Today is the day of your consecration. The word consecration means "making holy", and this ceremony symbolizes your firm resolve to guide your future life along religious lines; so that when you regard the world and all that is in it you will be able to echo the words of the Psalmist: "This is from the Lord; it is wonderful in our sight." [Psalm 118.24]
By your consecration you affirm that the Lord is God, and there is none besides him; that although times and seasons may for the moment dismay you, or make you doubt, you will always find your way back to the Rock in whom there is no unrighteousness.
This act of consecration you have symbolized this afternoon by reading passages from the book from which all our ideas of holiness spring, namely the Bible. The passages which you read are singularly rich in religious ideas, and I hope that you will return to them many times, to achieve a fuller understanding of their meaning. Volumes could be and have been written about all the passages you read, but I intend to consider just one, the famous twenty-third Psalm. I choose this because its language is so attractive and musical, that we may be led to overlook its meaning.
In this psalm, the writer not only regards the Lord as a shepherd, but himself as a lamb. It is an idyllic scene, a beautiful, green pasture through which a stream flows. Here the lamb lives, looking occasionally towards the forbidding valley away on the horizon. The lamb does not fear, because he has a shepherd whom he trusts to provide for him, and care for him. The lamb has a goodly pasture, and a stream at which to refresh himself. Thus does the Psalmist picture this world, a pasture with possibilities of providing for all, if only man will use them. The still waters are all those things that refresh the soul of man. Torah, the accumulated wisdom of the ages which has so much to teach. "All you who are thirsty," said the prophet Isaiah, "come to the waters." With the waters of wisdom you can satisfy your spiritual thirst, and you may be grateful that in both of you this thirst has been implanted.
The lamb is led by the shepherd in paths of righteousness; we might better translate the Hebrew: "right paths." The prayer to be led in the right path is one that all religious are moved to utter. It is a very necessary one. Have you ever tried to find your way about a strange city? How confusing and perplexing it is, and how helpful to be guided by one who knows. Your life lies before you as a strange city, of which you have only reached the outskirts. You need God's help in finding the "right paths." Sometimes, they are not the obvious paths, sometimes, they are hard and thorny. But if you ask for guidance, it will be granted to you by him who created the right paths and knows them best.
What is this valley of the shadow of death of which the Psalmist speaks? It could refer to the sad side of life, the trials and tribulations which all must undergo. Or perhaps it refers to death itself, that even in the face of the destroyer, the man who trusts in God fears no evil. Should I refer to such unhappy events at a time of great joy? Yet surely it is better to realise at the time when one's powers and abilities and joys are ever on the increase, that one day they must fall into decline and fade away. So many people put away such thoughts from their mind, only one day to find themselves confronted by them and unprepared for them. We should recognise that sorrow is as much a part of God's plan for us mortals as joy, and we must take all that comes upon us as a manifestation of his love and mercy.
The lamb is comforted by the rod and staff of the shepherd. The rod and staff are signs of authority, like the Roman lictors used to carry. There is no comfort in anarchy, in absence of discipline, in so-called freedom that is, in fact, slavery to folly. It is by accepting the authority of God in our lives that we become men and women, for it is better to be servants of God than servants of blind chance, or our own passions. Judaism offers a rod and staff, and the comfort that comes from a balanced and disciplined life.
It is my conviction that both of you have great potentialities for spirituality, and communion with that divine spirit which pervades the universe. What you have uttered today is, I feel, more than mere words. May you go forth from this holy place, and prosper both physically and spiritually. May you be a credit to your parents, in whose loving care has been your stay all these years, to your families and to your people. May you be blessed with the blessing pronounced in olden times by Aaron the priest.
The author of this page is:
Alan D. Corré