Leaving, Looking, Arriving: The Psalms of Ascent (Part 2)

Psalms of Ascent (120-122)

In Part 1, I asked a simple question: what if the Psalms of Ascent are not a random collection of 15 songs but a journey of worship? If that is true, then the first three songs tell us how that journey begins.

They teach us to leave, to look, and to arrive.

Leaving.

Psalm 120 is a strange way to open a collection of worship songs.

It reads like a typical lament. The writer is in distress (1), surrounded by liars whose words cut like arrows (2–4). The people around him hate peace and love war (6–7). Woe to me, he cries (5).

What makes this lament unusual is how it ends. Most lament psalms turn a corner. There is usually a "but" or a "nevertheless," some statement of trust that pulls the song out of the pit. Not Psalm 120. It just stops. No resolution. No faith statement. No thanksgiving.

Just stuck.

So how does a song about being stuck open a journey toward God?

The answer is tucked away in verse 5, and most of us read right past it. "Woe to me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar."

I used to skip place names like these. They felt like speed bumps in the text — unfamiliar, seemingly irrelevant. But these two names carry the whole meaning of the song.

Meshech was roughly modern-day Turkey. Kedar was a confederation of tribes in the northern Arabian desert. For an ancient Israelite worshiper, Meshech was as far from Jerusalem as you could travel to the northwest. Kedar was as far as you could get to the southeast. No one lived in both places at the same time.

That is the whole point.

The psalmist is not writing a travel diary. He is describing a spiritual condition. Far from God. Far from the law and the Messiah of Psalms 1 and 2. Surrounded by people who have no interest in peace with God or with each other.

And here is what stopped me when I first read it this way: that far country might not only be the culture around us. It might be the address of our own heart.

The journey of worship does not begin by deciding to move toward God. It begins by leaving the place that has no interest in God.

Looking.

Psalm 121 feels like what a pilgrimage song should sound like. The worshiper has left the far country and now lifts his eyes toward the hills surrounding Jerusalem (1).

But before he takes another step, he stops to answer a question: where does my help come from (1)?

That question is a direct response to the "woe is me" of Psalm 120. I am leaving. But where am I going, and why? The worshiper answers without hesitation: my help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (2).

Then the song makes a word do a lot of work. The word "keep" appears five times in eight verses. The Lord keeps Israel (4). The Lord is your keeper (5). He keeps you from all evil (7), from harm by day and by night (6), from this time forth and forevermore (8).

Five times. Eight verses.

That kind of repetition in Hebrew poetry is not an accident. The poet is making sure you feel the weight of it. You are not ascending to a God who is indifferent to your arrival. You are ascending to the One who has been keeping you the whole time.

Leaving is only the beginning. Looking is fixing your eyes on the One who has never stopped watching over you.

Arriving.

By Psalm 122, the worshiper has made it. His feet are standing within the gates of Jerusalem (2). And the emotion is simple and uncomplicated: "I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord" (1).

Just glad.

After the distress of Psalm 120 and the upward gaze of Psalm 121, gladness feels exactly right. The journey has led somewhere. The worshiper is no longer stuck, no longer only looking. He has arrived.

The city of Jerusalem is celebrated as the place where Israel gives thanks (4), where the thrones of the house of David were set (5), where peace and prosperity are found (6–8). The heart of the worshiper overflows: pray for the peace of Jerusalem (6).

We should resist the urge to read this psalm through a modern political lens. This is a theological song, not a foreign policy statement. Jerusalem, the house of the Lord, and the Davidic throne all point forward to their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, and the Kingdom of God that has no end.

That is a sentence packed with centuries of promise.

But arriving in worship means arriving with all of it.

These three songs map the beginning of the journey of worship. We leave the far country, the place that has no interest in the Lord or His Messiah. We lift our eyes to the One who is our Helper and Keeper. And we arrive, gladly, in the presence of the King.

The remaining twelve songs show us what worship looks like once we get there. It is not simple. It rejoices and laments. It counts blessings and begs for fortunes to be restored. It marvels at God's faithfulness and wonders why His promises feel so delayed.

Real worship is complex, honest, and fully present.

The Psalms of Ascent don't just call us to leave and look. They call us to arrive with everything we are carrying. The remaining 12 songs demonstrate the depth of genuine worship.

Part 3 begins by exploring Psalm 123.