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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Using Psalm 121 in Ministry to One Another

I have had the chance to preach at Crossroads several times now, and each time is a blessing from the Lord. I thank the Lord for our partnership in the gospel and for the love and faith that is evident among you.

On Sunday we heard from God’s Word in Psalm 121.

In my role as a pastor, I have recently been visiting with a man suffering from late-stage pancreatic cancer. In a recent conversation, Psalm 121 was God’s medicine for his soul, a picture of life’s journey but also God’s protection on our way to him.

This is the kind of Psalm that any of us will want handy for ministry to our own souls, but also in the care of one another. What follows is a meditation on this Psalm carried by three questions. May the Lord use this to extend the reach of this Sunday’s sermon into your life and church.

What is the structure of this psalm?

This psalm begins with a question from the trail. If you’re on an afternoon hike you might ask, “where did I put my sandwich?” If you’re on a multi-day walking journey in the arid climate of the Ancient Near East approaching the hills, you will ask, “from where does my help come?” But this question from the trail is followed by an answer for all of life, for this traveler’s journey was a parable of the journey of his life. As a poem, Psalm 121 is organized according to a series of stanzas—small units of poetry—discernable in four sets of parallel lines: 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, and 7–8.

How does this psalm picture life’s journey?

Several images portray a journey filled with trouble. Hills up ahead mean little to us when we’re in a car, but are a threat to the traveler on foot. Hills were steep, but they were also dangerous, home to robbers and to creatures. Our feet below carry the load of our entire person. Feet are vulnerable to cracks, crags, and holes, and also fatigue and overhead, a giver and taker of life, and the moon at night when cold and shadows lurk. All of life’s diverse miseries happen under one celestial sphere or another.

How does this psalm picture God’s protection?

Better than any other book, the Bible describes life for us as it really is: treacherous. Thankfully, better than any other book, the Bible offers protection that really saves: Yahweh, the keeper of his people. The hills are high, but he made them. Our feet slip from fatigue, but the Lord is not like us; he needs no sleep and so he watches us, he focuses on us, and does so without distraction or blinking an eye. He watches over what he loves, and protects what he treasures. In the sunniest and coldest moments, the Lord is our keeper. In our going out on our wedding day to our coming home with news about cancer, the Lord is our keeper. In the lofty and the mundane, the Lord keeps our life.

All of this sounds quite over the top, but it’s not. For the Lord does not promise to remove our trouble but to keep us in it. Christians are born again to a living hope, an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:4–5). Jesus was struck by the son and he took the hill of death for us, which we could not climb. If he is our keeper he will keep our life and we will make it home.

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