Holy Ground | Week 2 (6-7-2026)

Dr. Woods Lisenby preaches on the subject, "The Shadow Valley."

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Transcript

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The hardest part about preparing this sermon was deciding which of the endless examples of shadow valleys to use to set the scene. Because shadow valleys are about as ubiquitous to the human experience as death and taxes. Every major story has within it a moment where the main character goes through a shadow valley. Right? Personal stories have these valleys, historical stories, fictional stories. They all have the shadow valleys. I think of the valleys of my own experience with loss and grief. I think about the letters that George Washington wrote whenever he was in Valley Forge and they were pinned down in the snow and they weren't sure if they were going to make it. And he was writing letters desperate for help. I have watched a few Dizzy movies in my life. Actually, I've watched a lot over the past eight years in particular. In fact, I think I've watched every movie Dizzy's ever made. And I tell you, every one of them has a Shadow Valley. Every one of them has that moment of sadness that the hero has to rise up, right? That Dumbo when he gets separated from his mother. Nemo, whenever he gets taken from the ocean. Woody gets replaced by Buzz. Simba after the death of Mufasa. Any of those would be a good backdrop for this sermon. Because we understand what these valleys are. We understand what it means when we talk about them in stories or in our own lives. To understand them a little bit better, it's good to understand the geography and not just the map, but how the topography features in to what the authors are trying to accomplish. We started on the mountaintop last week about how Mount Hermon, whenever the dew comes down from Mount Hermon, it nourishes the earth and it creates the Jordan River. And without the dew from Hermon on the mountaintop, you would have no Jordan River. Without the Jordan River, you would have no holy land. And then you would have any of these stories. And so we see how the mountaintops nourish our lives even when we're not there. Well, uh, today we come down that mountain. As we said, every journey comes down the mountain. But sometimes, when you come down the mountain, you end up in a valley. Sometimes it's normal life, flat earth. But other times when you come down, you're in one of these valleys. And the Bible talks about valleys in a couple different ways. Sometimes valleys in Scripture are beautiful places with lush vegetation and where a river is flowing between the two mountains and creates a peaceful camp. But there's other times and more times in the Bible where the valley is like in the Gospels, where it describes the valley of Gehenna. It's a deep and narrow ravine south of Jerusalem, where trash and filth was thrown, and where pagans once offered their children as sacrifices. Or the valley of Jezreel, where Saul and Jonathan and the army of Israel are defeated. There's the valley of Sidim, where it's full of tar pits, and it's where the home of Sodom and Gomorrah. And then a few weeks ago, we talked about the valley where Ezekiel was sent by the Spirit. And it's one of the most gruesome scenes in the Bible where the valley is filled with bones, dry bones. These are the valleys of stories from struggle, places of deep grief, places where death and darkness try to snuff out even the smallest light. But the most famous shadow valley in the Bible comes from that psalm we just read. Many of us learn that psalm as children, maybe in that language, maybe in a different translation. We read that psalm at every graveside, every funeral. I mean, I've done hundreds of funerals, and I can't think of one where I didn't read that psalm. I bet a lot of you could recite it in your sleep. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I lack nothing. Green pastures, still waters, he restores my soul. And then, right in the middle of this beautiful poem about God's provision, about how God is there, we get this Hebrew word for deep shadow. There's a valley of darkness. The darkness at the bottom of a ravine where light can't even reach it. You know, sheep country in the Judean wilderness has valleys just like this. The author's not being dramatic. The psalmist is describing a real place. And here's the interesting thing about this psalm: uh the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. And then all of a sudden, this deep valley. Where did this valley come from? God is great. God is my shepherd. I don't want for anything, and then darkness. Right? If we're talking about God and how great now good God is, why do you include this in the story? Why do you talk about, and then we walked around the deep valley and didn't go down there because God is great. We stayed in the green pastures where things are easy and good. No, that that's not how it is. A hard reality for us is that the psalm refuses to pretend like valleys aren't there. Like shadow valleys don't exist in our lives. And another thing I want you to notice from this psalm is the grammar the psalmist uses. Yeah, we're getting a little technical here. Like we're going back to school. I know it's summertime, but stay with me. The first half of the psalm talks about God in third person. He makes me lie down, he leads me, he restores my soul. But then the valley shows up, and what happens? You are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me. I wonder what your shadow valley was, or what your shadow valley is, or what your shadow valley will be. Because the truth is we will all walk through this valley of the shadow of death at some point. And there are countless reasons why we end up there. Sometimes we're in the darkness because of our own decisions, and sometimes it's because of circumstances completely outside of our control. Sometimes the valley is grief. The death of someone you love, a relationship that ended. Sometimes it's tragedy, a car accident, a diagnosis, a job termination. Sometimes the whole world enters the valley together. In 1929, 2008, all the world entered that valley when the stock markets crashed and people's life savings were wiped out. When I was a student at Huntington College, I took a class on C.S. Lewis. We read almost all of C. S. Lewis's works. And my final paper was about the thing I found most fascinating about his writings. It's how uh uh differently he talked about sorrow and grief between two of his books, the first being a problem of pain, the second a grief observed. If you go read those books, you'll see that the problem of pain is intellectual, it's academic, it's removed, it's talking about where suffering comes from and its effects on people and the world. But then his wife died. And he wrote a book called A Grief Observed, which is much more personal and intimate about his journey through sorrow, about how he wrestled with grief. The first book is stoic, it's removed. The second book is intimate and raw, and I think that tracks with our experience of these things. You can know about pain, you can know, you can hear about suffering somewhere else in the world, but you don't ever really know it until you're in that shadow valley, until you've walked in that darkness, until you've been in that place where it feels like there is no light. And what makes those valleys so hard is that nobody can walk them for you. Last week we celebrated the fact that God's blessings come from the mountaintops and are coming down to the community, that they are for all people, and we live in lives of community, and I believe that. And I hope this church continues a place to be a place of belonging for each of us. But shallow, shadow valleys are narrow. They get traversed in single file, not side by side. The people who you love, they can walk in front of you, they can walk behind you, but they can't walk for you. Your grief is that. Your pain, nobody can feel it for you. There's almost nothing worse you can say to a person who's journeying through these things than I know how you feel. Which I understand why we say that. We're trying to be empathetic, we're trying to be supportive, but you don't, because you're not them. You can't carry their grief. You might have felt something similar, you might have also lost, lost somebody, but they are feeling what they need to feel, and sometimes we accidentally minimize their pain by trying to take their feelings from them. Uh, Tate Bowler wrote a book about this. She wrote a book whenever she was journeying through a cancer diagnosis. And the book is called Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies That I Love. It's a great title. It's a great book. I really recommend it. The appendix is the best part where she gives all the things that people said to her whenever she was going through this hard, traumatic experience, and maybe things that you should say instead. And people would say things to her like, everything happens for a reason, which is not in the Bible. Just have faith. Um, somebody told her, you know, even if if you have to go, it's because God needs another angel. Or I know how you feel. And I believe all of us are trying with the best intentions to be supportive when we say things like this, but they're not always helpful because we ourselves are not in that valley that they are in. We all have to walk through valleys in life. The psalm confirms this, life confirms this, and when you get there, the people you love the most, they can walk before and behind you, but they can't do it for you. But there's really good news in this psalm, and the good news is that the the shadow valley is not the end of the story. The psalm doesn't stop in the darkness. Did you notice that before uh the shepherd, uh before the valley appears, the shepherd is named in the very first verse. Uh, comfort comes before the threat. God is there before the darkness arrives. By the time the psalmist steps into the shadow, the question of whether or not he's alone has already been settled. Sure, nobody can walk it for him, but God is with him. No matter what is going on in the valley, the Lord is my shepherd, is the very first thing. And then everything else comes after. Then there's that grammar shift. He leads me, he restores me. You are with me. The valley is a place where the psalmist stops talking about God and starts talking to God. Up on that hillside with the green pasture where everything is fine and dandy, we can have these academic conversations about God, about faith. But when you're in that valley, that's where prayer becomes real. That's where God becomes presence. Where faith is more than just something you've thought about, it's something you know. And did you catch what the shepherd carries with him? A rod and a stab. These aren't just decorations, they're tools, right? That rod it keeps the the bad things away. The predators, it keeps them off. And then that that that that staff, it pulls back those sheep who wander off the path. I felt that around my neck a couple times in my life. Where God pulls back the sheep. Even as they're walking through the shadows, God is still guiding them through it. The comfort of the valley, it's not some warm feeling of fuzziness, right? It's just the know the knowledge, the reality that even if you feel alone, you are actually never alone because God is already with you. And I do want to make sure that we catch something that the things that Psalms never says. I don't want to minimize a few things. The author doesn't say um, stay in the valley, right? The author says, walk, though I walk through the valley, through. In the ancient world, most valleys are passes between mountains, the fastest destination from one to another. It was a direction, it was a way through. For God, the valley is never the end of the story. The darkness is not where the trail stops. And then there's this interesting shift in that psalm. At the very end, we're talking about God as a shepherd and the pastures, and then the shadows, and the valleys, and then there's a table. Which kind of comes out of nowhere, right? The psalmist says, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Isn't it great to know that even when the shadow hasn't fully lifted, even when the enemies and the hard things are still in view, God's already setting out the dishes. Because God knows the destination. And that the valley will not be your end. There is something greater in store beyond it. The valley is real, but so is the destination on the other side. When Brianna and I lived in Montgomery, and I was serving at Huntingdon College, we lived in Cloverdale, a little district around Huntingdon. I could throw a stone to Alabama State University. I could walk to Huntingdon, but we were also a few blocks from 315 South Jackson Street. That was the parsonage for uh Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where the Reverend Dr. Martha King served as a pastor from 1954 to 1960. Not long into his pastorate, there was a woman named uh Rosa Parks who was hauled off of a bus for not giving up her seat. And you've probably heard that story. Out of that conflict, King emerged as uh the new leader in this fight against injustice, but maybe you haven't heard about the knights that surround it. Some of the things he wrote about in his book. He was willing to help uh you know organize these nonviolent protests, but but he calls himself a reluctant prophet. He was only 26 at the time. Did you know that? Whenever all this, when all these history things, he was 26. And everyone assumed that the bus boycott would just last a couple days. But days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months. And a Catholic priest in the area, Father John Deere, he wrote about that time saying this. He said, That's when the death threats began. People would call the protesters and say, call off the boycott or die. Towards the end, as many as 40 people, 40 such phone calls were made every day. The stress of all that, it crescendoed on a Friday night in 1956. King came home after a long strategy session. He was frazzled, Coretta was already asleep, and the phone rang, and there's a sinister voice on the other side that said, Leave Montgomery immediately if you have no wish to die. King hung up the phone, walked into the kitchen with trembling hands, made a pot of coffee, and sat in a chair at his kitchen table. And he wrote this in a stride towards freedom. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right, but now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can't face it alone. I'm at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. That, my friends, is a shadow valley. Everyone, even the ones that we chisel into statues go through the valley. Everyone has a time when they feel so far below ground they don't even know if there's light at the top. I want you to listen to what King says happened next. He writes, at that moment I experienced the presence of the divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear this quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, Stand up for justice, stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever. Almost at once my fears began to go, and my uncertainty disappeared, and I was ready to face anything. Did you hear what happened at that table? Psalm 23 happened at that table. The grammar shifted. King went from preaching about God and organizing for God and talking to other people about the things about God. And at midnight, at the bottom of the valley, he stopped talking about God and turned to God. He prayed, and the answer that came back from him, for him, was the same one that Psalms 23 offers each of us. God didn't tell him the valley is gone or the valley is not real or not to worry about it. God didn't even say the threats are gonna stop. God just said this I am with you. You know, friends, when we think about these shadow valleys, the same word for the psalm is true for each of us. God is with us, but God is giving us a choice. And we have two options. The first is we can see the valley as permanent, we can set up residence there. We can believe that there's no way out, that we are gonna never heal from this grief, that you'll never get free of this addiction, that despair is just where you live now, and this is your lot in life. The other option is to recognize that there's a way through this, and that this is a pass between the mountains. That you can grieve fully and honestly, and then let that grief be a part of your journey rather than your destination. We can refuse to go through the journey, to grieve, and we'll be stuck in the shadows. Or we can work through it and let it be part of our road towards the light. And let me be clear, this isn't easy. Me saying this doesn't just make it all magically go away, right? And I and I don't have a prescription of each step you're supposed to take to get you out of your grief or to get you out of your sorrow or to make this season of darkness end. There's no one size fits all list or some works righteousness like God will only bless you if you grieve in this particular way. No. Each person's journey is their journey and it's unique to them. You have to walk it. But what I can say is everyone begins here. It begins with an acceptance of God's grace. That God is already with you, that God goes before you. Before there's any shadow, God was there. On the other side, God will be there. And through it all, God will never abandon you or leave you. God walks alongside each of us, no matter where we are. Three days after that night at the kitchen table, uh, King was gone and his house was bombed. His wife and his daughter were there, but they were not hurt. An angry crowd gathered outside and they were ready to wreak havoc on the city. And King later wrote, strangely enough, I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it. Standing on that damaged porch, he told the crowd this we must meet hate with love. Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop because God is with this movement. His valley became a pass between the mountains. The darkest night of his young life became the place where God's presence got more real to him than any of those threats. The kitchen table where he ran out of his own power became a table prepared for him in the presence of his enemies. So the next time that you are in a valley, and if you are there right now, I hope you know this. The grammar shifts in Psalm 23. And when you're in that valley, the best thing you can do is to stop talking about God and start talking to God. To recognize that God's presence is already there. And your prayers are your ways to connect with God when you journey through grief and sorrow and struggle. Sure, God is with us in those green pastures at the top. But Psalms 23 says we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But even that valley is holy ground. Because God is with you. God is with you. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all God's people said, Amen.