Sermon 3/22/2020 “We do not walk alone”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection from our offices in Alexandria, VA
Text: Psalm 23
Day: 4Lent, Year A during a pandemic
Surely there is not a more comforting passage in the Bible than today’s Psalm. This 23rd Psalm promises us a “heavenly banquet.” Life itself is the great feast God has prepared for us, the feast God is serving us right here and now and will serve us in our life after death.
The problem is that life doesn’t feel like a banquet right now. People are dying. We are shut in and shut up, our economy has crashed, and our lives have changed in ways we can barely comprehend. Fear abounds; we are in the dark valley.
I wonder how many of you, like me, have recited Psalm 23 like a mantra, recited this psalm when you were afraid. When the biopsy came back positive. When the marriage failed, or a parent or child had died. When the job and all the savings were gone. When we feared for loved ones and for our own lives.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
Psalm 23:4
I will fear no evil…”
Truth is, without God we fear the dark valleys of life. We fear these valleys even if we are not lost in them. Yet. We fear when we forget we do not walk alone, even when we are physically apart.
I have heard stories about other dark valleys. For instance, I know older Black people who’ve come face to face with burning crosses and men in white pointy hats. Younger ones have encountered their own “valley of death” while being stopped for “breathing while Black.”
As much as I wish such fears were only historical, I know they are not. There really are dark valleys, scary valleys, if not in this life, then the darkest valley of all, the one between this life and the next. Every person has their own dark valley, such as while waiting to see if they or a loved one catches the coronavirus. This is why community exists, to assure us we are not alone.
I heard a group of people invoke Psalm 23 to remind a woman from the retirement community next to our church that she was not alone. The woman had fallen on her head and there was a RIVER of her blood flowing down Fillmore Avenue. An ambulance had been called but no siren could be heard. The woman was hyperventilating until all the onlookers began praying Psalm 23 aloud. This Psalm reminded her—reminds us—we do not walk alone.
“I will fear no evil; for you [Lord God] are with me… [and you] comfort me.
As Christ-followers, we know that God had been born into the “heavenly banquet” he had created, had come to be with us in person. God doesn’t let us walk the dark valley alone. Even King David, who wrote this Psalm long before Christ came, knew that God was with us all along.
God is even here with us in our virus-plagued world. Look around; everywhere you see help given and comfort shared, God is present. Everywhere you bear Christ into our world, you make the banquet of life heavenly.
Yes, the virus is a threat to fear. But we are the hope-bearers in the banquet of life. You see, God has anointed our heads with oil—each of our heads who claim Jesus as their savior—and has filled our cups and our hearts to overflowing. Not for us alone, but to share.
How will you share Christ this week with our fear-plagued world?
of Virginia Theological Seminary. Sermon is at 16:20 to 21:11
