The Shepherd Who Walks Me Through the Dark Valley

King David had a palace and a crown
and servants to carry in his supper,
but he never forgot the smell of sheep.

Before anyone called him king,
he was the youngest boy in Jesse's family,
sent out to the hills with the flock.
He hooked them out of thornbushes with his long staff.
Once a lion came for a lamb, and once a bear,
and David ran at them with his shepherd's club,
pulled the lamb right out of the lion's mouth,
and killed them both.

(Sheep are not famous for good ideas.
They wander off, they get stuck, they panic at a rustle in the bushes.
Every sheep needs somebody watching.)

Now David was the one who needed watching.
He was a king with enemies,
and a man who had done a terrible wrong and been forgiven.
So he took up his harp and sang about the Shepherd
who had been watching him the whole time.

"The LORD is my shepherd.
I have everything I need.
He lets me lie down in green grass.
He leads me to still water, where it is safe to drink.
When I am worn out, he makes me strong again.
He walks me down the right paths,
so everyone can see how good he is."

Then the song went down into a valley,
a deep, narrow place between the hills
where the sun hardly reaches
and a shepherd has to walk in front.

"Even when I walk
through the valley as dark as death,
I will not be afraid of anything,
because you are with me.
Your club and your staff,
they comfort me."

(Listen to what David did just there.
All the way down the hill, he sang about God.
In the dark, he turned and sang to him.)

And then the song climbed up out of the valley
and straight into a party!

"You set a table for me
right where my enemies can see.
You pour oil on my head
like an honored guest.
My cup is so full it spills over!
Your goodness and your love
will chase after me every day of my life,
and I will live in the LORD's house
forever."

(The enemies have to stand there and watch him eat.
They do not get any.)

In the end David died, like every shepherd before him.
His song could walk a frightened heart through the dark,
but it could not walk anyone back out of death.

Long after David's family had lost the throne, God talked about sheep again, through the prophet Ezekiel:
"I myself will search for my sheep.
I will set one shepherd over them, my servant David."
(David had been dead a long time by then. God meant a new king from David's own family.)

God's people waited, and kept singing David's song.
Then at last another shepherd came.
He saw a crowd like sheep with no shepherd
and sat them down on the green grass to eat.
He set a table for his friends and passed them a cup
on the night his enemies came for him.

"I am the good shepherd," he said.
"The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
He walked down into the darkest valley there is, and he died.
On the third day he came back up out of it, alive.

That shepherd is Jesus,
and he still walks in front of his sheep,
all the way home to his Father's house.