In Our Ascent
March 3, 2023 | Lily Lawler BK ‘23
image description: lightning in field
Psalm 121
A Song of Ascents.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Every time I read the beginning of Psalm 121, I can’t help but sing it out loud. Specifically, to the tune of Casting Crowns’ Praise You In This Storm.
Casting Crowns’ songs have been a key part of many young Christians’ worship since the early 2000s. I can remember belting out the climactic bridge of Praise You In This Storm from my car seat as my mom drove me to school in the morning. As a result, the lyrics of their songs have become deeply ingrained in my heart and easily come to mind in times when worship is the only language my heart seems able to speak.
It wasn’t until I was much older – in college, actually – that I began to realize how many of their lyrics are direct quotations from scripture. Since childhood, I and many other car seat worshipers like me had been inadvertently singing and memorizing Psalms.
Some parts of the Bible can feel so culturally specific to the time they were written that we find ourselves needing to cross-check our understanding with descriptions in study Bibles and other resources. But the beauty of many Psalms is that these are songs that need no context or explanation – they are the purest plea from the soul that people have shared in since King David’s time. That’s why whenever I read the titles of Psalms 119-133, the Song(s) of Ascent, I simply take them as I understand the title: these are songs to lift us up, and bring us closer to the Lord.
One day however, the part of me that is a relentless Googler thought it prudent to see if perhaps there might be another meaning to the Songs of Ascent. And of course, there is.
These Songs of Ascent, also known as Pilgrim Songs, were traditionally sung by Hebrew travelers who would ascend the uphill road towards the temple of Jerusalem for the annual festivals [1]. Not only were these songs sung within the temples as acts of worship, but also along the long and difficult journey to the dwelling place of God.
Learning this made me reflect on the moments of life that I found myself singing the words of Psalm 121. They were times when I found myself on my knees and helpless. They were times when I was truly in the middle of the storm.
Even though only the bridge of the song is a direct quotation from the Psalm, Casting Crowns captured the spirit of Psalm 121 in their song. Praise You In This Storm is a song about looking to God when the journey of life becomes filled with sorrow and strife. These are lines meant to be said by the weary wanderers of life. These are words meant to be spoken by breathless lungs.
But like the pilgrims climbing to the temple, the Psalm starts at the lowest point of worship and ascends to gratitude and fullness of hope. The season of Lent is the hill leading to Christ’s crucifixion and His resurrection on Easter. We sing this song the loudest on the day our savior died knowing our hope is in the promise of His return, lifting our eyes to the hill where we see Him in His glorious victory over death.
Praising God in the storm is an essential part of our life journeys. The bridge of Casting Crowns’ song is so impactful because of the difficult road we took to get there. We are on the same journey as the pilgrims on the way to the temple, but there is a key difference: no longer are we on the road to the hope of reaching God’s presence, but we now have Him dwelling within us through Christ’s death and the tearing of the veil. He is now alongside us in this journey, and intends to keep us along the way. And so, we can live life knowing that when we lift our eyes to the hill, not only do we see where our help comes from, but also the hope of our eternity with Christ.
References:
[1] https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/what-are-the-songs-of-ascent-in-the-bible.html