The Mountains

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Psalm 121 is one of a group of psalms called "psalms of ascents," Psalm 120 through 134.

They are so named because they probably were sung as pilgrims ascended the mountains on their journey to Jerusalem for the feast days.

Remember how we’re told in the gospels that Jesus and his family would travel to Jerusalem; imagine Mary and Joseph and Jesus singing this song, “He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber.”

Maybe they sang it for worship as they climbed the steps up to the temple, as a reminder of the mountains like Sinai and Hebron, where God was present.

Eugene Peterson affirms this ancient liturgy for us pilgrims in real life in his translation of this psalm as he writes, “No, our help doesn’t come from the mountains; our help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”

It’s the song for us believers who see the suffering in the world, who are looking to the hills and see the dangers of the journey: ambushes by bandits in the mountains, a stumble on a steep mountain trail, the heat of the desert sun, and all the other unforeseeable risks.

What’s remarkable is that this psalm does not bemoan the fact of all the bad that might happen.
No, it is a song of God’s constant protection of those who travel the path, for us believers who see deep into the souls to be cared for as we make the journey together.

It is a song that celebrates the faith as Paul put it, if you will, same tune, different verse, that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38)

You see, the journey the psalm really speaks to is not so much a journey of geography from here to there, but a journey of the geography of the soul, of who you are and how you’re growing in faith and hope and love. It is the real journey in our world, as Anatole France said, “The truth is that life is delicious and horrible, charming and bitter.”

The questions are not about whether it happens It does. It’s not a matter of protecting us from the evil or preventing the evil from happening, we all walk that path.

This psalm is the foundation of that part of the Lord’s Prayer, “…deliver us from evil”; not that evil will never get to us, that we’re in some sort of protective bubble of belief. Our deliverance, our protection is in the remembrance of our dependence on God’s grace and the utter reliability of God’s promise.

I like the way Oswald Chambers puts it: “God is present now, dancing on the chaos of my life.”

We do not walk by ourselves, no matter what the old hymn says, we do not walk that valley by ourselves.

I close with this prayer by Alden Solovy as we look to the mountains for our help:

To start this day with joy.
To end this day with peace.
To start this day with longing.
To end this day released.

Live each day with valor,
With trust, with hope, with faith.
Live each day with wonder,
With kindness, awe, and grace.

Hold fast to sacred moments.
Hold fast to precious love.
Hold fast to one another.
Hold fast to God above.

Hold courage through the hours,
And humor through the tears.
Hold God above your fers.

To You I must surrender,
O God of hidden spheres.
You are Source and Shelter.
To You I pledge my years.

Grace and peace,
Bruce Lancaster

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