The imagery of life as a journey or pilgrimage is interwoven in various facets of the world in which we live. For example, so many books are based on this theme, whether Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or the classic Christian masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. Life is a journey, moving from the starting point of birth through all the many dangers, toils, and snares of this life to an ending, where many hope to live happily ever after. This is a biblical metaphor for the life of following Jesus as elect exiles as we saw in our study of 1 Peter. We sing of these pilgrim days in such hymns as “Jesus, I Thy Cross Have Taken” and “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”.
This summer, we are going to consider some of the marks of these pilgrim days by working our way through the Psalms of Ascents. This is a collection of fifteen consecutive Psalms (120-134) noted with that superscription. Here is what Eugene Peterson writes about these Psalms in his classic work, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, which will provide the framework for this sermon series. Peterson writes,
In the pastoral work of training people in discipleship and accompanying them in pilgrimage, I have found, tucked away in the Hebrew Psalter, an old dog-eared songbook. I have used it to provide continuity in guiding others in the Christian way and directing people of faith in the conscious and continuous effort that develops into maturity in Christ. The old songbook is called, in Hebrew, shiray hammaloth - Songs of Ascents. The songs are the psalms numbered 120 through 134 in the book of Psalms. These fifteen psalms were likely sung, possibly in sequence, by Hebrew pilgrims as they went up to Jerusalem to the great worship festivals. Topographically Jerusalem was the highest city in Palestine, and so all who traveled there spent much of their time ascending. But the ascent was not only literal, it was also a metaphor: the trip to Jerusalem acted out a life lived upward toward God, an existence that advanced from one level to another in developing maturity - what Paul described as “the goal, where God is beckoning us onward - to Jesus (Phil 3:14).
Three times a year faithful Hebrews made that trip (Ex 23:14-17; 34:22-24). The Hebrews were a people whose salvation had been accomplished in the exodus, whose identity had been defined at Sinai and whose preservation had been assured in the forty years of wilderness wandering. As such a people, they regularly climbed the road to Jerusalem to worship. They refreshed their memories of God’s saving ways at the Feast of Passover in the spring; they renewed their commitments as God’s covenanted people at the Feast of Pentecost in early summer; they responded as a blessed community to the best that God had for them at the Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn. They were a redeemed people, a commanded people, a blessed people. These foundational realities were preached and taught and praised at the annual feasts. Between feasts the people lived these realities in daily discipleship until the time came to go up to the mountain city again as pilgrims to renew the covenant.
Peterson goes on to remind us that our Lord from a very early age traveled for these feasts and sang these psalms. They are a sort of Spotify playlist for our pilgrim’s journey in this life. And they have been preserved for us in the Scriptures so that we might sing them and live them. Let us do this as we “ascend” each week to the gathered worship of God’s people who are then dispersed back to the ordinary life of pilgrims. And may God grant us the grace and strength to continue on this journey as faithful followers until the day of our death or the day of the Lord’s return.
