Setting the Table

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  (Pslam 23:5)

In his book, "God's Psychiatry," Charles Allen states:  "In the pastures of the Holy Land grew poisonous plants which were fatal to the sheep if eaten.  Also, there were plants whose sharp thorns would penetrate the soft noses of the sheep and cause ugly sores.  Each spring the shepherd would take his mattock and dig out these enemies of the sheep, pile them up, and burn them.  Thus the pastures were safe for the sheep to graze.  The pasture became, as it were, a table prepared.  The enemies were destroyed."

It's difficult for us to recognize the table God has prepared for us in the presence of numerous enemies in this world, but we can begin to understand it by thinking of the role of parenting.  From "baby-proofing" our cabinets, to forbidding the viewing of certain TV programs, to insisting on knowing who our teenagers are with at all times, we who are parents are keenly aware of the enemies that threaten our children.  Nothing terrifies or motivates us more than protecting our kids from all manner of evil-doing and evil-doers in their midst.

As the shepherd demonstrates, "preparing the table" for the flock takes effort and vigilence.  Just as the sheep are clueless as to all the shepherd does to protect them, so too are our children clueless about how and why we parents behave the way we do on their behalf.  But perhaps most striking of all, we as God's children are abudantly clueless as to the protection God affords us daily.

While God prepares a table for us, He also promised that we would experience pain and difficulty in life.  But what He also promised is that He would never abandon us in our pain.  Charles Allen continues:  "Sometimes, as the sheep grazed, its head would be cut by the sharp edge of a stone buried in the grass.  So the shepherd would stand at the door of the fold and examine each sheep as it came in.  If there were hurt places the shepherd would apply soothing and healing oil.  Instead of becoming infected, the hurt would soon heal.  Also, the shepherd had a large, earthen jug of water, the kind of jar which kept the water refreshingly cool through evaporation.  As the sheep came in, the shepherd would dip down into the water with his big cup and bring it up brimful.  The sheep drank deeply."

Among the many emotionally moving scenes in the movie "The Passion of the Christ," perhaps the most emotional for me was the scene in which Jesus' mother, walking alongside her son on the march to His death, flashes back to Jesus as a child.  In the flashback, Jesus the boy falls along a rocky hill, scraping His knee.  Mary rushes to His side to comfort Him, as only a mother can.  Back to the present, Mary realizes in anguish that she cannot soothe her Son through what He is about to face.

Life is hard - exceedingly hard at times.  The Psalmist David reminds us that like the shepherd, God knows each of us by name, He knows all our hurts, and He has the perfect remedy to heal and refresh our weary souls:  the blood of His perfect Son.  With Jesus as our Shepherd, we can rest assured that we will never be abandoned in our hurt. 

The table has been set and the cup of Christ never runs dry.  Praise God.