From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The 121st Psalm is part of an unique section of the Psalter, the “Songs of Ascent”, a grouping of psalms used by pilgrims on the journey to and from Jerusalem. You read these psalms (for those of you playing at home, that’s Psalms 120-134) as songs that affirm the goodness of the journey unfolding before you. The way to Jerusalem, center of Israel’s spiritual geography, was oft traveled by the faithful, yet the road had some hazards. You could slip on the rocks, thieves could accost you, or some other woe could befall you. Yet the bands of pilgrims on the journey would sing these psalms, counterpoint to the fears, the anxieties, and the unknowns of life. The journey became less about “getting there” and more about the faith that summoned you onto this pilgrimage.
It is thought that perhaps these were “call and response” songs: a leader calling out one half of the line, and the entire group responding back. Everyone looked up to the hills where Jerusalem could be seen off in the distance, tired and worn from travel. As they beheld Jerusalem, despite all of the miles, all the steep terrain ahead, they could sing back and forth to one another, knowing that the journey was well worth it.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The Psalms enjoy a beloved place within the canon of Scripture because of their lyrical beauty that tends to be like a favored line of poetry: oft remembered and oft quoted. The words work themselves down into your memory, their words taking on a sort of familiar pattern, that upon recall, the cadence of each syllable crossing your lips or flashing through your mind creates a sort of gratitude, as you once more remember the wisdom that this text embodies for you.
When I was a child, there was a great emphasis to memorize Scripture in Sunday school, but I think the teachers erred by impressing upon us the need to memorize for rote’s sake. Indeed, we were given little prizes for the number of verses we could memorize, but very little was said about what to do with the scripture after we committed it to memory. Later in life, I learned that if you are to take Scripture to heart, it is better to take a verse and ponder it slowly. If you want to recall Scripture, do not just memorize it. Let your mind and your heart work together to take it deep within you.
The hymnist and seminary educator Tom Troeger tells of a hospital visit where he ministered to a deeply distressed patient. The best word that Troeger could offer the patient was to take their hand and say to her, “My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth”. As I reflected on the story, I believe Troeger offered this word not as platitude, but as an anchor. As the patient was in the midst of the anxiety that comes with facing the unknown, there could be this word that spoke of the trust that we are summoned to live out in our faith journey with God.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
Trust. It seems to be in short supply, especially when life gets demanding. It is hard to create trust, keep trust, and if necessary, repair trust. The 121st Psalm presumes a deep trust that stands its ground, its mettle tested in the narratives of a people acquainted with deliverance from impossible odds (see what happens when you read Exodus or watch the obligatory rerun of “The Ten Commandments” each Spring around Passover). Looking at our own lives, where do we find ourselves able to enter into that trust?
In one of his memoirs, Vermont writer and minister Frederick Buechner recounts:
I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter's illness [note: anorexia nervosa] and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST.
What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once on a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany.
The owner of the car turned out to be, as I'd suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen. (Telling Secrets, p. 49)
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The 121st Psalm bears frequent reading, as life itself is frequently perplexing, taxing, and downright agonizing at times. The 121st Psalm, though, is offered as a Psalm meant to accompany you across all life’s journey. The Psalm continues to affirm that God will be our keeper, not the authoritarian and perpetually angry deity of fundamentalism who seeks to punish if one strays or quavers, but one who looks out for the pilgrims, no matter how quickly or slowly they make their pilgrimage, no matter how they get there. We angle for Jerusalem, the place where our heart is meant to be, sometimes with great precision and sometimes needing all the help available learning to how read a compass. The Psalm reminds us that not only is God maker of all that is known (“the heaven and earth”), God is also the one who intimately keeps us, whether coming or going, to and fro across life’s journey, and even ‘til our journey’s end.
This whole line of thinking about faith began to dawn on me one day while studying in England. As we were being shown around the great home that serves as a Baptist ministry training school in London, the administrator pointed out the large stained glass piece in the hall. It depicted a hand reaching out and firmly holding a cross. “Do you know your Latin?” he asked. And like most Americans, I said, “No.” “It is the life saying of our school’s founder: Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It says, Et teneo et teneor, or in English, ‘I hold, and I am held.”
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The life of faith seems often an affair that is in fits and starts, with not too much continuity or cohesion. Tragedy can shatter one’s enduring sense of hope. Fatigue with life can cool the desire for walking with other pilgrims. Apathy can dry up the well of prayer. Myopia can blunt one’s interest in self-examination and renewal. Along life’s journey are many challenges, much heartache, and the inevitable loss called death.
Yet, there is the rhythm of the ancient pilgrim, keeping a steady and abiding witness, singing the words of a long day’s journey towards the heart of faith. It is an act of pure testimony to the life of faith that knows the terrain is uneven under foot that still sings nonetheless of God keeping us from stumbling.
We who journey the way through this Psalm are invited to catch the tune ourselves, letting the words move from the page of sacred text and into the midst of our own lives. We find it a hard task, convinced we are captains of our own destiny or perhaps we fear we are just tossed to the winds of fate (and sometimes we oscillate between the two without realizing it). The faith of a weary pilgrim still not quite there yet does not seem to mesh well with our desire for appearing to have it all together. However, the spiritual life does not call for perfection, only the humility to start trudging towards those hills in the company of others willing to take the long journey home.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
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