August 20 Sermon: I Was Glad

Consider these questions as we look at Psalm 122 in this week’s message:

1. Can you recall a place from your own life that holds significant meaning to you, whether due to nostalgia or personal significance? How do these places evoke strong memories and emotions for you?

2. How does the psalmist emphasize the importance of Jerusalem and the temple for the people of God in the Old Covenant? What significance does this hold in terms of worship and the practice of faith for the Israelites?

3. In light of the New Covenant and the work of Jesus, how does the psalm's message of gathering in the house of the LORD take on a new meaning for Christians? How does the church serve as a place of worship, thanksgiving, and anticipation of the eternal praise to come?

Transcript:

We all have places that we love to go. Special destinations that mean so much to us or maybe it is someplace that you desire to travel to but you haven’t made it there yet. These might be places that have significant meaning to you or it might be places that have nostalgic meaning to you. I’m guessing you can think back to a place from your childhood that was a super big deal for you to go to and you have strong memories connected to these places. I don’t remember how the conversation came about but just this past Friday Kris and I were chatting in her office and we reminisced about places we ate at when we were young. Strong feelings of nostalgia sprung up in both of us as we recalled going out to eat at Godfather’s Pizza at the corner of Minnesota Avenue and 33rd street in Sioux Falls. You kids today will never know the joy of anticipation heading to that old house that has been turned in a pizza restaurant. Today you usually go for pizza and you head to the buffet line but back then you ordered your cheesy, gooey goodness and while you waited for it to be delivered to your table you would take a handful of quarters to deposit into the arcade machines. Maybe your special place isn’t one of nostalgia but of fandom. You have sat at home and watched your favorite team all season but you are looking forward to when you can make a trip to sit in the stands and experience the sights and the smells that it all entails. I watch a lot of Cleveland Guardians games and they are presented with a high-definition picture with all the information I could ever ask for but it isn’t the same as walking up to Jacob’s Field, having my ticket scanned, and sitting down with a hot dog covered with mac and cheese, bacon bits, and Fruit Loops. My point, other than to make you wonder about me and my stadium food choices, is to draw up within you those feelings that we all have for a place that means something so special to us. It might be something like your grandmothers dining room and the smell of it as you walked in after church each Sunday or it might be the draw of a majestic mountaintop and its breathtaking view after a long hike but regardless our draw to particular places is a huge part of the human experience.‌

As we settle in to Psalm 122 as our psalm for this morning we consider the significance of the temple for the people of God in the old covenant. While I’ve drawn upon sporting venues and eating establishments I would guess that you feel a connection to a special place of worship as well. For many of you it is in this very room and for others you can recall worship in the building that was once in the yard to the east of us. Regardless of where that place is or was it’s my guess that your memories are strong. You know where you traditionally sat in this place of worship and you may even be able to close your eyes and transport yourself there in your mind while you recall not only what you see in that place but how the voices of God’s people together sounded as they sang. Worship has a powerful affect on us and it is an important part of who we are as God’s people.‌

This has always been the case and as I said, for the covenant people of God in the Old Testament, there would have been an important connection to the temple. Now, it’s important that we remember that what took place at the temple wasn’t like our weekly worship here. People didn’t come together and sit and experience corporate worship inside the walls of the temple or before the temple was built, the tabernacle. As we’ve seen many times in our journeying through scripture together, what took place in the temple was the ritual sacrifices for the sins of the people. It was the Levites and priests who were able to go in and render those offerings prescribed by God. That temple was the one place that those sacrifices were to take place and the temple wasn’t mobile. It wasn’t a travelling enterprise for the priests to go around to the Hebrew people and bring the celebration of the feasts to them. The people had to come to Jerusalem to surrender their sacrifices. ‌

I bring this up as we look at Psalm 122 because it’s important that we understand that this is one of the Psalms of Ascents. We haven’t looked at any of these yet this summer but there are a total of 15 of them. They are found in succession in the psalter from 120 to 134. These psalms were likely sung by Jewish pilgrims as they journeyed to Jerusalem for three major festivals of the Hebrew people by God: Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.‌

They are referred to as Psalms of Ascent because these psalms were sung by the Israelites as they ascended towards Jerusalem, which is at a higher elevation compared to the surrounding regions. The purpose of these songs was to both express the pilgrims' anticipation and joy as they approached the holy city and to provide spiritual reflection during their journey.‌

There are multiple themes in the Songs of Ascents vary, but recurring themes of unity, hope, protection, gratitude, and reverence for God come through in them. Some of these psalms also express the hardships and challenges faced by the pilgrims on their journey, while others celebrate the blessings and divine guidance that accompany their trust in Yahweh.‌

So, as we look at verse one this morning it is with this in mind.‌

This is not just someone waking up on Sunday and being happy about hearing that they are going to church. This is a statement of joy that they are headed to Jerusalem and the center of their religious life. In order for them to partake in the rituals of their faith they had to make make this pilgrimage to the holy city. And lets remember, that even for people who were in a relatively close proximity to the city this was a significant journey in this time. I will regularly be having conversations with people and when we talk about the way things have changed over time one thing that people consistently say is that when they were younger they rarely ever went to Sioux Falls. It was a pretty significant trek and not something you did flippantly or without planning ahead. Now kids, this isn’t horse and buggy times we’re talking about here but a time when there would have been reliable vehicles and very cheap gas. Our ease of travel makes it hard for us to even comprehend the planning and dedication it would take to make a journey of even 20 or 30 miles for the people who would have sung this psalm on their way to Jerusalem. No cars. No gas stations or rest stops. There weren’t numerous drive thru options for food. There weren’t DVD players on the back of the donkey to entertain the kids or smart phone games to pass the time. This past week I went on walks and logged several miles but this was after sitting at a desk most of the day and driving up to Edgebrook to do some visits. Considering this psalm while I was walking as recreation from a rather sedentary profession, I thought about how difficult it would have been to travel just four miles with small children and all the stuff you needed for the festival and all the supplies you would have needed to be able to survive. Plus, I was walking on flat ground. Four miles would be bad enough, imagine a journey of 25 or 50 miles.‌

Yet, with all the difficulties that making this trip would have entailed, the people of God sang this song as they were making their way to worship. They were going to house of the LORD. The place where they would offer their worship to the God who had called them out and made them a people. As I mentioned earlier we all have places that are important to us and while I used that as a way to draw us in to the significance of Jerusalem and the temple, nothing can compare to what the people of God thought and felt about these places. We might think our favorite sports team is “God’s team” and the stadium where they routinely excite and disappoint us is a shrine of some sort, it is nothing like Jerusalem. It had an elevated level of importance for the people of God because this one who had revealed himself to them had revealed that this was the place where the LORD of heaven and earth was present for them to offer sacrifices and worship to him.‌

And this idea is emphasized for us in the way that Jerusalem is spoken of in the next several verses.

‌Like I said, this is no ordinary city to the people of God. It is a city established by God not only for the practice of their faith but also a place where the king of Israel was to be seated on the throne.‌

Verse two starts out here letting us know that the people of God have not only suggested making their way to the temple but that they have arrived and then immediately the psalmist lets us know that it is a secure location. It is fortified and has been built up. This celebration of Jerusalem as a city and it’s beyond held together is not about human achievement. Remember the history of the people of God. They were a small band of people that God continually set apart and rescued. To suggest that the children of Jacob who were in bondage in Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years would now be a people with a city such as Jerusalem on their own strength was an absurdity. The people standing within the gates know how God had brought them to this place and they clearly also know the purpose for which he did this.‌

Notice what we see in verse four. It has been decreed that the tribes go up. There is a two-fold sense that this statement is true. God has decreed that they would be a people but he has also decreed that they would gather for the religious rites of the feasts. He has not only commanded them to do so in his law but he has also provided the location in which they are to do it.‌

And verse four also tells us the purpose of this. To give thanks to the LORD. Once again, as we have seen in the Psalms so many times, Yahweh is worthy of praise simply because of his majesty, power, and holiness but at the root of the praise of the people of God is the thanksgiving that is due to him. He is not just almighty God, he is also the God who rescues his people and blesses them. That is the heart of worship. Acknowledging that we have been saved and set apart by a God and we did nothing to merit this on our own.‌

We will come back to that in our application shortly but I want us to once again reinforce the idea of the establishment of the kingship as a part of the love of the city of Jerusalem and we come to the last sentence in this cluster of verses we are looking at today. The throne of judgment was set and that is the throne of David. The house of David is the dynasty of the line of kingship but we have to think about this not simply as the idea of someone sitting on a throne with a crown on. We also need to go beyond the idea that this kingship was ordained by God to be the house of David. As I’ve mentioned several times while we’ve been in the Psalms this summer, when we see the house of David or the king spoken of in the psalter we have to make sure that we think of the messianic overtones that this would have brought to the psalm. The house of David is more than just about who is going to be the earthly ruler who gathers armies and governs the people. It is ultimately about the messiah and the promise all the way back in Genesis 3 that from the seed of the woman would come the one who would crush the head of the serpent. And remember, what they were gathering to celebrate in these festivals is ultimately pointing to the messiah as well. There is expectation of the people not only of their coming to Jerusalem but that one day the promised seed of the woman would come to Jerusalem to rule and reign.‌

And so, this important earthly city is prayed for by the psalmist and those who make their way to Jerusalem and the temple.‌‌

The word peace here in the original Hebrew has a connotation of more than just a rest from war. It is the word shalom and it mean that there is wholeness and fulfillment and there is prosperity that flows from all of it. The psalmist is praying for more than just keeping foreign forces at bay but also praying for security for the purpose of being a city that is whole and pursuing the things of God. While this is about more than just keeping invaders out that is also a substantial part of the hope because the psalmist speaks of the walls and towers but, this isn’t about bricks and towers loaded with armaments. Notice the purpose of this peace in verse 8 here.‌

For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say Peace be within you. While Jerusalem is an earthly city that’s not what this is about. It’s about the people of God being gathered and being relationship with the God who is in covenant with them.‌

And this is why the psalmist says that he will seek the good of the house of the LORD. It is the building that is the center of their spiritual life and their bond with God. It stands for God being in the midst of his people and so the psalmist says that he will seek the good of the LORD. He will honor what God has done and what he has commanded in his life.‌

And as we consider the application for us as we look at this psalm we do so with the new covenant in mind. We live on the other side of the psalms in the covenant that the psalmists looked forward to in anticipation. Once again, Jesus unlocks the psalms for us and this is so true for us in this psalm.‌

Remember the language that Jesus uses regarding himself being the temple and the way in which the New Testament talks about the people of God. Jerusalem is a representation of believers gathered together and points to the coming new Jerusalem that is anticipated and promised at the end of history when Christ returns to deliver his kingdom to his Father. For us, the messiah has come and he reigns on high. As the people of God we stand boldly protected by him within the gates of his protection. He is our source of shalom. We trust him for the peace and wholeness that we truly need. For this, we worship and adore his name and we do not do this on our own. Like the people who sang this psalm on their way to the festivals we praise God as the collected people of God, gathered together by his calling us to himself as his church, his called out ones.‌

And so, because of the work of Jesus it is good for us to go to the house of the LORD. Here we do not offer sacrifices of animals and grain for the forgiveness of our sins but instead, we offer sacrifices of praise because the lamb of God has offered himself for us. It is here where we gather because we know God is among us through his word and Spirit. It is here where we come in anticipation of the day when all the gathered people of God from throughout the ages will gather in the new Jerusalem to offer eternal praise and thanksgiving to the LORD for his saving us. The divine rescue from sin, death, and hell causes us to worship his name and we know that the church is bound firmly together by this good news of the gospel. So with the psalmist may our lips say “I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the LORD”. For in our worship we not offer our praise today but we also praise God in anticipation of our praising him for all eternity.