Psalm 120 is the song for the pilgrim to get things going for the journey ahead.  One thing to say is that this Psalm not a beautiful song, it’s harsh and discordant all about repentance.

3-3-16

“The consolation of Prayer” Psalm 120[1]

Psalm 120 is the song of a follower of God stuck in a place where, there is hostility and distress towards those who cling to God for their hope and life.

Psalm 120 marks off the start of the Psalms of Ascents until Psalm 134.  These were marching songs the travellers would sing, as they made their way up to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the annual feasts.  This Psalm reminded all who set out for Jerusalem to attend the feast as they journeyed some could not join them, as fellow pilgrims had to stay behind in many places to endure life away from God’s people, some were enduring hardship.  These pilgrim journeying to Jerusalem enjoyed a privilege, that part of their responsibility as pilgrims, was to share whatever blessing they received from their time away with those who could not.  This is much like as Jesus calls us the body of believers to share whatever, joy or whatever builds someone else up; whatever demonstrates God’s love to one another to share in the blessing of fellowship.

As we read in verse 1 of Psalm 120  I call on the LORD in my distress, and he answers me. 

God actually encourages those who suffer to speak honestly to Him.[2]   So why is this a surprise to us when we feel the heat of sufferering? Is part of this that in the midst of pain, we can so quickly feel alone and isolated. God says, “Put your suffering into speech.”  Can you see how when the Psalmist speaks this isn’t faithless bitterness, or a pagan lament of meaningless.  The Psalmist prays with the confidence of someone who knows that God hears his prayer and will answer him.  The question is what brought him to this desperate place in the first place?  This Psalmist is the recipient of slander and lies being told about him for the Psalmist his distress is because he considers following God worthwhile verse 7 I am a man of peace; but when I speak, they are for war.  As verse 1 & 7 book end this Psalm reminds us we live in a world that very poorly owns up to the truth of our reality the message our world tells us is we’re basically all good how everyone’s nice, or how everyone is equal and innocent and self sufficient.  We know this message to be a lie as we live in world that is a place of turmoil, war and violence, and discord, runs right through the veins of everything.

The Psalmist distressed by the lies reaches out to God for the answers, as he feels the pressure coming in on him from all sides.  Look at verses 2-3. 2  Save me, O LORD, from lying lips  and from deceitful tongues.  3  What will he do to you,  and what more besides, O deceitful tongue?  When this Psalmist speaks it’s with the language of repentance he wants to be saved.     As we see suffering is a pressure that can squeeze us, revealing either faith or pockets of unbelief and sin that were previously hidden.  For the Psalmist when he’s embattled on all sides, lied about, slandered his first impulse is to turn to God for salvation, “Save me, O Lord…”  It feels like in this Psalm we are being pulled farther outside of ourselves to behold Christ Himself.  My question is can you see how God calls us to see His goodness and love as expressed through His Son and are we able to hand over everything to God, letting go of the falsehoods we had held onto?  The Psalmist exposes the ugly truths we so often try to cover up, that is, we sin against God “lying lips and from deceitful tongues.”  With the lies we told the hurt we caused to others or even the actions we took that flouted God’s laws for life.  The gospels affirm that in the sufferings of Jesus we find a suffering that is deeper than our own.

This Psalmist comes to grips with the distress of his life as he calls upon God in repentance to rescue him; “God please don’t let me live in rebellion against you.  This is like the story Jesus told about the tax collector and Pharisee who went to the temple to pray.  Where the tax collector beats his chest and says to God he is unworthy and does not deserve God’s love is the one who receives forgiveness  -Luke 18:9-14

This Psalmist’s woe is that he lives far away, verse 5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech,  that I live among the tents of Kedar! Please note with me those  2 locations  are polar opposite places; one is to the north Meshech near the Black Sea of Asia Minor in Southern Russia, a far off tribe.  The other location Kedar to the South East in the Syrian Desert, the Kedar are a tribe of wondering Bedouin, ho were noted for their Barbarity towards God’s the people of Israel.  Obviously the Pslamist can’t live in both places so his troubles from them he makes clear in verse 6 Too long have I lived  among those who hate peace. 

Our Psalmist speaks like an exile longing to be with God’s people in peace and of his attempts for peace so far have been met with hatred and war instead, his only respite is God’s vindication.  The Pslamist looks to God and hopes that the words these people use to bring distress will be the words that are used against them in judgement, as the fiery images of verse 4 show us 4  He will punish you with a warrior's sharp arrows, with burning coals of the broom tree.  In a sense he is warning them as well as reassuring himself that it will be worse for them than for him before the judgment throne of God

Just as we know that God’s arrows are judgments aimed at provoking us towards repentance.

Notice then that God reorientates us in our suffering.  As we so often close up on ourselves in pain.  The invitation fromGod here is to see his grace and mercy with fresh eyes.  The grace we have received does not compare to the pain we have experienced, for any of us who have known the tenderness of being convicted of particular sins that this is the time to be really let God go to work at changing us. So often we ourselves close ourselves to change we’re hard to shape.  Are you willing to weigh the scales against suffering even further, where are we seeing God comfort us as being over all things including our pain and suffering; he is the sovereign God who reigns. Neither suffering nor Satan is above Him.

Today as we think of the people who would have sung these Psalms of Ascents we know that they are pilgrims on their journey towards Jerusalem coming to join in the feasts, and this Psalm was a sobering reminder to them of their own need for repentance and growing faith in our journey with God.  Like Paul put it like this in Romans 5:1  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.  5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  So for us as disciples of Jesus we share the same sense of pilgrimage.  The relevance of Psalm 120 for us I think is: are we certain of the destination we’re heading for in life, aiming for heaven?  Are we living as pilgrims of Jesus, or feeling more like religious tourists? Do we long for relationship with God saturated with prayer or are we just rolling from one experience to another?

The act of seeking to be a follower of Jesus is about a pilgrimage in life that points us to living for Jesus, who like the Psalmist have every confidence “I call on the Lord in my distress and he answers me.”

Lets pray…

JJJ