Twenty third Psalm

His Rod and Staff Comfort Me

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“...I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.” Psalm 23:4b

I have often wondered exactly what this part of the Twenty-Third Psalm meant. Thinking back to my own childhood, a rod and staff were not a source of comfort, rather dread, because they were used by my parents to administer needed correction to me on occasion. But then I came the seventeenth chapter of Exodus. In this story, while the people of Israel were being led by Moses around the desert for forty years, they were thirsty. Deserts are not hospitable places. No one says, “Hey let’s go and hang out in the desert for a month!” As we might expect while the Israelites were there, they ran out water, and things were looking pretty bleak. But these folks had also experienced many major miracles. They had seen the Nile turning to blood, and the parting of the Red Sea. Yet, though they had seen God taking care of their needs time after time, they didn’t go to Moses asking, “What miracle will God do this time?” Instead, they showed up at his tent door shouting, “Did you lead us here to kill us all with thirst?”

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But God was patient, and instead of telling Moses to whack them over the head with his staff, he commanded him to strike a large rock. When Moses did that, suddenly fresh cool water poured out. Later on, when things began looking up, an enemy army showed up to attack them. During the battle, Moses took his staff, climbed a hill, and held it up. While he did that, Israel’s soldiers begin beating back their enemies, but when he was tired and his arms begin falling, they started losing, until his brothers came and held his hands up.

And then I thought that, just like those people, when we are in our dry places, God’s staff struck the rock at Calvary and from that source of Christ’s suffering, God refreshes our souls with mercy. And in our own desert journey when we find ourselves under attack God is not absent, He is watching over us, and lifting up the rod and staff of His Word over us. But, unlike Moses, God’s arms never grow tired. He never wearies, and no matter what we lack or are fighting, God promises to be with us. He comforts us with His rod and His staff and with His Spirit gives us victory over every enemy. Then, at the end of our journey He promises that those who are faithful to Him will be welcomed into His presence where His goodness and mercy will follow us for all eternity!

Psalm 22 before Psalm 23

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"My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Psalm 22:1a

Most people would agree that the most comforting Psalm in the Bible is the twenty-third Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.” Is a verse many of us have memorized. It is stitched on pillows, hung on walls and inscribed on the flyleaf of many a Bible. But before Psalm twenty-three, comes Psalm twenty-two, which begins with the terrible cry, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? The suffering of the psalmist is only second to his lack of understanding of why God could allow this to happen to him, and that cry is the one Jesus spoke while in the agony of death He struggled to breath on the cross. This, of all the things that Jesus said has always been the most puzzling to me. I know how terribly He suffered, and that the pain and agony of His crucifixion was more than I could ever bear. But as God’s Son, how could He ever think that He was abandoned? He knew what He was getting into from the moment of his birth, from the instant He was acclaimed by John the Baptist to be the Lamb of God, who had come to take away the sins of the world. But the sin was so heavy; it was heavier than even He fully understood until in HIs final moments. That is when He cried out with that terrible question, “Why have you…. You my God…forsaken me?” The answer is almost more puzzling than the question: He was abandoned for me and for you. Abandoned on the cross for a guilty thief, a centurion who had given the orders to drive nails through His feet and for disciples who had run away at HIs arrest. Crushed under the heaviness of the sins of the world He cried out, but then we must remember that there is more to the Psalm than its opening line. Those words were also a signpost that pointed to the last words,

"They shall come and declare His righteousness to a people yet unborn. that He has done it." 
Psalm 22:31

And then, after the closing of the door on the suffering of Jesus in Psalm twenty-two, the doorway opens for us to the comforts of Psalm Twenty-three. There, our suffering Savior, becomes our Good Shepherd. There, He leads us into green pastures, righteous paths and through even the valley of death to a banqueting table and the Father’s house where we will live forever! I pray that as you consider the depth of the suffering of Jesus for the gift He offers of forgiveness and eternal life that you will spend time with Him today worshipping and surrendering yourself to Him.

This is probably the most important message which I have shared this year. I encourage you to listen to all of it in this morning’s video and that it may bring you hope and comfort, whatever you are going through right now. May God bless and carry you through both now and always.

The Good Shepherd’s Staff

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment 
My Lord leads as a shepherd to deep meadows green
Then down gentle pathways to a still quiet stream
And when sin beckons, He tells me to walk
On the straight narrow way through the cleft in the rock

Then on through the valley of shadows and tears
His rod and His staff comfort all of my fears
No matter what dangers we find ahead
We'll feast at His table where a banquet is spread

Though I'm reminded of all I’ve done wrong
His goodness and mercy still follow along
For the Cross that He bore is the Good Shepherd’s staff
And the key to His home at the end of the path!


The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want 
Psalm 23:1 KJV

Peter Caligiuri
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