Scripture: Psalm 122, 123, 124

Sermon: Narrative Sermon on Three Psalms of Ascent

Topics: departure, travel, stuck, stalled, on the road again

Preached: May 1, 2016

Rev. Mike Abma

All the Psalms tonight are Psalms of Ascent.

Psalms of Ascent were “travel songs” — the songs the Israelites sang as ascended, as they travelled up to Jerusalem.

Each Song has its own mood.

Tonight you are going to hear a story that fits the moods of each of these Psalms of Ascent.

We start with Psalm 122.

We start with a pre-travel song – a song excited about the idea of going.

Psalm 122

Meditation: The Excited Departure

Psalm 122

Song of Praise and Prayer for Jerusalem

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

¹ I was glad when they said to me,

‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’

² Our feet are standing

within your gates, O Jerusalem.

³ Jerusalem—built as a city

that is bound firmly together.

⁴ To it the tribes go up,

the tribes of the Lord,

as was decreed for Israel,

to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

⁵ For there the thrones for judgement were set up,

the thrones of the house of David.

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

‘May they prosper who love you.

⁷ Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers.’

⁸ For the sake of my relatives and friends

I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’

⁹ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,

I will seek your good.

The Excited Departure

The year was 1991.

It had been a busy year for Shirlene and me.

We had our hands full pastoring a big and thriving church.

And we had our hands full with the birth of our first child, Annalise.

So by the time May and June came, we were yearning for a vacation,

dreaming about getting out of town for a while.

We poured over maps.

We plotted out a trip to the east coast – first the Maritime provinces of

Canada – Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia — then down to Maine, and the Acadia National Park there.

What really excited us was not only where we were planning to go

but what we would be driving in.

Shirlene’s father had recently purchased a 1977 Volkswagen Westphalia van.

Look at it there on the screen. Isn’t that a beauty.

It was a classic. Rounded nose, pop-up tent roof for sleeping.

Driving it made you want to wear tie-dye t-shirts and tire-tread sandals.

Our first day of driving east revealed another hidden joy. There seemed to be a fraternity of Volkswagen van owners.

Every time we passed another VW van, we always got the “Peace sign.”

We were soon in the groove and were giving our own “peace” signs.

After our first day of driving east we had reached Quebec City. We camped in a lovely park on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river. The van made camping easy – just pop up the top and you were ready to sleep. The next day we noticed the van didn’t start very easily.

It ran rather roughly. But hey, who cared.

We were travelling in style.

SONG How Excellent is Thy Name

Psalm 123

Meditation: Stalled on the Road

Preached: May 1, 2016 PM Intergenerational Service

Psalm 123

Supplication for Mercy

A Song of Ascents.

¹ To you I lift up my eyes,

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

² As the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maid

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

until he has mercy upon us.

³ Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,

for we have had more than enough of contempt.

⁴ Our soul has had more than its fill

of the scorn of those who are at ease,

of the contempt of the proud.

STALLED ON THE ROAD

Travelling in style meant travelling …. slowly.

Every car, every truck, every tractor on the road was able to pass us.

So we decided to stop at a Volkswagen dealer in Fredricton, New Brunswick. After waiting for half a day for them to take a look at it, they finally came out and said, “Well, we’ve adjusted your valves. It should run better now.”

We left Fredricton relieved.

The van seemed to run better — for about thirty miles or so.

Then things went from bad to worse.

One of the worse things was that the van would no longer start with the key. The only way to start the thing was to jump start it or push start.

We got pretty good at that.

We would look for a gas station on top of a hill. Once we filled up with gas, we would push it onto the road, jump in, coast down the hill, pop the clutch, and hear the engine sputter reluctantly to life.

We would putt-putt down the road.

But the van had turned into a gutless wonder.

It was wonderful when we were parked, motionless.

But it was gutless on the road, able to reach top speeds of perhaps 45 miles an hour with the wind going downhill.

Our dream vacation to the east coast turned into a tour of the Maritime Volkswagen dealers.

None of them was able to really fix the van. Finally, in St. John New Brunswick, the Volkswagen dealer said there was an old German guy in town who worked on these older Volkswagens. He was the guy to see. This old German guy was the first one to take a good look at the “gutless wonder.” He said we were running on only 3 cylinders, and not a full 3 at that. He said the engine needed to be rebuilt. He said we could leave it with him and he could have it done in two or three weeks or we could try drive it home and have it done there.

We said we lived near Toronto. Would the van make it back to Toronto?

Yah, I think so, he said, but you need to take the route with the fewest hills.

Then he got out a map and showed us the route to take through northern Maine into southern Quebec, then on to Toronto.

After a number of prayers were said, we set off.

Things went okay until we got to the northern part of Maine near the Quebec border. The hills were very long and very high. A number of times the van wouldn’t make it up on its first try. Then we had to do our death-defying reverse U-turn:

with the stalled van we would roll backwards down the hill,

do a reverse U-turn, then, with a small push to get the nose pointing down the hill,

we would jump into the rolling van, pop the clutch, hear the engine pathetically sputter to life, drive down the road, make another U-turn and take another run at the hill.

We were getting pretty good at the reverse U-turns until we got to “the monster hill” – it was very long and the crest was steep.

We took three valiant runs up that hill, coaxing, encouraging the gutless wonder to make it. But each time the van died a few hundred feet from the top. After the third failure, we simply got out of the van and wept.

Stalled on a long and high hill seemingly unable to go any further.

That is life, isn’t it?

our greatest expectations collide with the daily grind;

our highest hopes come face-to-face with the harshest realities.

This is part of every journey of faith.

No matter how enthusiastic we start,

we all meet a hill we cannot climb,

an obstacle we cannot conquer,

an impasse we cannot navigate.

We are all left praying, pleading,

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us

Walk with, O Jesus, walk with us,

for I cannot make it on my own.

SONG I Want Jesus to Walk with Me

Psalm 124

Meditation: Glad to Be On the Road Again

Psalm 124

Thanksgiving for Israel’s Deliverance

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

¹ If it had not been the Lord who was on our side

—let Israel now say—

² if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,

when our enemies attacked us,

³ then they would have swallowed us up alive,

when their anger was kindled against us;

⁴ then the flood would have swept us away,

the torrent would have gone over us;

⁵ then over us would have gone

the raging waters.

⁶ Blessed be the Lord,

who has not given us

as prey to their teeth.

⁷ We have escaped like a bird

from the snare of the fowlers;

the snare is broken,

and we have escaped.

⁸ Our help is in the name of the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.

GLAD TO BE BACK ON THE ROAD

I think I left us and the gutless wonder stalled on that long hill in northern Maine.

I think I left us weeping at the side of the road, not knowing what to do next.

Well eventually a maroon-colored Toyota 4 wheel drive pick-up truck came driving toward us – its amazing how you remember the details.

The couple in this truck slowly passed by us and saw us wailing.

They stopped.

They were a French-speaking couple from Quebec.

They asked us if we needed help

– I never would have imagined angels spoke French.

Fortunately Shirlene is fluent in French. In no time at all,

they had a tow-rope attached to the gutless wonder.

In no time at all, they pulled us up to the crest of the hill.

We thanked them profusely – how many ways can you say,

Merci, Merci Beaucoup,

We now started again as we always started.

We let the van start rolling down the other side of the hill,

jumped in, popped the clutch,

heard the gutless wonder come to life,

and continued on.

When we got to the Canadian border, another miracle happened.

The Canadian border officials simply smiled and waved us through.

We didn’t even have to stop.

Clearly that angelic couple from Quebec had told them of our misery,

Had told them that if we stopped, we would have to push start our

van,

so out of pity, they waved us through.

We kept driving.

The gutless wonder limped along through the night.

There were more adventures – getting lost around Montreal,

the van refusing to start at all in the early morning hours,

our month-old daughter wondering why her parents were freaking

out.

But we kept pushing on.

A trip that should have taken 15 hours took us well over 24 hours.

We endured one adventure after another, but we kept going,

perhaps because we were being pulled –

pulled by an inner desire, an inner yearning to get home.

There is a strong pull in all our life-journeys, all our faith journeys.

There is the strong pull of being sure of what we yearn for,

of being certain of what we do not see.

Whether we realize it or not we all have a homing device in our

hearts.

This homing device draws us forward in faith,

it pulls us up and onward in hope,

no matter how long the road,

no matter how high the hill,

no matter how dark the night.

People of God, in our own journey,

remember that we never travel alone.

Never, never give up on Christ,

for he never gives up on us,

and he will always pull us ….

always pull us closer to himself –

until he pulls us all the way home. Amen

PRAYER

SONG Your Everlasting Love