The Good Shepherd
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
April 5, 2020
This week we’ll look at Psalm 74, a psalm of lament that comes after a tragedy—not a tragedy to one individual but to the whole community. The whole community feels the sting. As with other weeks, we’ll have a five-minute children’s sermon at the end of this message.
Scripture Reading
You can follow along with me as I read Psalm 74:1–3 and 22–23, and then I’ll pray that God would be our teacher as we study this passage together.
Psalm 74:1–3, 22–23
A Maskil of Asaph.
1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! . . .
22 Arise, O God, defend your cause;
remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!
Introduction
There’s a meme going around the internet about pastors and church services. A few of you even shared it directly with me. It’s of the late Chris Farley convulsing in excitement down what appears to be the aisle of a church. The caption says something like “every pastor on the first Sunday we are back in church.” I get it. I’m looking forward to being back with you and not filming in front of a live studio audience of six people.
For a moment, think with me about that first Sunday we come back together, whenever it’s allowed to happen. And rather than it being an exciting time, a time of rejoicing, it’s a time of weeping. I’ll explain.
It’s that Sunday morning at 7:45 am, and the worship team begins to arrive at the building, except there is no building. From the highway each member of the music team could smell the smell of fire in the air but didn’t think much about it. At midnight someone had entered the church, poured gasoline across the pews, and lit a match. Now, there is only ash. The worship team parks their cars and huddles together, confused. At 8:30, the greeters arrive. They too just stand and stare. Around 9 am, those coming to the first service arrive. A few think to themselves that it’s odd that there are no police officers or firemen or neighbors.
A father holding his young child points to where the stage used to be. His voice shakes as he says, “That’s where I was baptized.” Another person says, “This is where I became a Christian.” A wife grabs the hand of her husband and says, “This is where our marriage was healed and our children learned the gospel. And it’s gone.”
In most of our lifetimes, although not common, a number of minority churches have been burned to ashes. You think I’m referring to the ’50s and ’60s, and I am but also know that in the ’90s so many churches were burned that government passed the Church Arson Prevention Act in 1996, which President Clinton signed into law.
Back to our church. Around 11 am those coming to second service gather with the others. Then suddenly, as we are all here, from the houses around the neighborhood an army descends upon us, capturing men, women, and children. And we are taken not to Dauphin County Prison a few minutes from here but instead to somewhere in South America, a place we can’t identify. I know this is crazy, but stay with me for a minute. In exile, a few of our worship leaders gather together. Ben, Noah, Susan, and Matt, and they write a song. And they bring that song to all of us.
Here’s my question: what does that song sound like? Is the song in a major key or a minor key? What are the lyrics? What themes, what biblical motifs, what truths does the song contain? How does that hymn describe us? How does it describe God?
If all that happened, our song might sound a lot like Psalm 74. Because all of that did happen, only worse. Three times, the nation of Babylon attacked the nation of Israel, with the final and most devastating attack coming in 586 BC. King Nebuchadnezzar sent an army to besiege the city of Jerusalem, which strangles a city until they have no more resources, and they give up. And God’s people eventually give up after months and months and months of being strangled. And when they gave up, the army invaded, destroying the city and desecrating the temple. Huge portions of the population were exiled to Babylon. This is the dark, painful background of Psalm 74.
As a general rule, we are not good at lamenting. Maybe Israel wasn’t good at it either, which is why God inspired her poets and prophets, her worship leaders, to write nearly fifty hymns of lament so that not only they but all of God’s people throughout time could learn how better to seek the Lord when all around our soul gives way. Maybe these laments are there to help not only them but our fragile community call on God to arise. Let me briefly show ways this passage teaches us to be better lamenters.
1. Lamenting well requires honesty about our pain
First, we see that lament deals honestly with our pain. Look with me at vv. 4–7, 9–11.
4 Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
5 They were like those who swing axes
in a forest of trees.
6 And all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire;
they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it down to the ground.9 We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
We might phrase v. 11 differently. We don’t talk of hands folded garments. We might say, “God, why do you have your hands in your pockets and just sit around watching TV? Don’t you see what’s happening? Are you watching the news or informercials!”
Again, lamenting well requires honesty about our pain and predicament. To our detriment, we feel too great of a pull toward being positive and encouraging. When doctors run their tests and find a serious problem, we are not helped if they treat cancer with a few Advils. This psalm shows us how to be honest about our problems, how to name them to God. Have you lost your job? Have you had your business completely upended? Has your wedding changed dramatically? Do you have elderly loved ones in a home, and you can’t see them right now? Are you single and already feeling lonely, and now you’re going crazy in your house? Name the pain to God with unvarnished honesty.
2. Lamenting well requires community
Not only does lamenting well require honesty, we also see that it requires community. Look with me at vv. 1, 2a again.
1 O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation...
Note the plural nature of what’s said—us, congregation, and sheep. Here, sheep is a collective noun, meaning not one sheep but many. Whether misery loves company or not, the sheep have community. Us, congregation, sheep. Banded together in common, communal lament, they share not only the same tragedy but also the same convictions about God and the gospel. This is why we call Psalm 74 a communal psalm of lament.
I don’t know how good we are at this either—the sharing of the pain in our hearts with those who also share our struggles and our beliefs about God. Generally, I’d also say we are bad that this. But our church is named Community for a reason, as an aspiration and a goal. The community of God’s people is not for those who want a little more pep in their Christian life. Community is essential. And yet, here I am preaching to an empty sanctuary while we all watch maintaining social distance. Given that that can’t change, still we must find ways to connect with members of our church. As leaders, we want to foster that; we’re doing video conference meetings with small groups and Bible studies and we’ve added video Sunday school classes. But don’t wait for us. Help us.
3. Lamenting well means embracing our humility
We also see in this passage lamenting well means embracing our humility. Consider some of the details and metaphors used in the passage. In v. 1, the people call themselves sheep. It’s one thing for God to call himself a shepherd and us his sheep, and it’s another thing for us to call ourselves sheep. Sheep are not lions. Sheep have no claws, and everyone I’ve ever heard talk about farming sheep mentions how dumb sheep are, which wouldn’t have been lost on the first audience when they call themselves sheep. In v. 5, they speak of the enemies swinging an axe like someone who swings at trees in a forest. “God, I want to fight back, I want to be strong, but I know that I’m as defenseless as a tree to a chain saw,” we say. In v. 19 we pray that God would not let his doves be delivered to wild beasts. Again, something similar. Before the enemy, we are not strong and confident. We are like a tiny bird—not even a bird of prey—before wild beasts that would tear us to shreds.
I don’t think we lament well because of the humility required. We assume maturity means taking the posture of strength. I know I do. Imagine a small group leader—the leader of the group—sharing that he feels like God is distant, and he’s angry with God. Is that a group you could be in? Now, there is a certain spiritual health required for church leadership, but that’s not what I mean. I mean could a generally healthy leader share she is in a dark season, a time when she feels her prayers bounce off the ceiling? Could a Christian business leader confess that he has no answers? Could a mother share that she’s struggling to love her children? Could children share they just want their parents to stop fighting or they are sad their prom was canceled? A pastor is supposed to have all the answers and to know what to do when a pandemic strikes, but may I just say, I don’t know. We’ll try to do this and that, but no one here really has all the answers.
But for those who embrace humility, there is hope. God has set up salvation in such a way to exalt the humble. All we need is to acknowledge our need.
4. Lamenting well means making “the turn”
And this leads me to our last point. Lamenting well means making the “turn,” which is to say, lamenting well means affirming the Lord’s deeds and character and asking the Lord for help. Good lamenters, when we are biblical, are not simply “Debby Downers.” So someone says, “I just read that all this social distancing is helping. The curve really is flattening.” But Debby Downer says, “Yeah, but Costco is still out of toilet paper.”
Lamenting well means making the turn, which is to say, lamenting well requires not just being honest about our pain and humility but also affirming the Lord’s deeds and character and asking the Lord to help. Making the turn is done often in the psalms of lament, not by looking at the present circumstances, but by taking a wider look at God’s grace, the panoramic of where has worked in redemption. Look with me at vv. 12–17.
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
This hymn links God’s sovereignty over creation (day, night, summer, winter, streams, the boundaries of the continents, and scary monster-like animals) and God’s work of redemption when he saved his people from slavery in Egypt. These two things—rule over creation and salvation from Egypt—fit together because in the salvation from Egypt, God exercised ten plagues to show his power over creation for his glory and the good of his people. Behold the panoramic of God’s grace and power. God rules over even the scary, untamable parts of creation and enemies that feel as big as Egypt, and over a virus as scary to us as a giant squid was to the captain of small ship.
Lamenting well requires us to see God’s love for his people in his wider works of redemption. For Christians, this means that we see the love of the Good Shepherd in the gospel. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus said. “The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). We know God loves us not because we are married or have a job or have health, but that Jesus lived, died, rose, ascended, and promises to come again.
Conclusion
I want close by reading a paragraph from the famous book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He’s also the author of the Narnia series. Lewis writes,
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
That paragraph could land on us cheaply if we didn’t also know that the book Mere Christianity was originally a series of radio lectures that Lewis gave in England. And he gave them during World War II.
I don’t know all that God is doing now among us. But even when it hurts, we know Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and we are his sheep. Or to use another metaphor from the panoramic of redemption, we know that church is the new temple, which Jesus is renovating into a glorious palace where we will live where he also dwell.
