03/15/2026 - Psalm 121, Fourth Sunday of Lent

Scripture: Psalm 121

I lift my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

The Lord will not let your foot be moved, and the One who watches over you will

not fall asleep.

Behold, the One who keeps watch over Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep;

It is the Lord who watches over you; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

So that the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; the Lord shall keep you safe.

The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time forth

for evermore.

~

For the past few weeks, we have found Psalmists in shadowed valleys.

We found one of our Psalmists in exile as they reached into their ancestor’s memories of the Exodus from Egypt to build their trust that one day, God would lead them out of Babylon as well.

We found another one lamenting that they cannot go to the Temple, whether that’s because they’re still in exile in Babylon or because the Temple has not yet been rebuilt after its destruction.

But this week, we find our Psalmist on a journey out of that valley of grief and exile.

Psalm 121 is found in a collection of Psalms referred to as pilgrimage Psalms. They were songs created and sung by people as they journeyed from their hometowns throughout Israel, to Jerusalem, where the Temple lived. The Temple was central to the life and faith of the Hebrew people. It was where the holidays were celebrated, sacrifices were conducted, and people gathered to worship together. At the bare minimum, these pilgrimages took place three times a year for important holidays, including Passover, which is coming up soon.

And these trips were not easy. For example, Jesus and his family lived in Nazareth, which depending on your route to get around certain obstacles, is about ninety miles from Jerusalem. Today this would take about two hours to drive, but for Jesus and his family, it would take days for them to make this journey. And while we’re not entirely sure where the Psalmist is coming from, they’ve probably got a long ways to go too.

So imagine what this journey is like. You set out with a group of people, maybe just your extended family, or maybe your neighborhood or town decides to travel together for safety. Maybe you have a donkey or two to carry all of your food, water, and supplies, or maybe you have to carry it all on your back. Depending on what season it is, you’re either dealing with the winter rains, or trekking through the summer heat. Maybe there are towns or villages that you can find a bed to sleep in, but most likely you’re camping on the side of the road when night falls. Hopefully you have some sort of tent to pitch, or at least a blanket to form some sort of lean-to, especially if it’s raining, but otherwise you’re sleeping under the stars. Day and night you have to be on high alert for bandits and wolves alike. As you walk, you have to be careful to avoid brush that might be hiding venomous snakes, and watch your step so a rock or hole in the ground doesn’t twist your ankle.

And after days and days of walking, maybe riding a donkey when you get tired, sleeping on rocks and in the dust of the desert, and rationing your food and water so that it lasts the entire journey…

you look up one evening and finally see Jerusalem in the distance.

A shining city, sitting up in the Judean mountains. The buildings are taller than anything in your hometown. The pink and gold of the setting sun glows, stretching out its final rays from behind the city’s hills. The gates are flung open and bustling with activity, welcoming all the weary travelers to their destination and home for the next few weeks.

It holds the promise of the Temple, of the distant friends and family you finally get to see for the first time in months, a bath to wash off the grime and dust of the road, and a comfortable place to sleep for the first time in days or weeks.

But before you step foot through the city gates, you have to climb up into the hills on feet that are already tired and sore and maybe carrying a few blisters you didn’t have at the start of your journey.

This is why Psalm 121 begins with the Psalmist lifting their eyes to the hills. They’re looking towards Jerusalem, they see the end of their long journey in sight. But their feet are sore, their body is tired, and their souls are weary with the weight of the long journey they’ve been through. They’re going to need help for the final trek up into the hills.

So the Psalmist lifts their eyes to those hills that they still have to climb, wondering where they’re going to get the strength to finish their journey out of the valley. And unlike the psalms of lament or exile we’ve been talking about, here the Psalmist immediately proclaims that their help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. And the rest of the Psalm testifies to that.

Between verse two and three, we see a switch in pronouns from “I” to “you.” And there are many interpretations of why the song does this. Some say that it may be a call and response between the congregation and a priest; where the congregation asks for divine help and the priest responds with reassurance.

My favorite interpretation, however, is that this song was sung between pilgrims as they made that final journey towards Jerusalem. One Psalmist begins the song by singing verses one and two, and the rest respond with the reassurance that God will be with them. And the reassurance begins with the pilgrims’ most immediate worry - their footing as they climb.

A few years ago, my family and I hiked the Trail of Ten Falls at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. If you ever find yourself in Oregon, I highly recommend it, it’s a beautiful seven-mile loop that’s not too difficult. And there’s plenty of places to stop and watch the gorgeous waterfalls roll down into the rivers and creeks that meander alongside the trails. But what can be difficult about it is that a good wind gust can spray water from the waterfalls over the trails. On the worst days, or days where there’s too much rain, the trails are closed for safety. But if they are open, you do have to watch your footing to make sure your feet don’t slip on sections of the trail.

Now imagine that instead of being on a nice hike, you’re at the end of a multi-day journey. And when your feet are at their most tired and sore, you have to climb up cragged hills in the rain, most likely wearing sandals.

Your primary worry would definitely be slipping and falling on the trail!

So the Psalm’s reassurance begins with what would’ve been the first and foremost thing on the pilgrims’ minds. It proclaims that God will not let their feet slip, because God is always watching, ready to catch them, because God never sleeps.

Throughout the Psalm, it’s repeated over and over again that God does not slumber or sleep, but instead keeps awake and keeps watch so that God can keep God’s people safe. Other Psalms call out to God asking where God is and whether God’s sleeping, but this Psalm trusts that God is wide awake and protecting the Psalmist from danger.

And while there’s no use of shepherd language here, we can see the connections to how shepherds would try to remain awake all night to protect their sheep from bandits and wolves. But shepherds have to sleep sometimes, and they’d often be lulled to sleep by the stillness of the night, only interrupted by the snoring of the sheep. While in Psalms like Psalm 23, God is called a shepherd, here God’s protection is supernaturally beyond the protection that any shepherd could provide.

But the Psalm doesn’t end there. Instead the reassurance that God will not sleep nor rest is expanded from the immediate worry about slipping and falling to the rest of the pilgrims’ lives. Verses five and six can still be applied to the pilgrimage - God will watch over the pilgrims, they will be protected both day and night as they travel and are exposed to the elements. It expands the circle of protection from just making sure the pilgrims can walk safely, but also rest and sleep in safety. Then seven and eight completes the journey from God just watching after the pilgrims as they travel to Jerusalem, to promising the singers and the listeners that God is watching over them at all times.

God will preserve them from all evil, God shall keep them safe.

God’s protection is not because the people are coming to worship God in the Temple. God is not selfish in that way. Instead God watches over God’s people whenever they leave and whenever they return, from this time forth for evermore. Because ultimately this Psalm affirms that God does not care for God’s people because of what we do for God. For the Psalmist and their community, God doesn’t love them because they’re traveling to the Temple and conducting sacrifices.God doesn’t love us because we go to church and say the right prayers at the right time.

Instead God cares for God’s people because of who we are - beloved children of God.

The beauty of Psalm 121 is that it’s meant for more than just pilgrims to sing on their final climb to Jerusalem. It’s meant for us, here, today. It’s a poetic reminder that no matter what season of life we’re in, whether our souls are warmed by daylight or bathed in moonlight, God is watching over us. And while that’s a theme that our other Psalms have carried as well, there’s a confidence here and a much stronger language of protection, to the point of keeping evil away.

But for most of us, that’s not always our lived reality. We have stories of when evil did touch our lives, when we had loved ones taken from us too soon, when our own lives got turned upside-down. And we see the evils of war, violence, injustice, and poverty play out every day, both in our town, our country, and around the world. It often feels like we’re standing at the foot of the mountain, looking up to where we wish we could be. And while we know our help to get there comes from God, we can find it hard to declare that we trust in that protection.

But that’s why the Psalms are here, and that’s why there’s more than one. No single Psalm can speak to the entirety of the human experience. They’re not meant to. They’re meant to be reached for, read, recited, and yes sung, when we know it’s what our heart and soul needs in that moment.

So the next time you find yourself exhausted, wanting to give up on your trek out of your shadowed valley, when you don’t know if you have the strength to push back against the evil and injustice that you see in the world, remember that there have been generations before us that have already pushed us so far, and have felt the same exhaustion we have.

And they reached for these verses and Psalms, just as we do now.

Psalm 121 is a psalm meant to be read and sung when we need to find the courage to keep going, to keep climbing, to keep walking towards that shining city on a hill when our feet are shaking with fear and with exhaustion.

It’s meant for when we see the end in sight, and we just need that last bit of energy and strength to get there.

It’s meant for times when stopping is not an option, when the cost of not continuing on is greater than the cost of giving up.

It’s meant for the times when everything feels shaky and nothing feels certain, and what we need is not the quiet comfort of knowing that others have had these questions, doubts, and fears before, but the fiery confidence that God is here, protecting us, giving us courage, no matter what comes our way.

For when we lift our weary eyes to the hills, we know that our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.