Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 23:6
It is not unusual for me to smile and think of Christmas when I read the last verse of Psalm 23. It reminds me of the annual pageant at a care center for developmentally disabled children. Jim, the local chaplain, would go all out to make it a special time of celebration and group involvement each December. He was known to drive three sheep in the back of his van from the local petting zoo to the pageant. Jim named the sheep, who had personalities of their own, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy.
By professional standards the pageant itself was nothing to write home about. But for the care center staff, friends, and relatives of the residents–and especially for the children at the center–it was a highly professional production, on par with Phantom of the Opera. Two of the residents played the plum roles of Mary and Joseph. Three others were the wise men, filing into the dining-room-cum-stable, crowns askew and carrying, in varying assortments of pots and pans from the kitchen, their homemade playdough gifts of gold, frankincense, myrrh. Residents as angels flapped their hand-made wings. And finally, in came the shepherds, running down the aisle, tripping over their own feet, smilingly confident they were being followed by Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy.
David, the Psalmist shepherd, also was confident that he was surely being followed all the days of his life by goodness and mercy. It was a clear and definite promise and a hope that he clung to, even in the midst of his difficulties of the day and future thoughts of death, just as surely as goodness and mercy were present that first Christmas morning when Jesus was born. The angel’s message to the startled shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night was surely one of goodness and of mercy, telling of another Shepherd, newly born, who was “good news” coming into a “bad news” world and granting kindness in incredible excess of what could be expected. Good news of a great joy. Hope for the day, the years ahead, and for all eternity.
Jesus, I think, would have been pleased at the pageantry displayed at the developmental center in his honor. There was also pageantry displayed in Bethlehem in the days surrounding his birth. There was a multitude of the heavenly host praising in the heavens, wise men bearing gifts, and shepherds rushing “with haste” to see him, and, having seen, rushing out again to tell others.
Lord, let us also run to you today like the shepherds, smilingly confident that we’re surely followed by your goodness and mercy. Enable us to tell others of the hope you bring and the good news of your great joy … that we can dwell in your house forever.
Sharon Fish Mooney is author of Bending Toward Heaven: Poems After the Art of Vincent van Gogh (Wipf & Stock) and editor of A Rustling and Waking Within, an ekphrastic poetry anthology (OPA Press). Her own poems and French translations have appeared in a variety of journals including Rattle, RUMINATE, First Things, Modern Age and Transference. She won the inaugural Frost Farm prize for metrical poetry. She teaches nursing online and is poetry editor for Journal of Christian Nursing. For more information, please visit www.sharonfishmooney.com