Psalms of Ascents - Program 3
Psalm 123
Now let’s continue to sing the songs of ascent going up to Jerusalem with the pilgrims by reading Psalm 123:
“I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their Master, As the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her Mistress, So our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant.”
The mood of this next song of Ascent swings back from the joy of the last Psalm when the psalm-writer is invited to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to a cry for mercy. The psalm-writer and pilgrim is having to face contempt from his enemies. Contempt is hard to bear. Jesus said that to be contemptuous of someone, to pour scorn on them is worse than being angry with them. He said: “Anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew chapter 5 verse 22).
So the psalm-writer looks to God trustingly, to heaven where God is seated on his righteous throne. He looks, says this Psalm, as a servant looks to his Master or Mistress, confident in their goodness to him. Our Lord God is a trustworthy Master.
Today not many of us have servants who are utterly dependent on their Master or Mistress as in the Bible days, so a modern equivalent of this relationship would be the faithful, patient look of a well-trained dog looking to its master, ignoring everything else as it waits for a word of command to obey.
Today most people would not like to think of themselves as dependent on God like that. We like to think we are masters of our own lives. But that is not the Biblical view. The writer cries out here in verse 3 “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us”. We depend on God’s mercy to forgive us our sins and to help to save us from our own selfishness and folly and to lead us in paths that are right. And as we receive mercy we become more and more glad to show mercy to other people. Mercy is a great blessing. The great English playwright Shakespeare wrote that mercy comes upon us “as the gentle rain from heaven”- we all need it very much indeed. Mercy is holding back from us punishments we really deserve. Without mercy a nation is in danger of injustice and cruelty and when we don’t show mercy to each other we create much misery. The Christian knows he has been shown mercy. At the heart of the Christian faith is the Cross of Jesus where God’s mercy on a sinful world was shown. The Christian is one who has received that mercy from Jesus and is glad to pass it on to others.
The Eastern Orthodox churches have a prayer that is repeated: “Jesus, Lord, have mercy on me”. It’s a prayer we need to pray sincerely as we continue on our pilgrimage up towards our heavenly Jerusalem. Join us again as we continue to read in the Psalm of Ascent.
Psalm 124
We are continuing our look at the fifteen Psalms of Ascent composed probably for pilgrims going up to worship God in Jerusalem. The next one, Psalm 124:
“If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, If the Lord had not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive; the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”
This Psalm is said to be a Psalm of David. It is a song of deliverance from Israel’s enemies. Many times David, King of Israel, was threatened by overwhelming attack from nations surrounding his country, particularly from the Philistines who, lived in the area we know today as the Gaza strip.
This song is a powerful description of the opposition we face if we are on the King’s Highway, living a life that pleases God. Without God’s help we cannot over throw our spiritual enemies. In David’s case it was literally attacks from men, from armies, verse 2, and it could be that man are literally trying to harm you today. Look to God, as the writer of this Psalm does, for rescue from them. But for moist of us it will be Satan’s attacks in our inner lives that we need help against. Peter tells us that the Devil (or Satan as he is also called), God’s enemy, is like a roaring lion going around looking for people to swallow up. He writes: “Be controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him standing firm in the faith” (1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8). James urges us: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James chapter 4 verse 7).
Note the pictures this psalm-writer uses to describe the enemies of God that are attacking him: they are like a great beast verse 3, a flood, verse 4 or it is like being caught in a net, verse 7, as a wild bird so that the more we struggle the more we get caught up in the net. We can’t get out of the net unless someone comes and makes a hole in it so that we can escape. That is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Don’t let us get caught up in temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One”. We may be trapped by past sins, by remorse for what we have done, by regrets, by sadness, by doubt, by selfishness: Jesus is the only One who can really set us free from them; there is no one else to help us.
The Psalm ends with an appeal to the name of the Lord, to the character of God as a loving and all-powerful Father, the Maker of heaven and earth. I know Christians who are caught up in all sorts of terrible circumstances not of their own doing, but they are free in spirit because they know this truth-their help is in the name of the Lord, they know the Lord is on their side. Call out to Him now, He will deliver you.