Cross Roads: The Road of our Help

Psalm 121

Last week we embarked on our Lenten journey, a journey which takes us down a road, a road on which we follow Christ toward his cross. I asked you to envision this journey as being on an actual road, along which there are several cross roads each cross road being each of the Psalms we will encounter over the Sundays during Lent. Last Sunday in Psalm 32 we encountered the cross road of Forgiveness.

This week the Psalm which crosses our path is Psalm 121. This Psalm is believed to be a Psalm for a journey. One which was sung as you embarked upon a journey, or along the way, as you traveled. 

We were a military family growing up, which meant that for most of my life we lived far from Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, sometimes more than a days’ drive. So we would often go on road trips. As we traveled we would often sing together, either songs which we would spontaneously sing, but at other times, songs which we knew that came up on the radio. One such was, “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers . . . you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fole’em know when to walk, away, know when to run . . . (I know, I know – my father liked country so we listened to country). We do it with my girls too, except we sing Johnathan Colton or the Sparks Nevada theme song. So although I understand all about journey songs, I cannot say I ever sung a journey song as deeply spiritual as the one we find here in Psalm 121. As Christ minded as my family was growing up and Mike and I might be now the songs sung in our travels have never been as edifying as this one. I guess those ancient Hebrews knew how travel.

Imagine we are those ancient Hebrews, about to make our yearly journey to Jerusalem. We have all our things loaded up in the old family station wagon, which in this case looks more like a donkey, smells more like a donkey and well, is an actual donkey. The sun is just about fully up and we head out, walking together along the road. The road stretches out before us, we can see it as it winds its way up into the hills all around. In the hills are the unknown, as you approach them and journey through them, the road becomes steep and winding, more and more difficult to travel. Our destination is beyond the hills and looking up at them here at the beginning of our journey puts our minds on the dangers and the hardships which lay along the long road ahead.

This Psalm reminds the traveler of God’s provision and God’s protection, so it was sung by ancient Israelites as they traveled. It begins by asking a simple question, ‘From where does my help come?” At the start of the journey with the road ahead along with its rough passages, its dangers and all the unknowns that come along the way. A traveler just setting out might look to the hills wondering if the help might come from within the hills, from among the hills or perhaps from the hills themselves.

As the journey begins one might be reassured thinking they when they get there, help might be found within the hills. Journey through the hills can be treacherous, a storm might suddenly blow up from the other side, catching a windblown traveler off guard.  The road might be steeper than anticipated or simply take longer than expected, and a road weary traveler might find themselves traveling through the hills when night comes. When things like this occurred a traveler would look around them for help, such help could be found in shelter or the caves or protection from within a stronghold which might be found in the hills. But does the traveler’s help come from the protection that can be found within the shelter the caves or the strongholds within the hills might offer? The Psalmist tells us, “No.” Although, the caves and the hills are there and can provide protection, the traveler’s help does not ultimately come from within these places in the hills. Nothing within the hills can truly provide help.   

There also might be someone among the hills who would be willing to offer help or protection along the way. Can the weary traveler who is about embark on this road depend upon the kindness of an unknown stranger along the way? No, there is no guarantee such help will come along when the weary traveler is beset by wild animals, or thieves (like the man in Jesus’ parable about the Samaritan). There may be good people living in the hills, followers of God who are willing to offer care for a traveler or is in need. But even the kindness of a stranger does not mean that the traveler’s help comes from among the hills.

Can the hills themselves provide help? This seems like an odd question, but at the time this Psalm was penned sacred places were up on the hills. The hills “contained” the homes of all the gods of hills, and places where people would go to worship and pray to these gods. Could the travel look to the gods of these high places for help? Again the resounding answer is, “No.” The gods among the hills are at best deaf, they are asleep. They are nothing but the wood or brass from which they are cast. They cannot hear and will not awaken when the traveler calls out in their time of need.

There is only One who is our help along the journey, the creator of the hills, the creator of the path, the creator of the cave or the shelter and the creator all who live in the hills. The Lord God is creator of all things. The Lord God is the only one to look to for help along the journey! All help that can be found, or would be found along the way, ultimately comes from the hand of God.

The rest of the Psalm is a blessing. It encourages us by letting us know how it is God helps us and keeps us along the journey. As we journey, even as we grow weary, God does not. We might need to rest, to sleep, but God will remain awake. Keeping guard by night and by day, watching over us, shielding us, and protecting us all along the way. God will go with us, and will be our untiring guide by day and our wakeful watch throughout the night. As we journey we need not fear. God will hold back our rational daylight fears, as well as our irrational nighttime fears. God will watch us as we go and as we return. 

And this watchfulness, this journeying with, this protection is not just for this journey, not just for a particular road, or along a certain path it is from now and forevermore. It is a guidance, a protection, and a help with no end. Not with the coming of the night, not with the heat of the day, not with the ending of this journey but will be with us throughout our life. God is the God of all things, at all times, in all places. God’s protection, God’s keeping, God’s promise to be with us will never end, from our first waking when we opened our eyes to the first light, until the moment when we close them for the eternal night. God is with us, God is protecting us, God is keeping us and helping us all along the way.

Although this is a psalm for a journey about to be taken, it is a psalm for the journey of Lent. In Lent we journey together, preparing ourselves for Christ’s cross; preparing ourselves to remember Christ’s death and to then celebrate his resurrection. During this time we look at our mortality and our finitude. We are reminded that from dust we were created and to dust we will one day return. It is also a time to be reminded that we all too often fail to be who God calls us to be. We do not love God with our whole hearts and do not respond in Godly loving kindness to those around us. Lent is a time of confession, of repentance and of forgiveness. This journey of Lent is a hard journey. It asks us as Christians to be honest with ourselves and with God. In doing so we might be drawn closer to Christ. By taking this path to the cross, it is a reminder that all of life is a journey, throughout which we must follow the cross carrying Christ. We are reminded we must continually turn away from our own wantings, so that our desires can be conformed, transformed into the desires of the Christ whom we follow.

Finally, we are reminded that God is our helper, our keeper, our guardian and our guide along this journey. God is watching us and bringing us along; making us and unmaking us so that we can be remade in the image of Christ. Our desire is for this Lenten journey to bring us closer to Christ, so that by journey’s end we are holier, better reflections of the character of God and more perfect image bearers. We journey with Christ toward the cross so that we can be bearers of Christ’s name, so that we can indeed be Christ-ians! And it is God who is doing this in us and for us, as we journey.

We are on a greater journey than just this journey of Lent. We are on life’s road. We travel for all our days along this road, not just heading toward Christ’s death, as we were reminded on Ash Wednesday but throughout life we travel toward our own, as we return to the dust from which we came.

It is a common metaphor to think of the entirety of our lives as journey. Life is the ultimate journey which we all are on. There are times along this road called life when we look around, just like the ancient Hebrew traveler who sung this dong and we wonder, “Where is our help? From where will it come?” We see the road down which we travel. The mountains are steep and foreboding, the valleys are dark, the rivers are fast moving and impossible to cross. Our friends are sick, our loved ones die, our finances are strapped, we have failed in our relationships, our jobs are unbearable, there is an ever widening pandemic coming for us, no one knows how bother to even attempt to be civil toward one another, we fear for our futures, we fear for our children, the world around us is spiraling out of control and we don’t know what too with all of this. We look around at it all, the virtual hills, in our lives and wonder,

“where is our help?”

“Where is our keeper?”

“In whom can we trust?”

The resounding answer of the Psalmist is, “God.” Who will keep watch at night and will not fall asleep? God. Who will shield you from the beating rays of the sun? God. Who will quell the rational fears that assail you by day, and the irrational ones that creep upon you in the night? God. Who sees the evil ahead and will steer you away? Who will watch you as you come and as you go? God will! When we wander off the path and go our own way, who is there for us to help us find our way back? God. Today, tomorrow and forevermore. God is there with us, walking alongside of us.

Have someone hand out the marbles.

If I have said it once, I will say it again and again, lest we forget. God’s protection, God’s guidance, God’s keeping does not mean that we will not find ourselves in dark valleys, it does not mean that we will not find the road through the hills and into the mountains steep and arduous. The journey goes where the journey goes. Life is not straight and smooth. But God is there through it all. The whole of it is in God’s hands. All of it from beginning to end.

By now you all should have the marbles. Hold them in your hand. Look at them. Look at the swirling pattern in them. You can look at the whole of it. You can see its twists of each of the patterns held within, which way it turns, and all the ways it goes. You can see the whole of it. You can hold it in your hand. Imagine the journey of your life as the pattern in the marble. You can see it all. You can hold it in your hand. If you are walking along the pattern, following its turns, its twists, journeying along it ridges and letting it turn you upside down, you cannot see where it goes. You cannot know it in its entirety.

Our perspective is that of one walking along the pattern in the marble. God’s perspective is that of us holding the marble. God can follow where it goes, God can see the whole of it. In fact as we walk travel along, God is looking ahead and can see where the path is taking us, each step along the journey. God can even turn the marble so that we stay up right, so we do not fall, or are not completely destroyed by the journey.

But not only is God the holder, the keeper of the marble that is our life, but God is the creator. God puts us together, God holds us and keeps us, watches over us.  God is with us all through the twists and turns we encounter and God is working to set things right, to turn the marble so that we will not be destroyed by the journey.

There is another truth which cannot be seen in this marble, and that is the path is not set. We can wander off, go our own way, meander this way, and seek after things which are not along the journey God would have us take. In a world of paved roads, maps and GPSs wandering far away from a known path is hard to imagine. I was not fully aware of what it meant to truly wander from the path until last year when I was backpacking with Melissa.

As we hiked we came into a cedar forest. Cedars are tall ever green trees with long red trunks and the branches are only high up. The whole of the ground was covered with short brown pine needs, creating a uniform blanket on the ground. The long red trunks surrounded us, since they only had branches high above our heads they all seemed to be the same. The path on which we walked was obscured by the needles at our feet, if it were not for the painted markings on the trees, we would not have known which way the trail went.

As we came into the middle of this particular section of our journey, we stopped and looked around us. We were both struck by the same idea. If we wandered off in this forest we would never find our way again. How would we find the path? How would we know our way?

We had heard stories of hikers who stepped off the path for one reason or another and were unable to find their way back and had always wondered how that happened. Standing there in among what seemed to be an unending sea of cedars, everything looking exactly the same in all directions, I suddenly became aware what it truly meant to leave the path behind. I could at the time in that place understand what it would mean to be to be really and truly lost, unable to find ones way, not knowing which direction to go, which direction was correct.

In our lives we can step off the path, we can wander into the cedar forest and loose our way. We can do so in small increments, not knowing we are leaving the safety of the way behind, and at other times we make choices, we do things that take us off the path. However we managed to get there the result is the same, we find ourselves adrift in an unending sea of cedars. We might or might not even know how we got here, but we know one thing, we know we cannot see the path on which we know we should be. We do not know which way to go, which way will lead us to safety or which way will take us deeper into danger.

Even when we wander God is the God of the journey. The wonderful thing is when we do this, when we make choices which we know are wrong, or make them not entirely realizing where it is they are leading us, God does not stay back on the path, when we wander off, waiting there for us to return. God does remain in the way we should have gone and call to us, “Come, over here, follow the sound of my voice,” playing some distorted version the childhood pool game “Marco Polo” (you know game of following a person’s voice with your eyes closed trying to catch them), expecting us to be able to follow God’s voice back to the road. No God goes with us into the cedars; God is there with us when we find we are lost, when we realize we have gone astray. God is with us there, watches over us there and then when we decide to return, and helps us forge a new way.

The way back might be hard, and might get worse before it is better. But the God of redemption redeems all things. The God who watches us and guides us, will guide us along new ways when we have chosen to go off on our own, helping us forge a new path that will once again take us where God leads.

 The whole journey, from beginning to end, even the ways we paved ourselves in our ignorance and in our sin, are in God’s redemptive hands. God can take our sinful journey and make it a journey that will shine forth with the Glory of God, a journey which will allow us to better reflect the grace and mercy of Christ. God redeems all things, even our poor choices and our wayward wandering, making all things shine with God’s glory and allowing us even in our brokenness to reflect the love, grace and forgiveness of Christ to others around us.

With confidence we can say with the Psalmist, “Lord will keep you going out and you’re coming in, from this time and forevermore.” From now and for forever, God is with you, God will keep you, God will protect you and keep watch over you, and journey with you, today and forever more.