Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is the remembrance of Saint Polycarp, a second-century bishop of Smyrna (modern-day Izmir, Turkey), apparently the same Smyrna who’s persecuted church is referenced in the book of Revelation. Polycarp was martyred for his faith in 156 A.D.

The psalm appointed for this remembrance is Psalm 121, Levavi oculus. One of the psalms of Ascent, this text would have been used by the Israelites as a sort of traveling hymn as they proceeded to up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple — although other interpretation of ‘ascent’ exist too.

Having been to the West Bank, I am particularly drawn to this idea, since I can picture the geographical setting. From the dry, dusty plain of Jericho, to which a Galilean may have traveled  —  particularly to avoid the more direct route through the hills of Samaria — Jerusalem lies up out of view, tucked away atop a long and imposing range of brown mountains. One can imagine the long, hot ascent up from the desert valley to these desert hills, with psalms accompanying the arduous hike.

Traditionally, the church has also associated the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) with the spiritual journey Christians take during their lifetime, and that we ritually mimic in the Lenten journey to Easter each year. In this trek, as the Patristics suggested, we might experience various places or stages along the way.

The notion of stages is familiar to anyone who has spent much time traveling on foot across significant distances. A journey through the wilderness might takes one through silent glades, by silvan streams, up dusty climbs, and occasionally near vertiginous heights. However, much of the trip is frankly difficulty: long viewless traverses, treacherous bolder fields, loose scrambles, dangerous ledges and catwalks, long waterless stretches, endless steeps, exposure, sunburn, altitude, wild beasts.

In the midst of such journeys, it’s all the more remarkable that one finds moments of rest or peace in which to gaze up and acknowledge God’s wisdom:

‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
From whence cometh my help,
My help cometh even from the Lord…’

This is no Romantic ode to nature. It is a song of faith in the God who sustains everything through his wisdom, and who leads us through this life.

Yours in Christ,
Justin

(Click on the link below to hear Herbert Howells’ setting of Psalm 121 from his Requiem.)