Every year there is one book (apart from the Bible, of course!) to which I regularly return. Its title in my version is ‘The Journey’, though in America I believe it was published with the title (a quotation from Nietzsche I have always relished) ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.’ The sub-title is ‘a guide book for the pilgrim life’ and it is a commentary on the Psalms of Ascent (Ps 120-134) by Eugene Peterson. The psalms are probably my favourite book in the Bible and I enjoy digging deep into these songs.
The songs of ascent were sung by Hebrew pilgrims each year as they went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the great festivals. They were probably sung in sequence three times a year (see Ex 23:14-17; 34:22-24) to celebrate God’s saving ways at the Feast of Passover, to renew their commitments as God’s covenanted people at the Feast of Pentecost and to celebrate God’s blessings at the Feast of Tabernacles. The reason they are known as ‘songs of ascent’ is simply that Jerusalem was the highest city geographically and all who travelled there had to do so by going uphill! Phil Wickham captures this in his song ‘The Ascension’:
‘Let us start the ascension
Let’s begin the climb
Up this holy mountain
Where Your glory shines
Further up, further in
Just to be with You again
Let us start the ascension.’ (‘The Ascension’, Phil Wickham)
A pilgrimage is a spiritual journey and as Mark reminded us on Sunday, the whole of life is rather like a journey. It seemed fitting, therefore, to return to these ‘songs for the road’ as I meditated on this idea. Armies are used to having chants and songs to help them march in step (though I have a soft spot for the song with changed lyrics in the ‘Sergeant Bilko‘ film as more reflective of how tiring all that marching must be!) and music is certainly a great way to keep rhythm going and spirits up as we journey on in life. We all need songs in this ‘in-between’ stage, ‘between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith.’ (quoted P 8) It’s too easy for us to believe the whispers of the world that this life of faith isn’t worth it and won’t get us anywhere, but we need to grasp that life is ‘a pilgrim path of wholeness in God.’ (P13)
John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ is a spiritual allegory reminding us of the journey all Christians need to take from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Words from this have been immortalised in the hymn ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’:
‘He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.
Who so beset him round with dismal stories
Do but themselves confound—his strength the more is.
No foes shall stay his might; though he with giants fight,
He will make good his right to be a pilgrim.
Since, Lord, Thou dost defend us with Thy Spirit,
We know we at the end, shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away! I’ll fear not what men say,
I’ll labour night and day to be a pilgrim.’
We are indeed pilgrims on a journey towards God, not necessarily going to Jerusalem or other famous pilgrimage sites such as Lourdes or Rome, but walking by faith and ‘looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God,’ just as Abraham did. (Heb 11:10)