A Psalm for those in need of peace.
Reading for Tuesday 2.28–Thursday 3.2
If Lent accomplishes anything, it reminds us of our deep need. We are a people in need living in a world of need. Lent persistently points us towards this need being met in the God of Easter.
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Psalm 122
A Song of Peace
1 I rejoiced that they said to me,
“Let’s go to the house of the LORD!”
2 Our feet are standing inside your gates Jerusalem.
3 Jerusalem.
A city designed for uniting together in worship.
4 The tribes of the LORD go up there,
the place decreed that Israel
offer thanks to the name of the LORD.
5 Also found there are the thrones of those who deal justice,
the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the shalom of Jerusalem:
Let those who love you have rest.
7 Let shalom be within your walls,
and tranquility within your ramparts.
8 I will say, “may there be shalom in you!”
Not just for me,
but for my friends and my neighbors,
9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.
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A Psalm for those in need of peace.
Jerusalem stands as the symbolic seat of shalom. This ideological freight comes not from the city herself but God's commitment to palpably reside within her. The peace-giving presence of God can't help but bless all things in proximity, making them flourish and restoring them to perpetual vitality.
She stands as a city of worship vv. 1-2, inclusion v. 4, and justice v. 5 because she stands as the city in which God dwells. As such, she is the source of life, justice, and blessing to all the world. She stands at the center of God's world, representing the world as it should be and the conduit through which it will be made right. Hence this ideology extends to the New Testament and her apocalyptic vision of the restoral of all things (Rev 21:22).
Yet David (the credited author of Psalm 122) recognizes the incongruent nature of all Jerusalem stands for versus all she actually is. The imperative to pray (v. 6) seeks God's intervention on the city's behalf. Turn this so-called city of peace into a city of substantive peace.
The people of God have always been called to be a people of shalom. As we, the bearers of God's shalom giving presence (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19; Eph 2:22; 1 Pet 2:5), encounter incongruence within the walls of our own faith, let's mourn, repent, and ask for the grace to become better. Pray for deep spiritual life, for God's life-giving shalom working within and through you and the people of Jesus.
Lent asks us to consider this incongruence. To reflect on our transient nature and the shortcomings that so often destroy us and those around us as we break God's shalom with our violence. We, too, like the broken world around us, need the peace-giving presence of God uniquely found within the walls of God's people. A people among whom Jesus dwells.
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Reflect with a friend
How might this psalm help us pray if we see Jerusalem as the community of God’s people today, the church? How might it help us pray if we reimagine the psalm with Jesus taking the place of Jerusalem?
Speak some life into your partner. Help them identify ways God can continue to bring shalom to their world through them.
Reflect and confess ways you may fall short in being all God has called you to be. Know that in this the blood of Jesus looms, overshadowing and overcoming any and all shortcomings.
