Reading: 2-1 Pondering Immanuel

As I grew up, I observed firsthand the effects that anxiety has on a person. My mother was a woman who was burdened with anxiety and worry. Her days were often affected by a sense of the presence of something which was threatening to harm her or her family. So she worried and fretted and often was unable to deal with life in a happy go lucky way.

Even though that was true for her, she daily set out to live by the Scriptural injunction in I peter 5 to cast all one's cares upon Jesus, why? Because he cares for you.

When a chaplain arrives on the scene of a crisis in someone's life, no matter what that crisis may be, anxiety is surely a part of what is going on. My mother worried that something might happen, the chaplain sees people for whom the might has turned all too real. The might happen has become the has happened. And now the anxiety of the unknown faces us and we are faced with a situation that we do not know how to handle. Then, there comes the chaplain. And something happens again. Now there is someone who will listen to our fears and our anxieties and won't glibly say, You know, things could be worse. Can I tell you about a guy I saw last week?

In my experience over the decades, I have seen that happen over and over and over again. I have a theory as to why that is. Many times the statement comes from a male. Women are not as prone to this as men, although they are not immune to it by any means. But often it is a guy who comes in and does not know how to deal with his own anxiety. In fact, many men are unable to label their feelings of anxiety as such. Instead, as I have observed and when talking with others about this, their response is, Oh wow. That is me, or Oh wow, that is my husband. Far too many men in western culture especially, have only two feelings they can identify. One is humor, the other is anger. For many men, if the situation does not call for anger, the only other feeling they have is humor and so we try to be funny when we need to be serious and be listeners who allow the other person to be expressing their own feelings - which just might be the totally inappropriate trying to be funny or the equally inappropriate feeling of anger.

What you and I as chaplains need to do is get beyond our need to say something, anything. Rather, we need to be the presence of God who will take on ourselves the anxieties of others and with them present those fear and anxieties to God and leave them there at the throne of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is for good reason that Psalm 23 is a poem that has lived in the hearts and minds and feelings of god-followers for generation after generation.

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.^a
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness^b
for his name's sake.

4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,^c
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

5You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6Surely^d goodness and mercy^e shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell^f in the house of the LORD
forever.^g

Did you notice that line about halfway along - Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Knowing the God who is Immanuel is what calms our fears. Even though we may walk through the deepest valley, we need not let those little amygdala take over in our lives. For God is with us.

The chaplain brings that reality to mind when events have crowded out the reality of God. When the events in which the people we serve have overtaken all sense of what can be called normal. There God comes into our lives and we need not fear for God is with us.

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote a beautiful sermon on this topic in his thoughts on Psalm 23. I have included that in the materials of this module. They are a profound study of what it means to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and to know that God is with me.

The role of the chaplain is to be the symbol of the presence of God. It is no more and certainly no less profound that that.  So we need to do all we can to not be the frail human that we are, and instead to become a person who lovingly cares for others with a love that flows from the Spirit of God within us. If we do this on our own, we will fail every time to be a person of God, but when we learn to allow the Spirit of God to flow through us, we will be the gift of God to those who are in crisis.

The 23^rd Psalm is a song of hope in the presence of a crisis. The opening verses tell us about who this God is who cares for us.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. This statement is making a declaration about the present circumstances of the poet. He begins with the confident statement that the Lord is the one who acts as a shepherd in his life. The shepherd as Jesus would say in the gospel of John, cares for the sheep. He is the good shepherd. The shepherd is a person who always is to be found in the same place as the sheep.

The poet goes on, he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters. These are the things the sheep need. And the shepherd makes sure that the basic life needs are met.

Then comes this line, he restores my soul. When a crisis strikes, our soul is crushed. Our soul feels the loss of the presence of hope. Without hope, we find ourselves shriveling up. We find ourselves in the place that Paul describes those apart from Christ, they are without hope and without God in the world. That is in his letter to the Ephesians. A crisis put us there and there is not much we can do for ourselves.

But the new find that even though we walk through the darkest valley, God is with us and so we need not fear. That is what happens when the chaplain shows up. And the person in crisis realizes that God has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Whatever it is that has caused us to be in crisis is turned back by the holy presence of a loving God who prepares a meal for us right there in the presence of the enemy.

It seems to me that image is one which should really appeal to a chaplain. The chaplain does not ask people to come to the building we call a church and so to be cared about. No, the chaplain goes to where the people are facing their crisis and there, as God's representative, the chaplain confronts the evil that has threatened to crush the soul of the person in crisis.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life is how the pers0n who just moments ago was feeling the fear that degrades one's courage and the hope that God will take care of us, and now the person looks confidently to the future once again.

I hope you will take time to ponder the message from Charles Spurgeon as he ponders the meaning of verse 4 of Psalm 23. It will be a table set before you that will restore your soul!