A Song of Ascents

Submitted by stephenmarykay on Sun, 04/20/2008 - 14:49

Prayer List

I've always enjoyed hymnals. When cracking open a hymnal you know this is no ordinary book. They feel unlike a standard store bought novel. I own some that are leather bound, some are hard back, but with a special faux hide texture to the covers. Some are gilded on the edges, shining with gold, expressing the treasure within. They smell different, enriched with the scent of devotion and long use. The thin pages rustle with a sound like a whispered hush. A hymnal gives a glimpse into history, devotion, music, liturgy and the communal nature of the Christian faith. Opening the book of Psalms is basically to open the hymnal of the ancient temple in Israel. As most of our hymnals have a section devoted to Christmas carols for the Advent and Christmas seasons, so too the Psalter contains a section of Passover "carols" – pilgrims songs, sung by the faithful as they journeyed to Jerusalem for Passover or one of the other major feasts. We know them today as the Songs of Degrees, Steps or Ascents. There are 15 of them: Psalms 120 through 134. Any time in my prayer life when I want to ascend a little higher, I find myself turning to these psalms. I may pray them exclusively for a day, a week or a month. Absorbing their messages and echoing their words to God.

Einstein is credited with the saying "a problem can not be solved at the same level of thinking that created it." Sometimes in prayer, like the pilgrims of Israel, I want to ascend to a higher place. I want to scale the mountain of God to a New Jerusalem. I want to get above the level where the problem that plagues me in prayer was created. For me, the Songs of Ascents have worked well for this purpose. Their exact creation or meaning is uncertain. My favorite theory attributes 10 of them to King Hezekiah (whose story is told in Second Kings and Isaiah.) God performed a miracle for Hezekiah, adding fifteen years to his life. As a sign and pledge of God’s intervention, the shadow of the sun went backwards ten degrees on his sun dial. Some have proposed that ten of the Songs of Degrees were composed by Hezekiah in response to this event. (Of the other five, four are attributed to David and one to Solomon.) In Isaiah 38, Hezekiah writes:

The Lord was ready to save me,

therefore we will sing my songs to stringed instruments

all the days of our lives

in the house of the Lord.

Psalms 120-134 could indeed be the "my songs" Hezekiah writes of – fifteen in all to celebrate the fifteen years added to his life with the ten original ones written to celebrate the miracle of the sun going backward ten degrees. There are a number of other theories about the creation of these psalms as well. But regardless of their creation, they seem to break easily into five groups of three psalms each. The first psalm in each group is a psalm of distress, followed by a psalm of trust, and ending with a psalm of blessing and peace. When I’m seeking to move from distress to peace in my own prayer life, following the upward spiral of these Psalms has always been a great help.

C.S. Lewis reminds us that the Psalms are after all prayer poems, "poems intended to be sung: not a doctrinal treatises, nor even sermons....The Psalms must be read as poems; as lyrics, with all the licences and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry. They must be read as poems if they are to be understood..."

These rich prayer poems connect us to past, present, and future pilgrims. A.C. Benson wrote, "As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow." As we journey into the Passover season, may you discover the mysterious beauty of spiritual pilgrimage as you join your voice with the echo of ancient pilgrims on their way to feast in Jerusalem.

Prayer:

Psalm 120

A Song of Ascents.

In my distress I cry to the Lord,

that he may answer me:

‘Deliver me, O Lord,

from lying lips,

from a deceitful tongue.’

What shall be given to you?

And what more shall be done to you,

you deceitful tongue?

A warrior’s sharp arrows,