A Song of Ascents
Text: Psalm 121
Twisted hands opened
the rough, wooden window
and the aged Jew to whom the hands belonged backed again
into the stuffy shadows
of his sparsely furnished mud hut.
The window afforded a narrow view
of many other such huts,
cramped together in the Jewish quarter
of the ancient city of Babylon.
Beyond
were only the sands of the desert,
stretching for miles.
But beyond that,
hundreds and hundreds of miles removed from mighty Babylon,
was Jerusalem,
Mount Zion,
the city where the Temple had once stood,
the city that had once been the political
and spiritual
capital
of the Jewish exiles
who had been carried away into captivity
in distant, foreign Babylon.
So the Jew opened his window in the direction
of Jerusalem,
pressed his knees and his forehead
to the crude floor
of this home that was not his home,
and began to pray.
That scene, if you can picture it,
is very likely the sort of scene
that forms the background
of the psalm which is our text
today.
So, if you will please turn
in your Bibles to Psalm 121,
we will conclude the series of sermons
we have called “Songs of the Soul,”
by looking at his “Song of Ascent,” as it is inscribed.
But before we do that,
I’d like to ask you to please
bow your heads and pray with me:
Once again, Father,
we come to you in prayer,
asking that you will fill these sacred moments;
make them an oasis
for the refreshment of our souls,
make them a fountain
for the cleansing of our hearts,
and a cool spring
for the renewing and strengthening of our spirits. Amen.
If you look at the top of this psalm in your Bible, you’re likely to see an inscription somewhere above the first verse. It’s a Hebrew phrase, something like Shir ha-maaloth,
an inscription which,
• In the King James Version is translated,
“A song of degrees.”
• In the NIV and New American Standard, as well as the ASV and RSV (which only an old-timer like Mick Pechan will remember), it is inscribed,
“A song of ascents.”
• And Moffatt, in his translation, renders it,
“A pilgrim song.”
However your Bible inscribes it,
the same phrase is likely to appear over
Psalm 120 through 134,
the so-called “pilgrim songs”
of the Hebrew hymnal.
This inscription has been generally thought to mean that the psalm came to be used by travelers—Jewish pilgrims—as they “went up” to worship in Jerusalem.
One Old Testament scholar, however, has argued that the inscription (which differs slightly than the usual in the case of this particular psalm, Psalm 121), may also refer to the structure of the psalm, as it contains a number of distinct “steps,” from verse to verse or phrase to phrase.
However, regardless of whether the inscription refers to the steps a pilgrim would take in ascending the slope that led to the place of worship in Jerusalem
OR to the “steps” that are built into the structure of the psalm,
this particular “Song of the Soul” has a great deal to say to us—to you—today.
Look at the psalm in your Bible. The psalmist begins with the cry of the first verse:
I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?
Now, just in case you’re reading from the King James Version, I should mention that the King James translation of that verse is an unfortunate one. For generations, readers of the King James have been led to believe, from the translation of the first verse, that the psalmist regards his help as coming from the hills:
I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help. . .
But the psalm is more accurately rendered
and much better understood
if the second clause is phrase
as a question:
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
Now, the exile in Babylon is not lifting his eyes
to any hills in his sight.
No, he is lifting his eyes in the direction of the
mountains of his native land.
He is raising his vision in the direction of Mount
Zion.
He is very likely praying after the fashion of Daniel, another Babylonian exile, who, the Scriptures record:
. . . went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem [and] Three times a day . . . got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God. . .
Do you see what is happening here?
This is a song of a hurting soul. . . .
It’s the song of someone far from home,
the song of a soul who is in trouble,
in need,
in distress.
The poet thinks of the hills of his homeland,
of the holy mountain of God,
and sings,
I lift up my eyes to the hills. . .
And, as he prays in the direction of his home,
he cries out,
. . . where does my help come from?
The Hebrew author of this psalm
recalls the distant hills of his home,
and wonders if he will ever return,
if he will ever see Mt. Zion,
if he will ever worship the Lord in his sanctuary.
And then, in hopeful assurance,
that though his homeland lies across that vast expanse of sand to the west,
though he left his home there,
though he left the Temple of God there,
yet he did not leave his God behind.
He voices his assurance that his God is not only God in Israel,
but that his power extends beyond the boundaries of the Land of the Promise,
and in verse 2 he sings:
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Though the psalmist is by the river Euphrates,
not by the river Jordan;
though he is a captive on the plains of Babylon,
and not at home in the hills of Judea;
though he is living in the shadow of the temples
of Marduk and Ishtar,
and not the Temple of Yahweh,
yet he is assured that his help will come from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, and he begins to sing words of assurance:
He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, [he continues in v. 4], he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The story is told of a poor Eastern woman
who came to the sultan one day to ask
compensation for some property that had been stolen from her.
The powerful sultan asked, “How did you lose it?”
“I fell asleep,” she answered, “and a robber entered my dwelling.”
“Why did you fall asleep?” he countered.
“I fell asleep,” she said, “because I believed that you were awake.”
. . . he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The songwriter’s assurance deepens, as his mind’s eye summons not only a vision of Jerusalem, but also of the desert sun and sands that separate him from his homeland:
The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The poet in exile uses terms here that would be readily understood by his contemporaries,
who knew well the need for shade during the extreme heat of the day,
and for shelter during the biting cold of the desert nights.
And then, in the final stanza,
the song rises to a crescendo:
The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore.
Six times in this psalm, the songwriter speaks of the Lord keeping him, a fact which is obscured in the NIV by the use of the word, “watch,” and
in the King James by the use of the word “preserve”. . .
But it is the same Hebrew word throughout:
v. 3: he who keeps you will not slumber;
v. 4: he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
v. 5: The Lord keeps you
v. 7: The Lord will keep you from all harm he will keep your life;
v. 8: the Lord will keep your coming and going both now and for evermore.
The message of this 2,500-year-old psalm,
this song of ascent, is that
God will keep you, because he cares for you.
And let me take a few moments here to point
out to you three things about his care for you,
three things that are true no matter what your circumstances may be this morning,
three things that apply to any among us who are on the mountaintop today,
three things that relate to those who may be trudging through a dark, lonesome valley,
three things that are for you today no less than
they were true for the ancient, nameless Jew who penned these words.
And they are these:
I First, God’s care for you is constant
Look at what the psalmist writes in verses 3 & 4:
He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
GOD IS NEVER CAUGHT OFF-GUARD BY YOUR DIFFICULTIES OR TROUBLES
Do you believe that?
As someone more clever than me has put it,
“Has it ever occurred to you
that nothing ever ‘occurs’ to God?”
Nothing ever catches your God by surprise. . .
Not skinned knees,
not parking tickets,
not dashed hopes,
not cancer scares,
not marital problems,
not financial setbacks,
not even the occasional day at work when nothing goes wrong!
Nothing ever catches your God by surprise;
he never sleeps, he never slumbers.
You know what else that means?
I spent some time a couple weeks ago with Dr. David Ferguson, the founder of Intimate Life Ministries. He and his wife, Teresa, are brand new grandparents. . . anyone here know what that’s like?
Well, he told me a little something about Teresa. He said, when she is taking care of her little grandson, and she lays him down for a nap, you know what happens when that baby first starts to stir from his nap? At the first sign that he might be waking up, Teresa runs—RUNS!— to the side of his crib, so she can be there when his eyes open. Every time that little child wakes up is as thrilling as Christmas morning for her.
Do you know that’s the kind of God you have?
In fact, do you know that 1 John 4:19, which says,
“We love because he first loved us,”
doesn’t just mean he first loved us once,
a long time ago. . .
He loves you first every morning,
and he who never sleeps or slumbers
waits for you to wake with excitement and love in his heart for you.
God’s care for you is constant. Second, I want you to look at verses 5 & 6, where you’ll see that:
II God’s care for you is compassionate
The psalmist sings,
The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful book on the psalms of ascent, writes:
The promise of the psalm —and both Hebrews and Christians have always read it this way — is not that we shall never stub our toes, but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, that is, will be able to separate us from God’s purposes in us. . . . [He goes on:]
All the water in all the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us. That is the promise of the psalm: “The Lord will keep you from all evil”. . . . None of the things that happen to you, none of the troubles you encounter, have any power to get between you and God, dilute his grace in you, divert his will from you.
As Martin Luther wrote and sang,
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
Paul said it like this:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?. . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35, 37-39).
That’s the kind of God you have, a God whose care is constant, and compassionate. . .
And, finally, if you’ll look to the final verses of Psalm 121, I want to show you that. . .
III God’s care for you is consistent
Now, this may sound a lot like my first point, right?
But it’s a little different. Look at verses 7 & 8:
The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore.
Let me quote from Eugene Peterson again. He talks about:
. . . a serious mistake we can make
when illness comes,
when anxiety threatens,
when conflict disturbs our relationships
with others [and that] is to conclude that God has gotten bored in looking after us and has shifted his attention to a more exciting Christian, or that God has become disgusted with our meandering obedience and decided to let us fend for ourselves for awhile, or that God has gotten too busy fulfilling prophecy in the Middle East to take time now to sort out the complicated mess we have gotten ourselves into. That. . . . is the mistake Psalm 121 prevents: the mistake of supposing that God’s interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature.
That’s not at all the way God is.
No, he “will watch over
your coming and going
both now and for evermore.”
That’s a God you can trust,
a God you can love,
a God you can serve.
As hymnwriter Charles Wesley wrote,
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.”
There are some of us in this place of worship here today who feel distant from God. . .
There are others who feel lonely and forsaken,
maybe much like the psalmist in a foreign land.
There are men and women among us
who are able to acknowledge your weakness,
who have struggled with your powerlessness,
who realize in some area of your life--big
or small-- your need of a Helper.
Some are sincere seekers
who have never before been able to cry out to God, who have never before lifted your eyes to him,
but NOW a song is beginning to rise in your soul
that says, “My help comes from the Lord. . . .”
and you find yourself drawn to a God whose care for you is so constant,
so compassionate,
and so consistent.
Others in this place
already know this caring God,
and have sought to love him and serve him,
and yet you feel overloaded with burdens,
overcome by doubt,
or overwhelmed with temptation,
and you need him to comfort you,
strengthen you,
keep you.
As we enter a time of worship together,
I’m going to invite you,
if you feel God speaking to your heart,
if you’re moved to respond,
if you would like to come apart to pray,
either alone or with someone else,
I invite you to come to the front of this sanctuary, and stand or kneel here for prayer. . . .
If you would like someone to pray with you,
I invite you to stand or kneel here to my left,
and an elder or other brother or sister in Christ will come alongside you to talk and to pray;
if you would prefer to pray alone, undisturbed,
then I invite you stand or kneel in the area here to my right,
where you’ll be able to focus your prayer and concentrate on God without interruption or distraction.
As we worship together,
I would borrow the words of another songwriter
to urge you:
Ask the Savior to help you,
Comfort, strengthen, and keep you;
He is willing to aid you,
He will carry you through.
