The following is the first full sermon I ever wrote. I preached it on April 26, 2015. Don’t let it being my “first” scare you though – this is actually a piece I’m quite proud of! Sure, there are certain things I might change here and there; but overall the substance and the artistry remain strong. For this reason, I’m presenting it here effectively unedited – because I still think almost everything from the sermon works pretty well.

For context: This sermon was preached in my home congregation. It dealt with the following lectionary readings: Acts 4:5–12, Psalm 23, 1 John 3:16–24 and John 10:11–18. I primarily used the NKJV translation for my Bible quotations. Enjoy!

ENEMIES SURROUND ME

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want (Ps. 23:4, 1). The psalmist David tells us of a valley, a depth, a low point between two mountainous heights. I am a traveler there, he says, between these two mountains, traveling from the one to the other, making my way through the depth of the valley. It is dark here in this depth – darkness covers me; for these mountains cast great shadows. They are so high I cannot even see their peaks; they are so far from me I can hardly make out their form. That mountainous region behind me, that place from whence I came – where was it, and what was it like there? I was just a child then, or so it seems; I can hardly remember the place. But I know that I laughed and loved there, I know I was happy there; I know I was safe there. Great heights are always safer; they aren’t like valleys. In valleys an enemy can always surprise you. And in darkness you never know where they are.

Oh! But Lord, where are these enemies? Are they near? I cannot see. Your great mountains, where I once dwelled, they have cast a shadow over me. I am older now, no longer a child. I know too much now; I cannot go back. It required such innocence to bathe in the light, to be a child, to love like a child, to play like other children. But I am here now, grown and old in the valley. I am not among childhood friends, but am among enemies; I am not at a place of peace, but am in danger. I am at a low point, Lord; and I do not know that I will ever get out.

Indeed, I even daresay that I am at the very lowest point; for I can feel myself coming closer to the pit, moving ever closer to Sheol. I can feel its darkness becoming my darkness; I can feel my enemies closing in. But where are these enemies? Lord, I cannot see! It is pitch black here. I only know they are near. I only know that they come for me. I can hear their whispers, their vile laughter; I can feel their eyes upon me. I can hear their footsteps, first slow but now moving faster, pressing down upon me with ever greater speed. My Lord, they are on the attack!

My God, it is just as Psalm 22, the psalm just previous to mine own, says:

“Many bulls have surrounded Me,

Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.

They gape at me with their mouths,

Like a raging and roaring lion.” (Ps. 22:12).

Lord, I know their breathing, I can feel it: they are breathing down the nape of my neck! They will kill me, I know it. Their breath stinks of death. And Lord, it commingles with mine. Their breath becomes my breath, their words become my words. When they come at me, I become them. I speak death as well – just like them! This valley is evil, and I become evil in it. I become like my enemy – my eye his eye, my tooth his tooth! When he strikes, I strike, and do not turn the other cheek; when he fires, I fire, and two mothers are left childless. My God, take me from mine enemies, their incessant harassment and taunting and beating. God, wash my hands of their blood, of the way I gave in to their evil, of the way I have hurt them too. My God, end this cycle, end this tragedy, take me up and out from this valley – back to the heights, and back to the innocence of my youth. Take me to the mountain, Lord.

Truly Paul is right to quote the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. As he writes:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

There is none who understands;

There is none who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside;

They have altogether become unprofitable;

There is none who does good, no, not one.”

“Their throat is an open tomb;

With their tongues they have practiced deceit”’

“The poison of asps is under their lips”

“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood,

Destruction and misery are in their ways;

And the way of peace they have not known.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:10-12)

So it is true, Lord, of me and of them. We are here together in this depth; we have both become children of evil. Rescue me, O God, and dare I ask it: Can you even rescue them? Those whom I despise, those who are my enemies, those who hate me, those whom I have learned to hate? Your apostle John, in his first epistle – from which we have read today – he is right to state: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). But God, I am tired of killing and being killed. I am tired of cursing and being cursed. I am tired of hurting and being hurt, of failing and being let down, of hating and being hated. I want no part of it; I want to wash my hands of it; I want no more to be a seed from which misery grows. Remove this seed from us all, Lord, and plant something new! For I can bear this lonesome valley no more; I have had enough of death.

This, I believe, is a deep and true and profitable way to read Psalm 23. It is not the reading we are used to, however. And for good reason: this despair, this yearning, this desire – it is not our psalmist’s focus. Rather, it is his assumption, the state of our life which he presumes as he writes. I have simply tried to bring this out as we begin. For after all the scripture does read: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” – though I walk, in other words, even as I walk. For I am walking, and I walk in an endless valley. I am walking, and I walk in the shadows. I am walking, and I walk in death. Indeed, this lonesome journey is my state of being – perhaps only for a short time, but very likely, I argue, it is for my whole life long.

It is indeed right to think that the psalmist speaks of our whole life here, because he gives us no respite. Perhaps this journey comes to an end for the traveler; but if it does, we do not hear of it. The psalmist knows only that this traveler is on this journey, in the midst of this valley, continually. For what, precisely, does he say? He does not say that, although I am now walking through the valley of the shadow of death, hope will come. Rather, he states: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me” (Ps. 23:4). You are with me – You, with me, here and now! Even as I walk in the valley, even as I am become death! Even now, here in this valley, You shall watch over me.

BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS, JESUS CHRIST CRUCIFIED

Therefore, Lord, take me up to the mountain ahead of me! Oh, I cannot even see it, but every valley needs two mountains, so I know there must be another. There must be an end to this journey, an end to this road – a promised Paradise, a new Garden, flowing with life-giving waters. I want a place where I can have my innocence back – make me a child again Lord! Such is my request, such is my petition; and indeed, it is promised to me that one day this will happen. But here I am, still in the valley, here I am, still a sinner. Here I am, still marred by the Hell of my imperfections. The tragedy continues; the enemy still breathes down my neck, still attacks me, still lives inside me and makes me his own. What, then, am I to think? My God, have you abandoned me? Do you not hear me in the valley?

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Why are You so far from helping Me,

And from the words of My groaning?

O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;

And in the night season, and am not silent.” (Ps. 22:1)

These again are the words of Psalm 22, the psalm which precedes our psalm. We know them well. We heard them on Maundy Thursday, because Jesus of Nazareth spoke them just moments before He breathed his last. He spoke them on the Cross, when the people and the authorities had denied Him of His dignity, had mocked His rightful place and status, had whipped Him, beaten Him, torn His flesh, made Him to wear a crown of thorns and carry His own crucifix up to Calvary. And then beaten, trampled, hung upon a tree for the whole world to see – there, and in that fashion, He died – and he descended. He descended into Hell, as our creeds tell us, down into the pit, down to Sheol and Gehenna, to be among those suffering, with those languishing in total darkness, to gather them unto Him.

Traveler, will you be gathered? You who conspire in death every day with the sinners and murderers – will you be gathered with the One Who died? You wish to go up to the mountain – to be like a child again, to live in Paradise! But you know there is no escape from here. You yourself have said it: you are too far gone. You are too far ensconced in sin; you are too far in death. You have become like the others, and you know it. Slightly better, perhaps, but only by degree; you are by no means innocent, and you are by no means perfect. How, then, will you go back – how, my poor child, how, my evil adult?

“EVERY VALLEY SHALL BE EXALTED”

Do not be fooled. You cannot raise yourself up. You cannot get yourself to green pastures. You cannot get yourself home. You may well do good, and you may well do more good than many; but you will not make yourself innocent, you will not make yourself perfect – and you know this. Yet perfect innocence is what you yearn for, what you desire, and what you need in order to get to those pastures. You pray, then, that the Lord will do it for you – but can you accept the cost? Can you accept the Son of the Father beaten and bloodied and killed? Can you watch His truly, actually innocent blood spill? Indeed, He was innocent, but He has become death through death, through crucifixion and through the spilling of His own blood, so that He might come to you, a traveler in death, and gather you up. Do not forget the words of John the Baptist in John the Apostle’s gospel, quoting Isaiah’s prophecy: “I am

‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Make straight the way of the Lord”’ (John 1:23).

John the Baptist came to announce the fulfillment of a prophecy: the prophecy here mentioned, quoted from Isaiah 40:3. But do not forget as well, dear traveler, the prophecy of Isaiah 40:4, that:

“Every valley shall be exalted

And every mountain and hill brought low…

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:4-5).

This is the prophecy to which John the Baptist testifies, and it is also the one to which John the Apostle testifies in his gospel and letters. “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” – all flesh shall see it indeed, for God’s glory has become flesh – dead flesh hanging from a tree, from a Cross made of wood standing forth upon a hill. Therefore do not go to the mountain, dear traveler – do not set foot there yet! Go first to the hill, to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, where the sacrifice was made and the Son became death – not a child of death like you, a lover of death, but a child in death, taking death upon Himself, absorbing it, taking it unto Himself and carrying it, so that He might gain control of death, master it, become Lord of it, and undo it. Death is undone, sin is undone – for Jesus Christ has conquered the world. This is the Good News of the Gospel; this is the heart of the hope we proclaim: that on this hill of Golgotha God came down to us; that the twin mountains of Paradise which our traveler has left, and which he journeys towards, have been made low, so that the valley may be exalted. Oh traveler! Do you know what this means? Do you know that your own valley, where you lay fearful and trembling, where you sin and sin again, where the enemy taunts you and invades you and strikes against your very flesh – do you know that this, too, has been exalted?

I think you do, dear traveler. For the psalmist records your words:

“The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want.” (Ps. 23:1)

You know that the Lord is your shepherd. John would have you know this too. For in his gospel it is written: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep… Therefore my Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again” (John 10:11, 17).  Jesus, John tells us, is the shepherd Who will gather His sheep together – from death, from sin, from darkness, from Hell. And He will do this by laying down His life, in an astonishing act of love, and then –  by taking His life back again.

It is when he takes His life back again, dear traveler, that your valley is exalted. For then He gathers you unto Himself, and He raises you up, He restores your soul. He is resurrected, His body ascends, He journeys upwards to Heaven, unto His Father’s right hand. And in this ascension, whereby all darkness is left behind, whereby the Heavenly light shines down – in this ascension you also ascend, in this resurrection you are also resurrected. Participating in the resurrection of Jesus now risen, you behold a promise, that your body too will be resurrected on the last day; and yet also, participating in the resurrection, you know that in the eternity of the infinite God, who is always and everywhere the same, you have already been resurrected in spirit, already restored in soul. You have already received new life, new light. God has given you the Holy Spirit, as He gave it to the disciples at Pentecost; and through this Holy Spirit God has given you new birth.

ANOINTED IN OIL

You know this already, traveler. The psalmist says it for you well:

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord

Forever.” (Ps. 23:5-6).

God anoints your head with oil – here and now! – and through this ensures that goodness and mercy will follow you. Moreover, He ensures that it will flow from you – that goodness and mercy will be the things you live by, the things you exhibit, the things that define you. Love will define you. For as John’s first letter says:

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren… And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He [Jesus Christ] in him [the one who keeps commandment]. And by this we know that He [the Christ] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1 John 3:16, 23-4).

The New King James Version insightfully titles today’s section of John’s First Epistle “The Outworking of Love.”  The logic is as follows: Because He has died for our sins, Christ has done a new work in us. He has rescued us from death, and has made us new in His love – a love which was displayed in all fullness through His self-sacrifice on the Cross. This love, which now fills us by way of the Holy Spirit, must now display itself in outward service – in service unto others, unto the world, unto the faith, unto the intellectual, moral, spiritual and material well-being of humanity. And indeed, brothers and sisters, we should be ready to follow this command for outward loving service even unto our deaths, if necessary. For only by this love may we know that we are children of the light – for as John writes, “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (John 1:7).

But are these comforting words to our traveler? After all, he is still in the darkness, not in the light. His enemies still surround him, though the Lord presents a table for him and anoints him with oil. He knows, he even believes, that he has been exalted – and yet he still sins, he still falls into sin, and he is still surrounded by sin. He is a better man, no doubt, he tries to live in love and makes ever further progress therein, but for all appearances death is still at his door. It is knocking all the time, and it still seeps in through the cracks every day to foil any hope for our traveler that he might have become perfect. He does not love perfectly – indeed, now that he has the Holy Spirit, he is more painfully aware of this than ever before.

But John would not have our traveler despair. For just after stating that we must walk in the light he writes: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (John 1:9-10). Therefore John could not mean something so unrealistic – indeed, something so contrary to all our experience is the last thing on John’s mind. As he writes in the very next verse: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (John 1:10). We who expect that we might love perfectly, we do not understand God’s grace. For it is not that God makes us perfect; it is that he declares us perfect. It is not that He makes us love completely; it is that he declares our love complete. He does not give us a flawless holiness by which we might be allowed to anoint ourselves; rather, He anoints us in oil to declare us His beloved, in Whom He is well pleased – despite the fact that we are flawed, marred and undeserving. I have not been rewired so that I might be perfect for the mountain’s Paradise; rather, that mountain’s Paradise has brought itself low so that the mountain itself might bring me up, so that it might exalt my valley, my flawed, sinful creatureliness, so that Jesus Christ Himself might bring me home.

SINNER AND SAINT

This is the Lutheran doctrine that we are both sinner and saint, in a nutshell. It does not simply mean that we are capable of both good and evil, as many mistakenly say, though evil does indeed flow out from us due to our sinful natures, and though good flows out from us to due to the Holy Spirit. Rather, it means that I am a sinner, a hopeless sinner, a traveler stuck in a long and lonesome valley set between the mountains of the Paradise that was and the Paradise that will be. It means that the enemy still surrounds me, still inspires me to sin, still haunts me and thrashes at me, scares me and stresses me. It means I am still in darkness, that I cannot find green pasture.

And yet it means – and herein lay the whole Gospel – that God anoints me.

“He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake…

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Ps. 23:1-4).

He makes me lie down in green pastures – it is not of my will. He creates from my darkness green pasture, through the power of His staff and His rod. He, the Lord of the Universe, lets me know that He will take me to these pastures, through the darkness. He lets me know that I am made already for the pasture, and that I should act in a way that respects this, following His command to love. For as it was He that bought perfection in me and guided me to love, so it is He that will bring me home.

The Lord is my shepherd, and I His sheep. He anoints me in my death, and guides me to green pastures in my unworthiness – and he does this because His Son laid down His life for me. Therefore, as John tells us in our reading from his first epistle:

And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence towards God. (1 John 3:19-21).

Therefore, beloved, go out and repent. Repent in knowledge of yourself, of your flaws, of your sins and your failures. But when you do so, have confidence. Have confidence in God. Know that he loves you, that He would die – and has died – for you. And therefore, beloved, know yourselves, know yourselves as one in darkness, but do not worry. We are all fellow travelers. Even if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart – and He has already seen us through. Amen.

DAN TATE is a writer and blogger at Christ & Cosmos. A former atheist, he’s been surprised and amazed by the God of all things, and he’s passionate about sharing the gospel in ways that respond to contemporary concerns about theology, philosophy, spiritual practice, science, art, and more. A lifelong writer hailing from Upstate New York, he has a B.A. from Allegheny College, an M.A. from Syracuse University, and an M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.