"Pilgrimage" - A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

Like the farmer in the gospel of Luke, who saw his surplus crops and built huge bins for the excess he never lived to enjoy, we like to think that our own lives are a central thing, that the world revolves around us and always will. This psalm of pilgrimage helps us to remember that our lives are a pilgrimage, a sojourn, from birth to death. This psalm of pilgrimage reminds us that not only are we on a journey, but we have a steadfast companion on the journey – a keeper, if you will, who will not slumber or sleep and will guard every step we take with care. On this first Sunday in Lent, when we remember the journey our Lord took to the cross, this psalm of pilgrimage gives us strength for our own journeys along the way of the cross. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, You call us to follow You in this life. You ask that we take up our cross as the light burden for our journey. Show us again how You keep us, how You shelter us, how You watch our going out and our coming in from this time on and forevermore. Amen.

¹I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?
²My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
This beautiful psalm was read at my grandmother’s funeral in January. She grew up in Stromsburg, Nebraska, which is a small town in the flattest parts of central Nebraska. When she married my grandfather and moved to his hometown of Wakefield, she said one of the things she appreciated most were the hills. Now, my beloved wife, who grew up in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, says we don’t know from hills where I come from, that what I call hills aren’t really hills because you can drive or walk right over them. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

One of my favorite spots in all creation is the top of a hill just outside of Ashland, Nebraska. It’s called Inspiration Point, and it’s a worship site at Carol Joy Holling Camp, where I worked for five summers when I was in college. Inspiration Point is, as you might have guessed, the high point for miles around – you can see the Platte River bending to the northeast, you can see rolling hills for miles around (or, as Kristin likes to call them, rolling mounds), you can see most of the actual camp property, including Ranch Camp about a half mile to the northeast. If the weather is clear on the Fourth of July you can watch fireworks from Ashland, Fremont, Waverly, Gretna, and even Lincoln, over 20 miles away.

It’s not hard to see why the psalmist would look to the hills for help. In addition to being beautiful vantage points, hills are the strategic points in any country’s defense. The old city of Jerusalem sits on top of a hill overlooking the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys. Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther hid after he was branded a criminal for refusing to recant his writings, is at the top of a hill east of Eisenach, Germany that takes almost an hour to climb on foot, and leaves even healthy hikers out of breath at the top. When the psalmist writes about looking to the hills for help, the psalmist knows that if there is any strength to be had, it’s going to be found in the hills, where eyes can see for miles and quickly spot any danger that might be threatening.

Psalm 121 is part of a series of psalms that most scholars think were used on pilgrimages to Jerusalem. But Psalm 121 isn’t limited just to journeys to Jerusalem – it is an invitation to consider how the strength and keeping of the Lord goes with us on the journey of our lives. My grandmother remembered it as she left her home and family in Stromsburg on her journey with my grandfather after they were married. Legend has it that Dr. David Livingston recited Psalm 121 before he left England to do missionary work in Africa. Today we read Mark’s account of how Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, where He journeyed alone for 40 days and 40 nights. Wherever we find ourselves, we look to the hills for help, because we know that the maker of heaven and earth watches our journeys from the high ground and sends help in time of need. We pilgrims trust that the One who puts the hills in their place will also use them to watch our path and guide us in the way we should go.

³He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
It wouldn’t do to have a watcher who sleeps, would it? After all, one of the worst crimes a guardian can commit is sleeping while on post. Protection in the deep hours of the night is no easy task. Just ask any of our county sheriffs what 3am Wednesday morning is like.

Psalm 121 was written for those who travel on foot, which was the most usual way of travel in ancient Israel. In fact, travel is one of the reasons that Israel has been contested land for so many centuries. Israel contains the 'coastal highway:' the only flat land between the Sinai peninsula to the south and modern day Turkey to the north. Since sailors didn't know about compasses and rarely traveled over open ocean, even the boats would follow the coastline, and many goods made the journey from Africa to Europe through Israel.

Of course, this meant that criminals were also following the same roads. In the story of the Good Samaritan, some interpreters suggest that the reason no one stopped to help the wounded man was their fear that it was a trap. Once they stepped off the road to help, bandits would seize the helpful traveler, steal his money and usually kill him. It was not unusual to see dead bodies along the side of the road between Galilee and Jerusalem. So for the pilgrim psalmist, God is the watcher who never sleeps and never lets your foot slip as you travel along the road.

God is the guardian whose first concern is our well-being. I'm reminded of Bing Crosby's description of General Waverly in White Christmas: “We ate, then he ate. We slept, then he slept.” When God provides protection, God will not slumber – though you may feel as though you were in danger, the God who watches over you is always aware of danger and will not let you fall.

⁵The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
In Hebrew poetry the placement and order of characters often emphasizes the point of the text itself. We have an example of this in verse 5a of Psalm 121: "The Lord is your keeper." There are the same number of Hebrew letters before and after this verse, all indicating that this phrase is the central point of the entire psalm.

Notice that even though this is a psalm for travelers and pilgrims, the Lord is the active one at the center of this psalm. You can almost hear John Wayne reminding us of this: "The Lord is watching out for you, pilgrim – you’re on a journey, but the Lord is at the center of all the action." Some Jewish festivals required people to travel to Jerusalem for sacrifice and worship, and here in verse 5a we have a reminder that if the Lord requires a journey, the Lord will also keep those who undertake it. In fact, this central verse remains true when the journey is completed, as we'll see later on.

Just a minute ago we spoke of the dangers of travel in ancient Israel. Pilgrims had choices when it came to facing that danger. Travel by day was far safer, because bandits and thieves couldn't surprise you as easily. But traveling under the sun could be dangerous, also - sunstroke was a real concern for those who traveled by day. One might often see pilgrims seeking shelter under trees and in other shady spots during the worst heat of the day.

Pilgrims could, of course, avoid that danger entirely by traveling at night, but then the danger of bandits & thieves rises again. In addition, some believed that moonlight was something to be avoided because excessive exposure to the moon could lead to mental and behavioral disorders. The word lunatic comes from the Latin root luna, "moon": a lunatic is one who has been moonstruck.

The psalmist takes all of this into consideration and reminds God's pilgrims that whatever dangers may come by night or by day, the Lord our keeper will guard us and will not let us be tested beyond your ability to survive. There is still danger, yes – the sun and moon are part of God's creation and will not be held back from doing what they were created to do. But the Lord who keeps Israel will not let pilgrims be endangered beyond our ability to survive.

⁷The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
⁸The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
Here we see that the keeping of the Lord is something far greater than a simple trip or even a great journey. This is “an invitation to live fully in the present on the basis of a promise.”[1] Here in Psalm 121 we are given promises that extend beyond the immediate pilgrimage of today into the complete pilgrimage of our lives. From the days of Abraham to today, God called God's people into strange new adventures, sometimes without physically moving at all. God reminds us that though we live in this world, this world does not live in us, but in its Creator. The Lord our keeper is also the Lord our Creator, who gives times and seasons to each of us differently. Not one of us is a permanent resident here: we are pilgrims, sojourners in this world that God has created, and our time here will someday come to an end. But until that time, the Lord who created us and set us on our pilgrimage will also keep us along the way.

Rich Mullins wrote a song about his own sojourn that I'd like to play for you now. You'll find the lyrics in your bulletin.

Land of My Sojourn

By Rich Mullins & Beaker

From the album “A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band” © 1993 – Edward Grant, Inc.

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you'll come to love it
And how you'll never belong here
So I'll call you my country
And I'll be lonely for my home
I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city's best answer
And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

Deuteronomy 28.6 - ⁶Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Psalm 125.2 - ²As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 131.3 - ³O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.
Romans 8.38-39 - ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's a cliché, of course, but it's true: life is a journey, not a destination. In God’s word we learn where to look for help along the way. The sojourn is not easy, nor is it simple: the way is hard to see and difficult to follow. But God has given us a journey with Him through this life into the next, and along the way God provides comfort, support, companionship and even defense for us, so long as we remember to look to the hills for his help. Regardless of whether we are just beginning our journey or near the end of it, we have a God who watches over us, who never slumbers or sleeps, who guards our very lives by giving His own on the cross. Lift your eyes to the hills, fellow pilgrims, and remember: your help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Amen.

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[1] NIB IV p. 1182