Today’s Lenten reflection was written by Revd Ian McGill, an Associate Tutor within the Licensed Ministry Training programme.
Throughout my experience as an LLM, and more lately through ordinand training, and into Curacy, I have found myself being involved quite regularly with funeral and bereavement ministry. It has been, and is, an extraordinary privilege (and challenge) to journey with those who have been bereaved. When we serve in this field of ministry, I have discovered that the complex dynamics of relationships, families and faith are intertwined in many mysterious ways…and I have much still to learn!
Something that does appear to be consistent though, is the sense of emptiness and the heavy burden of loss that so often follows. We underestimate so much, the presence and value of those we journey with along life’s highways, and when we encounter the loss of someone close, our world can indeed be darkened as never before. I can’t recall where I read it, or possibly heard someone say, “we grieve because we first loved”. Times of brokenness and times of tenderness, somehow occupy the same human heart.
Psalm 23 is probably one of the most read and spoken words of scripture in all of the Bible, and is frequently used at funerals. For all the times I have heard it, read it or sung it, I have never got tired of it, for I think it speaks so beautifully and helpfully into that space or wilderness that many can be experiencing at the death of a loved one, friend or colleague. The Psalm speaks of ‘The Lord’ being as a trusted shepherd, the one who can lead us to lie down amid the comfort of green pastures and beside still waters, and the one who can restore our weary souls. And yet it does not shy away from the everyday realities of life, acknowledging that we will all, one day, have to walk through the darkest valleys.
We do not hear too much about shepherds these days, particularly should we be living in and around towns and cities; a profession very much linked with the rural community and yet a name we hear much of in scripture. And yet this is someone in whom the sheep in their care would come to instinctively trust, by their voice, in their presence, and for their protection. When the Psalmist speaks of the Lord as ‘my’ shepherd it reassures me that even when those darker days come, as they will, I am not abandoned or to be left wondering. Jesus promised us all that he is the ‘trusted shepherd’ of our times, and though we may be prone to wander off, find ourselves in the wilderness, forget, or feel we have failed, He is not one to give up on us.
For His goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, for we may dwell in His house forever.
