Where the Climb Starts

The pilgrim songs do not open at the gates of Jerusalem. They open in distress, among people who are not telling the truth, a long way from home.

The Songs of Ascent are Psalms 120 through 134, and they were sung on the road. Pilgrims walking up toward Jerusalem for the festivals sang them in order, and the order matters.

You would expect a collection like that to open with anticipation. Something about the city, or the temple, or the gladness of going. Instead Psalm 120 opens like this: I call on the LORD in my distress, and he answers me. Save me, LORD, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues.

That is where the climb starts. Not at the gates. In trouble, surrounded by people who are not telling the truth.

Then the psalmist says something strange about geography. Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar. Meshech was far to the north, somewhere up near the Black Sea. Kedar was a desert people to the south and east. Nobody lives in both. He is not giving his address. He is saying: I am nowhere near where I am supposed to be, in every direction at once.

Most of us would prefer to begin from somewhere more settled. We would like to arrive at faith already composed, having sorted the distressing parts out in advance, so that the climb can be a pleasant walk rather than an escape. The collection does not allow it. The first song is sung by someone who is far away and knows it.

There is one more line worth sitting with. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war. Anyone who has been the only person in a room trying to lower the temperature knows that particular tiredness. It is not dramatic suffering. It is the slow attrition of being misread every time you try to make something better.

The psalm does not fix this. It does not end with the lying lips repenting or the war party standing down. It ends with the situation entirely intact and the pilgrim walking anyway.

That is worth noticing, because we often treat unresolved circumstances as a reason to postpone. I will get serious about this once things settle down. Psalm 120 puts the first step before the settling.

So if you are waiting to feel less far away before you begin, this song is the answer to that. Say where you actually are, not where you would prefer to report being. Meshech and Kedar, both at once, is an acceptable place to start, because it is where the whole collection starts.

The road goes up from there.