As we continue in the Psalms of Ascent, we need to remind ourselves that these are Pilgrim Songs. The most likely explanation of this series of Psalms is that they were sung by pilgrims on their ascent to Jerusalem. The people of Israel were expected to travel to Jerusalem three times each year, to worship at the Temple, and on their journey they would sing these psalms. This pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a good picture of the Christian life. Just as they were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, we are on pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem, our true home. Our whole life in Christ is a pilgrimage, which is why John Bunyan entitled his allegory of the Christian life The Pilgrim’s Progress. We’ve seen this emphasis in the New Testament as well. This world is not our true home. We’re traveling through, on our way to the Eternal City. Here’s just one example from the book of Hebrews. The author is talking about some of the great heroes of the faith, and he says this: “All these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God. They agreed that they were no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth. And obviously people who talk like that are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had meant the country the came from, they would have found a way to go back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16, New Living Translation).
The first psalm in the series, Psalm 120, is a song for starting out. We begin with a realization that this world is not what we had hoped. It’s full of lies and deceit and violence. It’s a place where the wicked prosper, where bullies usually don’t get what they deserve, where the strong take advantage of the weak. We begin our pilgrimage crying out in despair: “Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I lived among those who hate peace.” This world is not a benign place, so we cry out to God and begin our pilgrimage toward that better place which He has promised. But almost immediately, we encounter problems, so in Psalm 121 we find the psalmist crying out to God for help, and remembering that no matter what difficulties he has to face, his help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. In Psalm 122, we’re reminded of the purpose of the pilgrimage. It’s not adventure, or self-fulfillment or anything that revolves around ourselves. In our self-oriented, narcissistic culture, we need this reminder. The purpose of the pilgrimage is worship. The psalmist is excited about being in Jerusalem, but the focus is not Jerusalem in itself, but “the house of the Lord.” He’s going there to offer something to God.
Psalm 122 is a mountaintop experience. The psalmist is excited about being in Jerusalem for worship. He had so much looked forward to it–“I rejoiced when I heard them say ‘let us go to the house of the Lord’”–and now that he’s arrived, it’s everything he expected. He’s not disappointed. But in the very next psalm we find him crying out again in need. It’s important to know that God doesn’t allow us to stay on the mountaintop. Much of our pilgrimage in this fallen world involves the resolution to just keep going, no matter what. When we have exhilarating experiences in worship, it’s tempting to think that we’ve turned a corner and that God is going to allow us to stay there. Somehow, it seems like the remainder of our pilgrimage should be different, that we should go from strength to strength, rejoicing all the way. We think that maybe we’ve reached a new level, and that things will go more smoothly from now on. So it often catches us by surprise when we experience let-down after a great time of worship. We need to arm ourselves with the awareness that some of the darkest times in our spiritual lives can follow immediately after God does something extraordinary in our midst. So it’s no accident that Psalm 123 follows immediately after Psalm 122.
C.S. Lewis makes a wise observation about this: “The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home” (C.S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven, p. 18). Our Father refreshes us on the journey, but we must remember that we are still on a journey. These pleasant inns which our Father gives to refresh us are only a foretaste of what’s ahead.
Right from the beginning, the psalmist has been plagued by enemies. He started out on pilgrimage because he was weary of living among pagans and barbarians. He cried out for help, in Psalm 121, because of the hazards of the journey. In Psalm 123, he’s still having trouble with enemies. He says: “we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant.” But it affects him differently than it has in the previous psalms. In Psalm 120, he’s weary with living among liars and violent people, and in both 120 and 121, we see him crying out for help. But in Psalm 123, he cries out for mercy. There’s a new element here: the psalmist has been humbled by his experience in the world. Enduring contempt and ridicule from others has made him aware of his own sinfulness and need for mercy.
Any experience of trauma, even when it’s relatively minor, makes us aware of our vulnerability and need. Several years ago, I was in a car accident. I was driving down Bossler Road, outside of Elizabethtown, when a woman pulled out of the Masonic Homes in front of me. The speed limit there is 45, and I wasn’t speeding, but there was no way I could avoid hitting her. Both vehicles were totaled, but no one was seriously hurt. There were several witnesses, and everyone agreed that it was not my fault. But I was amazed at the emotions I had following the accident. I was plagued with a vague feeling of guilt, that maybe I could have done something more to avoid it. And I was depressed. The accident was not my fault, and I don’t believe there was anything I could have done, but it made me aware of my own vulnerability. It made me aware of how easily it could have been my fault, and how fallible I am. It made me aware, in a strange way, of my own need for mercy. I think something like this was happening to the psalmist. He was being criticized and ridiculed unjustly. But it reminded him of his own need of mercy. It humbled him by making him aware, in a new way, of his own fallibility. No doubt he was a better person than the people who were ridiculing him, but in the presence of a holy God, how much was that really worth?
We often have illusions about ourselves, and experiences like this tend to jar us back to reality. It’s not pleasant, but God uses it to make us more aware of our need of Him. I’m sure the Corinthians weren’t pleased with Paul’s description of them: “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of ‘the brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have–right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start–comes from God by way of Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:26-30, The Message). I’m sure they didn’t appreciate being reminded that God was using them, not because of their exceptional abilities, but to demonstrate that “God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they wise” (New Living Translation). We habitually cultivate illusions about ourselves, and difficulties often jar us back to reality.
But the psalmist’s experience doesn’t just knock him down. Being reminded of who we are would do nothing but drive us to despair apart from God. The psalmist’s experience in this world–being criticized and ridiculed–makes him aware of his dependence on God. He’s reminded that his proper place before God is that of a servant. For awhile, in my early Christian life, I got caught up in what was called the “name it and claim it” movement. We believed that God had given His people authority to claim things in His name, and we tended to exercise this very presumptuously. Most of the things we claimed never happened, but we were convinced that if we could speak with enough faith we could do great miracles. There were many problems with this outlook, but one of my biggest concerns, looking back, is with our attitude before God. We didn’t see ourselves as servants who were dependent upon His mercy. We saw ourselves as “king’s kids,” wielding great power and authority. We were full of illusions about ourselves and our spirituality.
Notice the psalmist’s attitude before God: “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy.” He sees himself as a servant, who’s completely dependent on his master. His experience in this world has jarred him back to reality, it’s removed his illusions and has given him a more realistic assessment of himself. John Calvin said that to see ourselves as slaves “implies that without the protection of God true believers have no comfort, are completely disarmed and exposed to all manner of wrongs, have neither strength nor courage to resist; in short, that their safety depends entirely upon aid derived from another” (Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 6, pp. 80-81).
The psalmist isn’t naming it and claiming it. He’s crying out for mercy. He’s desperately aware of his need. It’s not comfortable to be in this position. We’d like to be able to depend on ourselves, or at least have a list of things we can do. We’d like the security of knowing that if we fulfill all the right conditions, God will do what we want Him to do. Simply crying out to God, and waiting on Him “till he shows us his mercy” feels too vulnerable. What if He doesn’t come to our rescue? So we find ways to avoid being in this position, to avoid feeling so helpless.
Legalism is one of our main tools for doing this. It provides us with something to do, with clear guidelines for success. It gives us a sense of security. Legalism seeks to provide a set of rules that we can follow to be pleasing to God. Most of the time these rules focus on outward things, things that are really peripheral to the life of the Spirit. During the 1970's, a friend of mine worked on an OM team with two young men from a very conservative Bible college and one man who had been working with drug addicts. The man who’d been working with addicts had long hair, past his shoulders, and my friend said the other two had a really difficult time accepting him as a brother in Christ. Surely there must be something wrong with his spirituality; just look at him. A Christian reporter from America once traveled to England to interview C.S. Lewis. When he returned, he said something like this: “he drinks and smokes, but I still think he’s a Christian.” Lewis didn’t fit his usual criteria for accepting someone as a brother in Christ, but it seemed impossible to deny his godliness. So he had to make an adjustment, at least in Lewis’ case. The problem with this sort of legalism is that it causes us to trust in ourselves. It undermines our awareness that we are the ones in need of mercy. It causes us to think like the Pharisee, who prayed “I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery” (Luke 18:11, New Living Translation). The psalmist is suffering unjustly, but his suffering has made him aware of his own need. It’s reminded him that he also is in need of mercy.
It’s surprising that he doesn’t cry out for help here. Clearly he’s in need of help, and no doubt he’s hoping that God will come to his rescue. It would be perfectly appropriate for him to ask for help. But what he prays for is mercy. This is a step beyond the prayer for help that we see in Psalm 121. It’s humbling to realize our helplessness. We prefer to be self-sufficient, to not depend on others. But when we cry out for help, we’re only admitting our own weakness. When we cry out for mercy, we’re saying more than that. We’re saying that we really don’t deserve God’s help. Crying out for mercy means asking for something we don’t deserve, something we can’t claim. It means asking for one thing, when we really deserve something else.
It’s interesting to see how Paul’s understanding of himself changed over the years. Early in his ministry, we find him referring to himself as the “least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15). A little later on, in writing to the Ephesians, he describes the great privilege of being entrusted with the ministry of preaching to the Gentiles. He says: “Just think! Though I did nothing to deserve it, and though I am the least deserving Christian there is, I was chosen for this special joy of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ” (Ephesians 3:8, NLT). He sees himself as “the least deserving Christian there is.” But then, near the end of his life, he says this in his first letter to Timothy: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). This has been the experience of God’s people throughout the centuries: the more they know of God, the more aware they are of their need of mercy. This is what happens to us on our pilgrimage. We start out with a sense of disgust at the condition of the world, but as we continue on our journey we become more and more aware that the problem is within us, and we find ourselves crying out with Paul: “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?” (Romans 7:24, NLT).
We’re on a pilgrimage through this world, and we’re sure to encounter trouble along the way. It’s not that we’ve done something wrong, or that God is not taking care of us. We live in a fallen world, and trouble goes with the territory. Bill Bryson has a great book about Australia. I’ve never been to Australia, but my sister-in-law, who died a few years ago, was from there. One of the OM leaders who had a major impact on my life, and who really helped me begin to accept the responsibility of leadership, was Australian, and so was my advisor at Temple University. So I feel some sense of connection with that country. Bill Bryson loves it there, but he also gives a very sobering description of some of the hazards one encounters traveling in Australia: “It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures–the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick, and stonefish–are the most lethal of their type in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. Pick up an innocuous cone shell from a Queensland beach, as innocent tourists are all too wont to do, and you will discover that the little fellow inside is not just astoundingly swift and testy but exceedingly venomous. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It’s a tough place” (In a Sunburned Country, p. 6). Life in this world is full of hazards. The psalmist was distressed by ridicule and contempt that he received from others. But there are plenty of other things that cause us to cry out in distress. Trauma, even when it’s relatively minor, makes us aware of our vulnerability and need.
What’s important is our response to such things. What do you do when troubles come your way? Do you lash out in anger? Do you become overwhelmed with despair, thinking that God has abandoned you? I’m not thinking so much about our initial feelings when things go wrong. It’s natural that we feel overwhelmed at such times. I’ve often quoted these words by Abraham Kuyper, the former prime minister of Holland and founder of the Free University of Amsterdam: “When for the first time... the cross with its full weight is laid upon our shoulders, the first effect is that it makes us numb and dazed and causes all knowledge of God to be lost.” That’s just what happens to us when we come face to face with our own mortality and the mortality of those we love. But what do we do later, after the dust has settled? Do we cry out to God, or do we turn away from Him in anger and bitterness?
Any kind of trauma makes us feel vulnerable, but being treated with contempt, enduring ridicule, attacks our pride in a special way. What do you do when people say unkind things about you? Do you lash out at them? Or do you just think, over and over, of all the things you’d like to say to them? Being criticized unjustly can be absolutely shattering to our self-confidence, and we naturally grasp for anything to restore our sense of equilibrium. It’s difficult even when the criticism is coming from people who genuinely care about us. But in the psalmist’s case, his critics are out to destroy.
But God is able to turn these things around to our profit. Thomas a Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, said this: “It is good that we have sometimes some troubles and crosses.... It is good that we be sometimes contradicted, and that men think ill or inadequately; and this, although we do and intend well. These things help often to the attaining of humility, and defend us from vainglory: for then we are more inclined to seek God for our inward witness, when outwardly we be contemned by men, and when there is no credit given unto us.... When a good man is afflicted, tempted, or troubled with evil thoughts; then he understandeth better the great need he hath of God, without whom he perceiveth he can do nothing that is good” (“Of the Profit of Adversity”).
How do we profit from such things when they happen? It’s often difficult for us to even pray at such times. Even when the criticism is unjust, there’s usually enough truth to undermine our sense of confidence in God’s presence. And Satan, our accuser, will use it to try and separate us from God. He’ll tell us things like: “How can you turn to God in prayer? You’re just a fake. This whole Christian life of yours is nothing but an act.” But whether the criticism is partly true or completely true, the answer is the same: we cry out to God for mercy. We are not only people who are in need of help. We are people in need of mercy. We don’t deserve help, but God, in His infinite mercy, has called us to Himself, and has invited us to turn to Him in need. He knows the worst about us, and has set His steadfast love upon us anyway. So even if the worst things they’re saying are true, we turn to Him crying out for mercy, confident that He is waiting, and that He will receive us. All our critics can do, in the end, is remind us of the truth about ourselves: we’re people in need of mercy. We can answer our accuser: “yes, you’re right. Thanks for reminding me.” Then we turn our hearts to the Lord and say: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant.” And then we lift our eyes to the Lord and wait on Him “till he shows us his mercy.”
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