Psalm 120
I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to him,
and he answered my prayer. Rescue me, O Lord from the liars and from all
deceitful people. O deceptive tongue, what will God do to you? How will he
increase your punishment? You will be pierced with sharp arrows and burned with
glowing coals. How I suffer in far-off Meschech. It pains me to live in distant
Kedar. I am tired of living among people who hate peace. I search for peace;
but when I speak of peace they want war.
It is widely accepted this
is the first of fifteen psalms sung by pilgrims on their way to worship at
Zion. Other scholars believe they were recited as the priests climbed the 15
steps into the Temple to minister unto the Lord. Regardless, it is clear on some level they represent
journey…a life of faith and the layers and complexities which mark walking with
the Lord. I want to prayerfully consider each psalm of ascent and allow it to
breathe in my soul…
This first song of journey
is a lament. The pilgrimage of faith often begins with an awakening to the
hopelessness of the world. To the believer, eventually an awareness arises that
we are surrounded by a shroud of deception, lies, mocking and outright
antagonism. It is wearisome to be a person of peace and hope living in a
sin-ravaged earth full of violence, anger, hate and pain. In a vacuum, this
psalm has an air of desperation and hopelessness. Knowing the rest of the story
we can receive this psalm as a “set-up” in the journey. As a solitary song, it is at best depressing. However, connected to a greater narrative it offers hope and clarity.
It is plausible to consider,
if we do not find ourselves tangibly grieved with this surrounding world of deception,
lies, anger and violence, maybe we are too comfortable and attached to its
ways. It seems a prerequisite to journeying well is that we will always carry
an ache in our heart, triggered by the despair and emptiness of this world outside of
Jesus. It may be a homesickness to some degree. A longing for our heavenly
destination…a yearning for His Kingdom Come and His will to be done. It seems
inevitable, the ways of peace and harmony congruent with the heart of heaven are completely incongruent with the ways of this world. To be a declarer of peace
and a contender for hope is to put ourselves in opposition with those not
familiar with the true King’s Way. There is a pain in the heart of the
pilgrim…a pain that probably should be in the heart of everyone on the path of
Jesus.
As I examine my heart, I
sense I am near the point of numbness when it comes to the hopelessness of this
world. I can’t say I carry pain and grief for the plight of others, I have learned to ignore and keep
moving. War barely touches my emotions and the deception of this world is so
familiar it barely registers in my soul. However, we can be certain God grieves
over the earth, he weeps for Jerusalem, he has bled for this fractured world.
To identify with Christ…to have the heart of my Father…to journey well with Him
as my dearest companion…I must consider the possibility that I was always meant
to carry some lament in my soul. Lament is not a lack of hope. It is an identification
that the wrongs of this world are deep and in desperate need of the rights of
God’s Kingdom.
In the hour in which we find ourselves as the people of God, to lack some measure of grief and lament is to struggle to identify with Christ. For there is little doubt the pain we see all around us grieves heaven. I must consider the possibility that if I lack lament, I lack the heart of Jesus. Contrary to our at times “hyper-faith” expression of Christianity where we must never show a sign of struggle, there is legitimate, necessary room in the life of a follower of Jesus for lament. I pray I would not develop callouses in the place of lament.