[00:00:07] Hi, everybody. This is Pastor Chuck Allen, and thanks so much for joining me on today's weekday podcast. Today we're going to talk about something ancient, well, and beautiful and surprisingly relevant. They're known as the Psalms of Ascent.
[00:00:22] Have you ever noticed how much of life feels like. Well, like climbing?
[00:00:27] Like we're always moving towards something, reaching for something, ascending towards something just beyond our grasp?
[00:00:35] The ancient Hebrews had these 15 Psalms, Psalms 120 through 134. They. They would use these as songs that they would sing as they literally climbed up to Jerusalem for their festivals three times a year. They called them the Songs of Ascent, and hence we know them as the Psalms of Ascent. Think about it for a second. Jerusalem sits on a hill. So no matter where you're coming from, you're always going up, you're always ascending. And isn't that just fascinating that the place where they believe God's presence dwelled in a special way was up that. That to encounter the divine required a physical effort. This intentional journey upward. Psalm 121 begins, and this is from the new living. I look up to the mountains. Does my help come from there? No, my comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. The pilgrim looks up at these massive mountains and asks a profound question. Is this where my help comes from? From something I can see, from something I can climb, from something I can conquer in my own effort? And then immediately answered, no, my help comes from the One who made the mountains. Now, that's just awful. I mean, it's just awful to think about because it's so stinking beautiful that the psalmist reminds us our help doesn't come from the mountain itself.
[00:01:56] That's the awful part. We can't do it.
[00:02:00] You cannot accomplish it on your own, but you can through the One who made the mountain. And here's the promise that follows. And I love this part. He will not let you stumble. The One who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers and never sleeps. Can you imagine what that meant to ancient travelers walking these treacherous paths, vulnerable to bandits, to the elements, to the dangers of ancient travel, and being reminded that the God who watches over you never, ever dozes off, never takes a break, never looks away.
[00:02:32] When's the last time you felt like God might have fallen asleep on your life? Like maybe he missed something important, or perhaps he wasn't paying attention to that thing that happened? These psalms are so honest about the journey, about the difficulty, about a longing. Psalm 130 begins with this from the depths of despair. O Lord, I call for your help from the depths of not from the heights, not from the place of arrival, but from the lowest place, the place of despair. And yet this is still a psalm of ascent. It's still part of the journey upward. I think that's profound, that sometimes the journey up begins in the depths. And my favorite, in Psalm 133, how wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony. For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron's head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Can you picture that oil, so abundant it's running down the priest's beard onto his clothes, this extravagant picture of the blessing of God. That's what unity looks like. That's what happens when we climb together. Here's what I find so moving about these psalms. They weren't meant to be experienced alone.
[00:03:44] They were community songs. They were journey songs. They were sung together as the people made their way up to the festival of God in Jerusalem. I wonder what it would look like for us to rediscover this ancient practice of ascending together, of acknowledging that we're all on this upward journey, that we need each other to reach the destination. What if our gathering spaces, our churches, our homes, our communities, our schools, what if they became places of ascent? Places? Well, we're honest about the climb, where we're recognizing the difficulty, about the moments of despair, but where we keep moving upward together.
[00:04:23] The psalms of ascent remind us that the journey matters, that the climb itself is sacred, that God meets us not just at the destination, but in every step along the way.
[00:04:34] Friend, let's journey together.
[00:04:37] This is Chuck, and you've been listening to the weekday podcast. May your journey today be ever upward and be filled with companions, with honest prayers and with the certainty that the one who watches over you never slumbers or sleeps. God bless you. Thanks for listening in to the weekday podcast.
