Listen for the word of the Lord in Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
Have you ever sung with your children on a long road trip – to keep them happy, or least occupied – while your minivan hurtles down some seemingly endless ribbon of interstate highway?
Every family has its playlist of favorites – “Old MacDonald,” “There’s A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea,” “B-I-N-G-O,” maybe even, when the kids are a little older, “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”
We all have our favorite traveling songs that buoy our road-weary spirits on extended trips, and long before someone scribbled out the lyrics to “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” there was Psalm 121 – a song for the long, hard journey of God’s people.
As they tramped through the hills of Judea on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the great feast days of faith, the people of Israel sang songs like Psalm 121 to keep the children of God happy and hopeful along the way.
Remember, theirs was no pleasure trip in the comfort of air conditioning, video screens, Dolby surround-sound, and cupholders galore. God’s people were making spiritual pilgrimages on the backs of donkeys or on their own two feet, treading lightly and stepping carefully on paths both narrow and dangerous.
Though they were travelling physically from homes all over the Promised Land to God’s home in the temple of Jerusalem, God’s people were making a voyage of faith – a spiritual journey into the very presence of God.
So, they didn’t just sing pleasant little ditties to while away the miles until the next rest stop. They sang deeply spiritual songs like the psalms.
You and I are on the same spiritual journey, too.
By grace, we have been delivered from bondage to the power of evil through the Red Sea of Christ’s blood.
By grace, we have been led into the Promised Land by the power and light of the Spirit of Christ.
By grace, we have been abundantly blessed, even though we really haven’t done anything to deserve it.
But, even so, we still are a ways from God. We believe in God but don’t always experience God’s presence as fully or as often as we should and could. We travel by faith, not by sight, and our journey into God’s presence is neither short, nor easy, nor safe.
So, as we travel through life, we join God’s people of all generations in singing songs that lift us up and move us forward.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from?”
The Israelites literally are looking up at the hills through which they climb as they make their ascent up to Mt. Zion, the spot where the Temple of God stood. Their help thus comes from high above the hills, from high above Jerusalem, from high above the Temple.
“My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Help comes from the One who has the power to make the universe and everything in it. And because God wields that kind of power, you can be sure that, no matter what you encounter on your journey, God can and WILL help, and eventually, you WILL come into the presence of God and the great wonder of its loving fullness.
That divine help on which you surely can count is a bright thread that runs all though this song for the journey: “God watches over you.” As you travel through this world on the way to your face-to-face meeting with your Maker and Redeemer, you can count on this – God watches over you.
Years ago, Bette Middler sang a lovely song titled “God is watching us.”
But do you remember the heartbreaking end to song? “God is watching us … from a distance.”
Where’s the help in that kind of distant watching?
I much prefer the lyrics to the old hymn that Daryl Hansmeier sang earlier in the service: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus. … In his arms he’ll take and shield you, you will find a solace there.”
Psalm 121 paints a vivid picture of what that solace is like.
First, as you journey with God, God “will not let your foot slip.” We’re not talking about slipping and falling physically but rather stumbling and faltering spiritually. No matter what happens to you, the Lord will not let your foot slip off the path that leads to him, and you will be able to complete your journey into God’s presence.
Second, “God is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.” Neither the heat of the day nor the cold of night, neither the dangers of the day nor the madness of the moonlight, neither cancer nor stroke, depression nor anxiety, old age nor infirmity will keep you from finishing your journey into the presence of God.
Yes, trials, challenges and heartaches will rudely crash into your life, but the Lord will shade you, protect you, watch over you in such caring ways that all the dangers filling the world 24/7 will never keep you from reaching your destination.
Finally, Psalm 121 sings of ultimate help. “The Lord will keep you from harm and watch over your life.”
Those words stick in the throat, because, of course, all of us have experienced harm in this life. We all bear scars from the multiple wounds of life.
But “harm” doesn’t mean hurtful things or hateful people. “Harm” means evil. And the word life means soul. As we journey to God, we can sing of God’s loving goodness that will never ever let evil harm our soul.
Indeed, the journey is long, and hard, and painful, but God will keep evil from destroying our souls. The Lord will help us on our journey into his presence, so that even in the valley of the shadow of death, we don’t have to fear evil. The Lord watches over us, so that evil cannot keep our souls from meeting him face to face.
Sometimes when he watches over us, the Lord gets directly involved and actually fights our battles for us. We call those miracles.
Sometimes when he watches over us, the Lord partners with us, and we fight along with him in a sense of cooperating with God.
And other times when he watches over us, God watches over from high above, in those hills to which we lift our eyes, which creates the feeling that we’re fighting solo. But God is, in fact, overwatching us – surveying the whole terrain of our lives and ready to provide effective help when and how we need it most.
Thanks be to God, because of the risen Christ, we are intimately connected to the Lord who watches over us. As we continue our journey into the presence of God, there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from his love in Christ Jesus.
“In his arms he’ll take and shield you, you will find a solace there.”
That likely explains one of the last things that Norma said to me.
It was a few days before Easter, on Maundy Thursday, which marks the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles. One of the deacons and I popped into Norma’s room with an invitation to celebrate communion together in the breaking of the bread of life and the drinking from cup of salvation.
As she considered the invitation, Norma’s head was bowed, like it was for much of her final earthly days. After thinking about it for a few moments, she politely declined.
“No, thank you,” she said with the candid determination that marked much of her life. “I’m already in communion with the Lord.”
And so she was, and thus now she is: Enjoying close, intimate relationship with the Lord her God, who was always Norma’s helper and keeper, providing cooling shade in heated trials of her life, protecting her from evil, preserving her life, watching over her comings and goings from this time on and forevermore.
As it was for Norma so also may it be for us in the long days of sadness and grief that lie before us:
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
For such amazing grace, and for peace that surpasses all understanding, let us sing songs for the journey that give all glory and honor to Father, Son and Spirit.
Amen, and amen!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during the funeral for Norma Bloxham on Saturday, April 10, 2021. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Walter Brueggemann, Scott Hoezee, Stan Mast, and J. Clinton McCain Jr. inform the message. The a video of the full service is available online on the Facebook page of the Martin-Grau Funeral Home.