Today, we arrive at the first of the Psalms of Ascent, a collection of 15 pilgrim songs meant to accompany a journey.
From my 4th grade year until high school graduation, summers were spent helping my grandfather house tobacco. From 6 AM until a little after noon, the men in the field would load drags with cropped tobacco leaves and drive them to an old stick barn where we would feed layers of tobacco and sticks through a looper—an oversized conveyor-fed sewing machine that would stitch the large green leaves around the stick on which it would hang during curing. The work was dirty, first soaking wet from the morning dew, then leaving fingers black and sticky from the gummy tar residue. It was hot, with constant movement in searing summer heat. It wasn’t glamorous, but thanks to that old looper, it had a rhythm. On some days when the heat would bear down and bodies would tire, Mrs. Oretha would start singing to the rhythm of that looper songs of the faith. And sometimes, the rest of us would join in too, a shared song to bear the burden of shared work, maybe lightening the load just a bit.
Pay attention to the fine print at the beginning of Psalms 120 - 134 and you may notice each of them labeled as “A Song of Ascents,” taken from a Hebrew term translated as “going up,” or “ascend.” There are different ideas of exactly what sort of ascent is in view. Some have read that these 15 psalms corresponded to the 15 steps leading up to the temple in Jerusalem and were sung by the priests as they ascended. Others have referenced the return of the Hebrews back to Jerusalem, the city on a hill, from exile following the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities.
Most, however, think of the Psalms of Ascent in similar fashion to Mrs. Oretha’s rich gospel melodies in rhythm with that old tobacco looper: a soundtrack to lighten an arduous journey. Three times a year, Hebrews were commanded to “go up” to Jerusalem to observe feasts to the Lord (Exodus 23:14-17; Deuteronomy 16:16). The journey was dirty, hot, and hard, but thanks to these psalms, it had a rhythm. All along the way faithful worshippers shared a communal pilgrim playlist that marked their progress and collectively focused their minds on the purpose of the journey—ascent to the presence of God.
Today, we aren’t much in the business of traveling to Jerusalem three times a year for feasts of worship. Nonetheless, we are pilgrims in pursuit of the presence of God. The Psalms of Ascent remain for us a call to pursue a dwelling with God, to live our lives upward toward Him, to follow after His presence. Revelation 21 records for us the culmination of our pilgrimage homeward. Until that day, we are reminded:
“For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come. Therefore, through [Jesus] let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His name” (Hebrews 13:14-15).
Just as for those in the days of Kings David and Solomon, the Psalms of Ascent are still today our pilgrim playlist. In the words of Eugene Peterson, “there are no better ‘songs for the road’ for those who travel the way of faith in Christ.”
