A few days after heart surgery, I was stretched out comfortably, in my hospital bed ready for a solid night’s sleep.
It had been a good day. The various heart-readings were just fine, I’d done several ‘laps’ of the ward, breathing deeply, the surgery was healing nicely.
One more sleep and I’d be heading home.
I had a wonderful deep sleep, till Amy the night-shift nurse tapped me on the arm to wake me for the 4.00am readings.
Blood pressure was OK, but my heart-rate was like a New Orleans jazz band!
Up to 166 BPM then down to 60, then up to 130, then nothing for a few seconds, then all the way up again, then ‘normal’ for about 20 seconds.
She couldn’t actually get a reading, at first, because it kept bouncing around.
I’ve learnt since that arrhythmia of some sort is not uncommon after cardiac surgery, typically occurring two to three days post-procedure. Often it’s temporary, but it can be dangerous, so they need to investigate it.
Anyway, within a few minutes we had a whole party going on in my jazz club, dimmed lighting and all. I’m sure, at one point, there must have been 15 people crammed into the space and two or three of those large machines that go ‘bing’ every few seconds.
I didn’t feel too bad, but they needed to work out what was causing the issues before they allowed me head home. So the next day I went through more tests and they put me on various meds to stabilise the heart. Things began to settle down over the next two days, but there were still a number of times the heart rate was bouncing around. Eventually, three days later I was considered stable enough to be set free on an unsuspecting world.
Interesting, I noticed that through the day, things were quite stable, but in the dark hours of the night, it was more of a challenge. That’s often true of other ailments too. That flu or fever or that burning throat or that anxiety or fretful fearfulness gets worse overnight but eases during the day.
I reckon that’s why the ancients used the metaphor of the night or the dark for times of trouble or challenge.
Psalm 23 is arguably the most beloved of scriptures, portraying God as our shepherd who leads us beside still waters.
Verse four has traditionally been rendered like this, and many of us will remember reciting this in Sunday School:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Ps 23:4 NKJV)
But the phrase “valley of the shadow of death” isn’t speaking about death, but about night-time; about times of deep and perplexing darkness.
A better paraphrase might be something like this:
“Even if I walk in the valley of absolute darkness I will fear no evil, because you are there with me.Your crooked stick and cane [or club], they reassure me.”
The image is of the flock heading home at the end of a long day grazing in the green pastures. It’s getting cold and the sun is dropping to the horizon. As they journey, the path drops into a deep valley that gets darker and darker as the sun sets. Maybe the night mist is already rising around them.
An the night is dangerous in the ancient wilderness. There are lions and wolves. There a brigands and raiders.
It’s hard to see where to go. Your feet can twist on the rough paths. There is the terrifying smell and sound of the creatures of the night.
Yet this flock fears no evil because of the comforting physical presence of the the Shepherd with them through the darkest shadow. They can’t see the shepherd, but they know he’s with them.
We too will traverse the night with it’s fearful and ambiguous darkness. Like these sheep, we too are comforted by the presence of the Shepherd, and the tools of his trade – the heavy walking stick used to hit out at predators, and the hooked stick to pull a sheep back from the precipice. These are a confidence-building manifestation of the extent to which this shepherd knows his business.
We can’t escape the dark valley, but we can negotiate it with trust in the voice and the presence of the Shepherd.
When King David fled into exile from his palace, hunted down by his estranged son Absalom with his ruthless assassins, he finds himself in grave peril and in profound distress as he heads into exile, and there he writes a prayer:
“ Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him. …. (Verse 5) I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 6 I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.” (Psalm 3: 1-2, 5-6, NIV)
When the dark closes in, this is a great prayer: “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.”
And of course, the thing about the night, is after the dark comes the morning and the rising of the sun.
Psalm 30:4-5 says:
“Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones! Praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Joy comes in the morning — and part of that is a reminder that our future and the future of this world are in the hands of God. There is hope that the uncertainties and disappointments and fears and broken dreams will be collected and put together one day. Nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The world may now lie in dark shadow, but there’s a bright and sunlit morning coming.
As Paul says:
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8: 38-39 NIV)
There is a message of hope and presence to not just proclaim but live out. But we need to embody it for ourselves first, resting and trusting in the good shepherd both in the day and in the dark of the night.
I love the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
(Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892-1971)
