In Genesis 1 darkness covered everything that existed, darkness so totally impenetrable that no light provided even a pinpoint of orientation for a stable, reliable point from which to do anything. Then a voice cut through the darkness: “let there be light.” And light appeared.
Sometimes we open up our eyes in the midst of life’s struggles, and everything appears to be dark, foreboding. Our world is reduced to a series of risking false steps in every direction, stumbling over that which the darkness obscures, tripping over countless little traps that the devil sets to ensnare us and lead us down a false path. We are lost, whether in a valley or on a mountain, and all the bravado in the world runs out and we realize that we do not know where to go. We are helpless and scared and have to admit that for all our earlier boasting, trust in our own perceptions and wisdom, we are in big trouble. Whether one kind of danger or a dozen, we do not know which way to turn and feel helpless. We recognize our own weakness and are scared, sometimes even filled with terror and the possibilities of the snake pits into which we could tumble. Or sometimes we have enough resources to divert our attention from the intensity of the darkness and just grab ourselves enough that we can control.
A friend of mine grew up in a jungle village in a southeast Asian country. He remembers as a small boy wandering into the jungle not from his home, losing his orientation and wondering if he was lost forever. Then his mother’s voice floated through leaves and vines. It was a voice he knew. It was a voice he had heard many times. It was a voice that he knew he could trust. It was a voice that carried and deposited peace.
So, it is with us in the midst of the blinding darkness that our own sin or evil inflicted by others can drape over us. Even when we think that we can perceive—we hope accurately but we know still in blurry fashion—figures and elements that can shape our future, we are still uncertain, confused, questioning our own judgment, seeking some voice to provide us with what we need to know to find our own through the dimming shadows of the world around us. Then comes the voice of the Shepherd, as if out of nowhere. In the midst of all the traps and snares, all the bottomless pits that loom up before us and all the tiny occasions to stumble and fall flat on our faces in the midst of the mire, there comes a voice that conveys the light of Eden. This voice that creates the new life of a child of God right there in the thick of the darkness.
For this is the voice of the shepherd who shields me by dying for me. He has shared the worst of human life, including the weight of realizing that God had forsaken him as the representative of sinners.
My sense of the darkness and oppression from any and all my fears he has taken into himself. By laying down his life, he gave me a new life, as God’s beloved child.
As in Eden, the dawn broke in my baptism, and new life filled the person who had been born into the realm of darkness, fear, danger, and helplessness.
And so on this day the dawn breaks again, and the light shines on the Shepherd, who has come to stand by his lamb, pouring out the light that reveals the way on which I am to go, the truth that guides me as I go, and the life, for his resurrected life was given to me in my baptism. This life is listening to the voice of the shepherd, and therefore it ventures into the challenges of life in full confidence that my footing is sound because he is Way, that my orientation is correct because he is the Truth, that my existence will dwell forever in his light since he is my life.
What a welcome voice! Its tender tenor sets me at ease, and the reliability of Jesus, who personifies faithfulness and trustworthiness is the only voice that can call me to true life lived in the light of his truth, the only voice that embraces me with the warmth of his love.
The Bible is full of allusions to God as the shepherd of Israel, who protected his people and provided for them in the wilderness and in exile. The New Testament writers made rich use of metaphors from the image of a shepherd to describe aspects of what our Lord has done for us, as the one who has laid down his life for his sheep. Christians have often used Psalm 23 to describe what Jesus’s presence affects in our lives. At its end the song celebrates the Shepherd who knows his sheep, just as they know him, the knowing of another person that unites us with them in bonds of love. Just as the psalmist describes the Lord as the shepherd who has led his people through the valley of shadow of death, he confessed that the Shepherd brings his people to the refreshing, renewing water, having brought us through all the darkness and fear, having lifted us from every stumbling block over which we have tripped and hauled us out of every pit into which we have tumbled.
When the darkness again on this day casts its shadow and we just do not have a clue as to which way we should go, there is a voice that pieces the darkness. It is the voice of the Shepherd, and because he has claimed me as a part of his flock, I know him, for he has known me first. Thus, I am confident he is the Path, that his voice tells me what is really the Truth, and that he has laid down his life so that he might renew my life as the Father’s child. This is a voice for us all to heed and trust.
Robert Kolb
PhD, University of Wisconsin
Robert Kolb is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.