I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does 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.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on 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 forth and forevermore.—Psalm 121 (ESV)Joyce over at tallgrassworship got me thinking about this psalm with her recent post; it’s one I’ve been particularly fond of ever since I was inspired by Eugene Peterson’s book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society to preach through the Songs of Ascents (of which this is the second). It’s a psalm for travelers, and thus for all who are betwixt and between; and so I think Joyce is right that it’s one that’s particularly valuable for us to hear in this rather parlous period.The road is a perilous place. It has ever been thus; that’s why we pray for our snowbirds as they fly north for the summer and back south for the winter. Dangers both dramatic—such as the threat of terrorist attack—and mundane—perhaps an overly worn bolt gone unnoticed by an overworked, overtired mechanic—shadow us as we fly; driving, we bear the risks of mechanical failure, tire damage, and fellow drivers whose weariness, illness, chemical intake, poor reflexes, or simple incompetence make them unsafe behind the wheel. Wherever we go, by land, air, or sea, the weather is always a potential threat. Even in our age, travel has risks.Even in our age, yes; but it was far more so in the ancient world. To take but one example, ships crossing the Mediterranean bearing cargo typically would not sail around the southern coast of Greece. Instead, they would put in at the port of Corinth, or at Piraeus, the port of Athens, offload all their cargo, carry it across the Isthmus of Corinth, and load it on another ship on the other side to take it the rest of the way. This trade from ships unwilling to sail around Cape Malea and Cape Matapan, the southernmost points of Greece, was the reason Corinth was founded, and the reason for its wealth and power. Now, this was a pretty involved and labor-intensive evolution, but sailors of the time didn’t begrudge it, for their assessment of the treachery of the southern Greek coast was blunt: “Who sails around Malea best make out his will.” For what it’s worth, the captains and crew of today’s big ships apparently feel much the same way: if you go to Corinth now, you will find a canal cut through the isthmus—I’ve stood and looked down into it—full of ships and boats that don’t want to take the southern route.The hazards at sea, in that time of peace, were mostly those of wind and wave; on land, not only could bad weather be a problem, so could good weather—in the Mediterranean climate, sunstroke and heatstroke are very real dangers. The roads, aside from those built by the Romans, weren’t paved, so there was always the possibility of turning one’s ankle on a loose stone (or having one’s horse or donkey suffer similar injury); and for those on long journeys, the fatigue and anxiety of travel took their toll emotionally and could bring on a breakdown—what ancient writers called moonstroke, because they understood it to come from the effects of exposure to the moon. (That ancient idea is also at the root of our words “lunacy” and “lunatic.”) Finally, there was the greatest threat of all, from robbers who lurked along the road to ambush the unwary traveler.Now, this psalm may originally have been written simply to reassure the ordinary traveler; but its placement as the second of the Songs of Ascents, the psalms which were sung by pilgrims as they made their way up the road to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple, gives it a particular depth of meaning. As one of the Songs of Ascents, this psalm is talking about a very particular road: the road to the city of God; and that road, the way of pilgrimage, the path of discipleship, is often a perilous and difficult one indeed. It’s difficult because it requires us to leave the ways of the world behind, which we often don’t want to do, and because it calls us to stretch ourselves, to do and be more than we think ourselves capable of doing and being; it’s also difficult because the world doesn’t tend to treat people well who challenge its comfortable assumptions and ways of doing business. On this road, too, fatigue is a very real concern, as is the threat of attack from others; we need help if we’re going to make it through.The psalmist knows this, and so he lifts up his eyes to the hills, which is a deeply ambiguous act. On the one hand, it was from the hills that danger came, as robbers came down out of their hiding places to ambush travelers on the road. The hills were a source of danger, and a refuge for enemies. At the same time, if the hills the psalmist has in view are those which rise around Jerusalem (as seems likely), then these are not only hills among which robbers live—they are also the hills among which God lives; perhaps, then, we have the psalmist looking at the hills and straining not only to see if there are robbers ahead, but to see if perhaps he can catch his first glimpse of Jerusalem, the holy city, which is his goal. If this is so, then that movement of lifting up the eyes expresses both concern and trust: concern that the hills are the home of the enemy, but trust that God is also there.Thus to the question, “From where will my help come?” the answer comes quick and sure: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” I look to the hills and I see danger, I see that I need help and protection, but I also see that my God, who made these hills and everything else, is there to give me the help and protection I need. This is the point the psalmist wants to make, and it’s one he makes in several different ways in this psalm, in the repetition of two key words. First is the repetition of “LORD,” which represents the personal name of God. (It’s translated this way because no Jew would ever pronounce the name of God for fear of violating the commandment against taking his name in vain. Thus, in reading the Scriptures, they would substitute the word Adonai, “Lord,” and our translations do the same thing.) In repeating the name of God—five times in these eight verses—the psalmist evokes, again and again, the work of God, both in creation (he is the one “who made heaven and earth”) and in taking care of Israel. We appeal, the psalmist tells us, to one whose power to help and bless his people is unlimited by anything at all, and whose will to do so has been proven over and over and over again.This is reinforced in the repetition of “keep” and “keeper,” which together occur six times. “The LORD,” the creator of the universe, the one who made everything just by speaking the word and who upholds everything that is, “is your keeper,” declares the psalmist; the LORD, who is so great and powerful that he holds all creation in the palm of his hand, is concerned about you, and watches over you. Whatever dangers may come, however great they may be, the LORD is there watching over you to guard and protect you. He will keep your foot from slipping; he will be your shade to protect you from the sun; he will guard you from the effects of the moon. “The LORD is your keeper.”Now, is this a promise that those who follow God will never suffer any affliction? Are we guaranteed never to stumble on the road, never to wear down under the demands of life, never to break down under the anxiety and fatigue we sometimes have to bear? Are we guaranteed never to be attacked, never to be robbed? No, clearly not; we know from our own lives and the lives of others that those who follow God are not exempt from the pain of the world, much though we might wish it were otherwise. The point isn’t that nothing will ever go wrong for us, or that we will never suffer—indeed, the New Testament is clear that those who walk with Jesus are sometimes called to suffer with him—but that whatever may come, we will never be defeated; evil may hurt us, but it will never have power over us or victory in our lives. Jesus didn’t tell the Pharisees that no one would ever harm his sheep, but he did say, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” Similarly, Paul never told the Romans they would avoid “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril”—but he did declare that “in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us,” because nothing can or will ever separate us from his love.This is why the psalmist promises us, “The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.” In every aspect of life, in all the things you do when you leave home in the morning, in every part of the home to which you return, the Lord is with you to guard and protect you; and though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you need fear no evil, for he who has overcome the world is with you, and in him you too will overcome, for he will take care of you. This is what we know as the doctrine of providence, that in every circumstance, however difficult, God is at work to bring about our good. I love the way the Heidelberg Catechism puts this: “I trust [God] so much that I do not doubt he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because he is almighty God; he desires to do this because he is a faithful Father.” This is the kind of trust we can have in God as our keeper.Still, trusting God isn’t always easy. Maybe you’ve never felt this way, but there have been times when I was praying and praying, and he just didn’t seem to be paying attention; it’s enough to make you wonder, sometimes, if God’s just on another frequency for a while, maybe listening to the ballgame or something. Against this, the psalmist says, no, “he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” God’s mind never wanders; he never drops off for a nap, nor does he ever get so busy taking care of the rest of the world that he forgets about you. Yes, there are times when troubles come, and yes, we often wonder why God lets them hang around so long, but even then, he is with us, watching over us and taking care of us; he doesn’t keep us out of the dark times, but he promises to bring us through them. I think the great Catholic mystic Julian of Norwich captured it best when she wrote, “God did not say, ‘You will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted’; but God said, ‘You will not be overcome.’”This is the promise of Scripture, which we see in this psalm, in Jesus’ words in John 10, and in many other places: “You will not be overcome.” The way of discipleship isn’t easy, because it calls us to turn our backs on a world which is opposed to God and set our face toward his holy city, to live our lives as a pilgrimage toward God. There will be times when our feet slip and we slide off the path into sin, leaving us wondering if we can even get back on our feet; there will be times when we grow weary on the way, and fatigue seems to be too much for us; there will be times when we’re just getting hammered emotionally. But in these times, and in all the greater and lesser difficulties we face as we seek to follow Christ in this life, the psalmist assures us, “The Lord is your keeper; . . . The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” Through the hard times and the easy times, in big problems and little ones, in all the daily trials and tribulations of life, however important or unimportant they might seem, he is our keeper; and he keeps us not just from up ahead or up above, but from right beside us, where he walks to protect us, and to lead us on.
