Psalm 134

Have you ever worked really hard for to accomplish a goal, I mean devoted months or even years of your life to a cause, or a goal, or an academic achievement? Only to find out it wasn’t really what you wanted after all, the achievement didn’t bring you the happiness you had assumed it would? Michael Jordan, the famous basketball player, was at the height of his career, the greatest basketball player the world had ever seen. He made incredible moves, could hit shots people other players wouldn’t even think of taking. I wasn’t really happy when he made those moves against the Lakers…he once made a layup against the Lakers where he changed hands, from the right to the left while he was in mid air. Amazing shot. Kobe Bryant is now challenging him for potentially the best player ever, but still is quite a ways off. Jordan was the best, and yet, at the height of his career he changed sports, and tried to play baseball. Turns out that baseball is difficult all in itself.

He had almost gotten bored with the game. He was at the height of his talents, the height of his fame and glory, and it was empty. Many of us have had a similar experience; might have been a graduate degree, a dream job, the computer we’ve always wanted, maybe even the relationship we’ve always dreamed of. The comedian Roseanne in her bitter, funny kind of way taps into this in a joke where she says, you work so hard to get married, and then 10 years later you’re married to a burping easy chair. Sometimes the things we think will fill us up, the things that we assume will be everything we want and need turn out not to be. The accomplishments become pale, there is no joy in where we have gotten to because it has taken so much out of us. I imagine this is how many top executives are; they have sacrificed their lives, their families in pursuit of the goal of running a big company, only to find it is more pressure than ever. There is nothing there. There is a solution to this emptiness; this dissatisfaction with life. Our worlds need to be focused on God and His glory, not on our own lives, our own accomplishments. Hopefully our text this morning will bring something into the conversation. Psalm 134, the final Psalm of Ascent.

Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD
who minister by night in the house of the LORD.
2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the LORD.
3 May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

Let’s pray.

This is the final Psalm of Ascent, the last of the 15 psalms the Jewish pilgrims would sing as traveling songs as they walked up to the city of God, Jerusalem, and further, as they would make their ways through the narrow crowded streets of Jerusalem up to the Temple. The pilgrims would come several times a year to the Temple to offer sacrifices, to celebrate feasts and so forth. They are called the psalms of the ascent because the pilgrims would travel upward, physically, in order to get to the Temple, but also that over time, the way to God was also a trip up, a journey upwards towards God as He drew the pilgrims upwards towards Himself. We have the same struggle they had, trying to follow God ever upward, to raise our eyes to God and to keep moving upwards in Him, to His glory. These psalms have covered some of the very basics we all need to remember as we are on our journey, ever upward, seeking after Christ. Even though we won’t go over these psalm again like this, I would commend to you their reading, year after year. These songs have blessed those seeking after God for thousands of years. But if you don’t read them again, they lose their power, their ability to remind us of who we are in God. So make a habit of reading the psalms, but these in particular are special to me, and now, I hope to you as well.

When we started looking at the Psalms of Ascent, we noted that a main theme in the first one, Psalm 120, is repentance. Repentance takes us from the path we were headed on, one of selfishness, and self centered living, and put us on a different path, one where seeking God and His will for our lives is the highest goal. We turned from our dreams of our own greatness and exultation to the goal of living to glorify God. Along our way through these psalms we have seen how the psalms address who we are, where we are going, and the best way God has for us to become who we are becoming. It was Soren Kierkegaard who said, And now, with God’s help, I will become myself. I think these psalms have helped us take a look at ourselves, they have and will continue, like all Scripture, and with God’s help, to become ourselves. The psalms help us to remember that while life can be challenging and adventurous, the one thing life following God never is is dull. God is an exciting God; He made the heavens and the earth and following a God like that, properly, is never a dull ride. It can be painful, it can be a way of suffering, fraught with perils, but it is never dull. Repentance is the start of an exciting life; not a hum drum life sequestered away from life, but repentance is the start of real life.

It is in that vein that we come to Psalm 134. It is clearly a psalm of praise, and a psalm of blessing. Listen to verse 1 again.

Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD
who minister by night in the house of the LORD.

Last week we talked about all of us, all members of the body of Christ being ministers to one another, maybe not all the time, but ministers nonetheless. Now we first need to talk about this word praise. It is a bad translation. The New Revised Standard translates it more accurately as blessed. So it should read, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord. There are 2 words in Hebrew that translate to blessed. The first word, not used here, is ‘ashre’ describes life when it is in tune with creation, that sense of well being that all is right with the world. When we describe someone as have great kids, a loving spouse, and a dog that can fetch, we say that person is blessed. That’s the idea we have with ‘ashre’, and I think you can see how that word is correctly translated ‘blessed’. We see this word in Psalm 1; “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners…” and in Psalm 128; ‘Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways…’. This is ashre. The other word for blessed, used in our psalm today, is berakah. Berakah describes what God does for us in His dealings with humans; gives His spirit, He enters into covenants with us, (both the one with Abraham and the one in Jesus blood on the cross). He pours Himself out for us, He becomes known to us. This is the blessing the word we have for today is-berakah. The first word in the Psalm of Ascents if repentance, and the last word if blessing. It is the blessing of a God who is with us, the blessing of a God who is close and who understands.

We serve and worship not a God that is far away, but instead one who blesses His people with His own presence. We worship and praise a God who served humanity in one of the most painful ways ever devised. God knows what it is like to be a human being; He was one. He knows what it is like to have days of nothing but frustration. He knows what betrayal feels and looks like. He knows the pain humans can cause to one another. He knows what it is like to be hungry, to be without a home, to be mocked and ridiculed, to be harassed and chased. He also knows what it is like when there is genuine fellowship and love between people; He knows what it is like to free someone from their addictions, from their personal demons. He knows what it is like to treat someone with dignity, to show compassion, to heal. This is what it means to be blessed by God; that He is our foundation; He is our love, He sticks with us, bends down to meet us where we are, through the good times and the bad ones. We are blessed to know God, blessed to have God in our lives.

And our response back to that kind of love and attention is praise and blessing. We praise God with all of who we are; seeking to make Him known, seeking to love Him in every part of our lives, every part of each day. Because of what Christ has done for us we can praise God for the sunrise and the sunset; the rain when it falls and the crashing waves on the beach. We can praise God when we hear a robin’s song and the thunder in the distance. We can praise God when our children do well, and when they fail both themselves and us. We can praise God in the very worst of times; when physical pain seems like it has no end; when emotional pain leaves us heartbroken. God has been there; God knows what the pain is like on every level. We are blessed because of His presence on earth, His presence in our lives. Even when we don’t feel blessed; know that we are. God, who never leaves us or forsakes us, knows how each of us are doing, knows what we are doing, blesses us.

Because of this, the next section of the psalm is nearly a command.

2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the LORD.

Think about the trip to Jerusalem by the Jewish pilgrims as one long trip through the psalms of the Ascent. They have arrived at the Temple, here in the last psalm. They have gone through strange and foreign lands, they have traveled through Israel, they have gone up Mount Zion, through the gates of Jerusalem, up through the city streets and now they have arrived at the Temple. They are in the presence of God; therefore it is completely appropriate to lift up their hands and praise God. Incidentally, I love it when people raise their hands in praise of God during the praise songs each Sunday. I know some of us aren’t yet comfortable with that, and may never be, but I would encourage you all to take your hands out of your pockets and raise them up to God once or twice to see how it feels. In any situation, the pilgrims had made it to the Temple; was God going to meet them there? Or what? Come lift your hands can be a command, but it can also be an invitation. Come further up, come further into God. Come experience Him in His glory. Come and lift up your hands, come forget yourself and your selfish ways and worship the God greater than us all, but who consents to live with us nonetheless. Come raise your hands in worship. The trip was long and hard, filled with grumbling and frustrations, filled with trials and pain. But we’re here now, in the Temple, so raise your hands and bless the Lord. It wasn’t easy, but God was good, praise the Lord! Are you worried about your kids and whether they’ll make the trip to God? Now isn’t the time to worry, it is time to set that aside and praise God. Now is the time to put all distractions aside and worship in the presence of God.

Are you going to worry about what other people are thinking about you today, or will you worship? Are you going to stress over what might happen, or can you set that aside to worship right now? Put that all aside, put all the stress and pain of the week aside; worship the Lord. Raise your hands and worship. It is what we have been created for, it is what Jesus died for…the relationship with God where we worship Him, eyes lifted up to heaven, hands lifted to the sky in praise, that’s what we’re about. Sometimes we don’t feel worthy of praising God, sometimes we’re angry about the way something has turned out in our lives. The Biblical response is- lift up your hands and praise the Lord! It was never about our worthiness anyway; it has always been about Jesus worthiness to be the Lamb of God, slain on our behalf, so get going, praise God!

We are not called to be the morose nit pickers that the world believes we are. Instead we are called to be joyous Christians, lifting our hands in the air, praising God with our whole being. There is more to Christianity than just right beliefs; there is the living out of those beliefs. If we really believe, as we do, that Jesus died for us and because of that we have been given new life, a new joy, why do we look and act like everyone else in society? We should be reflecting the way God has dealt with us; we should be the best forgivers that our friends know. We should be the people who seek to serve others, rather than striving for our rightful place, whatever that is, in our neighborhoods and business hierarchy. We have been blessed by God in Jesus Christ, we are blessed with God’s presence and will be forever. Doesn’t that make you feel great? Drop your resentments and raise your hands in praise. Drop your bitterness and bless God back. If you are into nitpicking, drop that too. It doesn’t serve the community of believers, it doesn’t serve God. Drop it, and raise your hands in the sanctuary.

May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

I want to remind you again of our Westminster Catechism, one of the historic confessions of our denomination. The first question and answer are so quotable, so great, and I think they fit in here. Question 1; What is the chief end of man? Answer. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Sometimes I suspect strongly that we want a God that is mad at other people because God will get them for the way they’ve treated us. That is the exact opposite way a Christian should be thinking, should be hoping. We instead should be trying to bless others out of the blessings God has given us. Our chief end it not to be God, it is not to talk badly about people behind their backs, our chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever, or in the words of Psalm 134, to bless the Lord. The road to God laid out in the Psalms of the Ascent start with repentance and end with a glorious sense of God’s blessing. God’s grace in Jesus Christ should echo back out of our lives as gratitude, and overwhelming gratitude for what God has done for us. Not anything we have done, not that we are all the great because we aren’t. Instead there ought to be an overwhelming gratitude to God that begins in us and flows out to the world. Lift your hands to the Lord.

The answer to disappointments that our accomplishments have gotten us what we want is to turn to God, to praise His name, to live for Him and not what we think, or what others tell us will make us happy and fulfilled. It is to live to se God’s grace abound, His name praised, to live into His love each and every moment.

Today we get to see God’s grace begin with a little life. We get to testify to little Andrew about how great God is, we get to show Him what it is like to live a life praising God, a God centered life. Today, also, as we celebrate Mother’s Day and all the women of our church family, we get to thank God for them. What an appropriate day to think about how God has blessed us, how God is blessing us, and how God will bless us. God blesses us with Mother’s, with wives, with children. What a great day to lift our hands in praise, to lift our hands in praise of God in His sanctuary. Do me a big favor; during the hymn of response let’s all raise our hands, as much as is possible. Let’s drop the pretense and raise our hands, drop our problems and raise our hands in praise and blessing of God. I invite you to find joy in the Lord, look for the blessings of the Lord, not just here, but all week long. We are training in this life. We are training for the people we are becoming. Let that start with joy, with blessing our Father in Heaven for all that He has done for us. Let’s begin the rest of the week by raising our hands to the Lord in blessing.

Let’s pray.