You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. – Psalm 77:20

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 26.2016): Psalm 77

The opening line of Rudyard Kipling’s “If” starts by asking this question, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you …” Of course, the answer to the question, and all of the other questions in between, doesn’t come until the very last line of the Kipling poem; according to the poet then “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!” Some enterprising person either disagreed with Kipling or simply couldn’t wait for the poets answer to the question and so they took it upon themselves to answer Kipling query this way – “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you - then you truly don’t understand the situation.”

Okay, I found the answer amusing, but probably Kipling’s answer is closer to the truth, or at least it is what we need to believe that can be true. Life doesn’t come at us at a measured rate. Yet we need those people who can keep their heads while everyone else is losing theirs because in the heat of the moment we need that kind of competence to get us through to the other side of the chaos.

The Psalmist makes an incredible transition from the storm to peace, from hate to love, and from chaos to order with this simple conclusion to his psalm. The discomfort of the Psalmist throughout the Psalm is suddenly relieved. And the Psalmist remembers back to the day when the troubler of Egypt became the shepherd of Israel. It was that Shepherd that was exactly what Israel needed in the present time.

From the point of view of the sheep, it must seem that in times of trouble the shepherd doesn’t truly grasp the situation. But the shepherd sees and he knows. And even when the unexpected happens, he has a plan. And so the sheep learn to trust and follow the one who is leading them - because to rebel against the shepherd would mean condemning yourself to the very chaos that the sheep can't understand.

God had been the shepherd all through the existence of the nation. And he had raised up others who were willing to trust the shepherd and who agreed to lead the sheep even in times of chaos. At first, it was Moses and Aaron, and the undefeatable Egyptian army and the unpassable Red Sea. Then it was Joshua and the move from comfort to a land flowing with milk and honey, but also a land inhabited by Giants. Others followed including people, like Gideon, who had simply decided to trust God and lead the sheep. God had raised up David and had led him.

And for the Palmist, that was enough. God, who had been the shepherd of his people in the past, would be again in the present. Yes, as sheep all that the Psalmist could see was chaos and pain, but that was because he wasn’t the shepherd. Maybe the psalmist would have rewritten the opening words of Kipling’s “If” this way. “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you …then you must be holding the hand of Shepherd who exists above the chaos.”

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 78