd: David gave Saul his resume. We read it in Scripture: “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. 36 Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 David said, “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” Now, that’s a shepherd!
And then there’s the Good Shepherd. His name is Jesus. Again, Isaiah 53 reminds us that Jesus willingly accepted his role as protector of the people – all the people. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
“The Lord is my shepherd.” There’s power in those words. There’s reassuring power in the image because at some point life is about power. Jesus reclaims the shepherd as protector and defender. Who needs a shepherd? That would be us Lord, with our restless, anxious spirits, standing in the need of prayer. That would be us Lord standing here lost and confused, bewildered and scared. That would be us Lord standing here thinking there will not be enough for everyone when we live in the richest nation in the world.
Same old boy, same sweet girl
Five years down the road
There’s gonna be a little one and she
Says it’s time to go
Doctor says the baby’s fine
But you’ll have to leave
‘Cause his momma’s fading fast and, Johnny hit his knees
And there he prayed
Take the very, breath you gave me
Take the heart from my chest
I’ll gladly take her place if you’ll let me
Make this my last request
Take me out of this world
God please, don’t take the girl.
I promise you that I will be there when you call when you need me. I am your shepherd. You may not ever need me, or think of calling me, but if you are between a rock and a hard place, call me. I will go with you and face the darkness and the trouble. I will pray with you and listen to you. And as part of the EFC flock, you too are shepherds to one another. We have all the resources we need to carry out our mission. Let’s do it.