This tiny psalm packs quite a punch. Serving as a benediction for pilgrims who've journeyed through the collection of Psalms of Ascent, Psalm 134 packs references and allusions to just less than half of the others in the collection (see psalms 121, 122, 124, 128, 132, & 133). As such, it concludes the collection by pronouncing a call to worship and a blessing upon the pilgrims as they return to their daily lives.

The life of God’s people is always situated within community. Wholeness of life is experienced both in relationship to God, and to one another. Entering Holy Week, Jesus reminds us that His crucifixion and resurrection were to be remembered, expressed, and experienced within His newly created community.

The Old Testament scriptures aid modern-day faith by offering glimpses of how faith and hope work in practice. These mysterious non-tangible expressions of our soul are always rooted in something concrete. As practitioners of faith and hope, this concreteness tethers our spiritual yearnings to the present.

The life of peace is one in faithful relationship to Yahweh and His community. In an ideal world, tranquility springs forth when we root ourselves in both.

Psalm 130 offers us a beautiful picture of faith in the midst of a crisis. The beauty of the psalm is both in its universal appeal and its depiction of a gracious and present God who delivers.

The psalms don't lie. Their beauty and their ability to be immediately utilized by contemporary readers lies in their brutal honesty about the way life is. There's something about this vulnerability in the presence of God that is deeply spiritual. For all the good we can thank God for, you and I live with the reality that our world is not as it should be.

We spend our lives in pursuit. We pursue pleasure, security, satisfaction, and many other things we believe align with our vision of the good life. But the Psalms of Ascent show us, and Jesus persistently tells us, that the good life is rooted in our proximity to the source of all that is good, God's self. Psalm 128.

The wisdom of Psalm 127 rests in the grace of God: the reality that God gives good gifts regardless of our effort. While the spiritual parallels are apparent, the psalm also asks us to consider directs the everyday provisions we may take for granted. The psalm also assures us that the underlying reality behind any fruitful effort is the divine provision of God.

There are many parallels to our spiritual journeys and the journey of Israel. For much of Israel's history, they placed their hope in Yahweh's future intervention, looking to the past acts of faithfulness as the bedrock of their surety.

Like most of the Psalms of Ascent, Psalm 125 appeals to Jerusalem's special symbolic status as the center of God's dealings in the earth (for more on this, see Psalm 123). The psalm heavily leans on the concrete imagery of Jerusalem to reveal the invisible reality of God's people.

Life is dangerous, vicious, and too often unkind. But the Creator of all things is for us. The Divine One is on our side, working on our behalf. While Jesus never guarantees our safety, He does guarantee our life. Jesus assures us that our trust anchors itself to a God of fidelity who lovingly works towards our good.

The Psalms are often daring. They express a multitude of emotions, but one of which is utter desperation before God. The Psalms of Ascent are no different. Even among Israel's ceremonious songs, we find the naked, vulnerable, bold, desperate faith God loves to see in us.

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.

There is a relentless and beautiful faith here, a poetic picture of a God who is behind all things good and life-giving. It is the LORD who protects, provides, and causes us to flourish both in gentle mercies and relentless watchfulness.

The story of Israel’s liberation into divine relationship is our story in so many ways. As we enter Holy Week we are left with the reminder that divine deliverance is and was always about restoration into divine relationship. The emancipating God liberates us from the empire of the present evil age and into divine communion.

It can seem like faith would be easier if we could only see—miracles, God, whatever, just anything more than what we see now. But this is never the case. We, like Israel, are a forgetful bunch. The divine splendors of yesterday fade quickly, and our fidelity wanes. Emancipation was not won by us, neither will our inheritance be. Faith in Yahweh begins and ends with the knowledge that it is God who carries us, always.

It can be easy to subjugate God to our specific ways of worshipping or talking about God. In God’s grace, patience, and willingness to condescend to us, we can forget that Yahweh is also the fiery God of emancipation. As we edge closer to Easter, we should hold in tension the terrifying power, authority, and strength able to wrest sin and death to the ground, and Yahweh’s insistence on accomplishing this through His own debasement, and humiliation. All at once, at Jesus’ crucifixion, the humility and the power of God are most clearly disclosed.

The Exodus makes one thing apparent. God's vision for the world excludes and refuses to tolerate the exploitative nature of empire. Thus, the lesser-known laws following on the heels of the ten commandments curb the predatory greed that is the empire's life force. The new society of Yahweh is not one of predation but neighborly love.

As we cross the threshold of Lent's midpoint, we traverse a massive turning point in the Exodus narrative. Turning from Pharaoh and the exploitative empire, Israel gazes upon the glory of their redeeming God. But emancipation is not freedom into nothing. This sort of independent, enlightenment freedom into personal autonomy risks Israel becoming the same type of empire they were liberated from. Instead, Israel will be shaped by sustained practices, becoming an emancipated community that stands defiant to the pharaonic system of exploitation and abuse.

So much of Lent is about confronting the wilderness and looking towards the glory of God. It is a picture of our daily life with Jesus in this respect. We, too, look back at our deliverance wrought by the strong outstretched hands of Jesus. We know and believe that we were miraculously snatched from the grip of death at that moment. Yet we look up and see nothing but wasteland.