A pair of my dear friends has recently had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem. The visit was on their “bucket list,” they told me once – and now they have made it a reality.
What a wonderful time they had! To walk where Jesus walked. To breathe the air that Jesus breathed. To see hillsides and landscapes, beaches and cobblestones that Jesus himself might have seen long ago. I heard a brief report just today. It was enough to make me jealous, for a moment anyway.
And then I looked at my own two feet. And then I thought of Psalm 122.
Psalm 122 is a “Song of Ascents” — part of a wonderful collection of Old Testament songs for the feasts of the Old Testament year. They were sung at Passover time, and at the feasts of Pentecost and Tabernacles as the people “ascended” the road to Jerusalem to gather in worship at the Temple. The songs are brief. They are memorable. They are lyrics for the pilgrim road.
The songs are filled with traveling imagery: they are going somewhere. “I am an alien… I must live among the tents” (Ps 120:5). “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in” (Ps 121:8). “To Jerusalem the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord… to give thanks to the name of the Lord” (Ps 122:4). “Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord…. Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord” (Ps 134:1,2).
God decreed these periodic journeys to Jerusalem (Ps 122:4). Not as legalisms or simple formalities. Festival visits to Jerusalem retuned participants’ hearts. The holy festivals rooted God’s people in God’s promises once again. The festivals reaffirmed their fundamental identity: they were God’s chosen people, graced by his promises and commanded by his mission in the world.
Eugene Peterson summarizes: “When you went to Jerusalem, you encountered the great foundational realities: God created you, God redeemed you, God provided for you…. In Jerusalem all the scattered fragments of experience, all the bits and pieces of truth and feeling and perception were put together in a single whole.” God’s people might have “gone out weeping”; at festival time, however, they “return with shouts of joy” (Ps 126:6).
And then, as I say, I looked at my feet. I thought in particular of Psalm 122:2 — the key verse, I think, in this particular Song of Ascents. “Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.”
Maybe this song was queued up last – maybe it was sung just as the pilgrims entered the gates of the Holy City. Maybe the people looked down at their feet at that point, upon arrival, and sang in admiration, “We’re here! We’ve made it!”
But I think they may have sung this song while still on the road, while still anticipating their eventual arrival. Maybe the pilgrimage road was not so, well, linear. Maybe they “stood” in Jerusalem by faith somehow before they actually arrived.
Faith is like that, sometimes. Faith assures us of “things hoped for”; it convinces us of “things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Consider the example of dear old Abraham. By faith he “set out, not knowing where he was going” (Heb 11:8). He saw the promises of God “from a distance,” we are told, but he “greeted them” from where he stood (Heb 11:13). The book of Hebrews reports that Abraham “died in faith without having received the promises” (Heb 11:13). But he learned to live in the promises anyway – for “he considered him faithful” who made them (Heb 11:11).
Psalm 122:2 reminds us of precisely this kind of faith, I think. You don’t need a ticket to Jerusalem to activate the promises of God. You are standing on the promises already. Go ahead: have a look at your own two feet. You are standing in “the great foundational realities” right where you are: chosen, forgiven, called, equipped, enabled for a service much larger than you ever imagined.
I am writing these words just in the middle of our missionary candidates’ Briefing Course. We have gathered a dozen candidates and inquirers, or so, here in our offices in Minneapolis. They are pilgrim people, in a way – “ascending,” as it were, each to their own “Jerusalem.”
But they don’t have to go very far. They may begin the adventure right where they stand. They may lean on God’s wonderful promises, right here, right now, and dare to obey his calling upon their lives.
Just like you.