Psalm 122 - Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

According to the Torah - the Jewish law delivered by God through his servant Moses to the Jewish people - the men of Israel were required to make a pilgrimage for three annual festivals.

Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.

Deuteronomy 16:16-17 (NIV)

These three festivals celebrated and actualized the three great salvation events in Israel’s history – the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, and the Entrance into the Promised Land. 

Three times a year, every year, the men of Israel were required by the law to make a journey from their homes to the place of God’s choosing in order to make a sacrifice and to participate in worship led by the priests.  They were obligated to leave their homes and to make the difficult and, often times, dangerous journey to the festival celebration.

Before the construction of the Temple in the city of Jerusalem by King Solomon the pilgrims may have traveled to the city of Gibeon where the Ark of the Covenant was sometimes kept.  Gibeon was the “great high place” for worship and sacrifice before the construction of the temple.  This is where King Solomon offered his sacrifices and where God appeared to him in a dream to offer him anything he desired. (1 Kings 3:4 – 15)

But when Solomon built the Temple in the city of Jerusalem and consolidated the political and religious centers of the nation Jerusalem became – not just the capital city – Zion, the mountain of God, the city of God, the very dwelling place of the Living God. 

God shines from Zion, the perfection of beauty.

Psalm 50:2 (GW)

It was the holy city, a light to the nations, and the center of the world. The temple on Mt. Zion was the epitome of the concept of “sacred space.”  It was the place where earth and heaven met, the place where the human and the divine could intersect, none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven (Genesis 28: 11 – 18).  As the intersection of the cosmic and the earthly, the temple was a picture of the universe in miniature, incorporating heaven, land, and sea within its walls.  There the Israelite worshipper would sing, “The Lord built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.” (Psalm 78:69) In his temple everything says “Glory!” (Psalm 29:9)

And three times a year for the three annual festivals required by the law, the men of Israel would travel to Jerusalem with their offerings.  This would not have been a simple trip. It would not have been a matter of throwing an overnight bag in the car and driving a few hours.  To make the pilgrimage up to Jerusalem (and it was always up to Jerusalem) the Jewish man would have to leave his home and fields or flocks or business for days or even weeks, would have to travel across unpaved roads.  There was the danger of wild animals and predatory thieves and bandits.  He couldn’t expect to stay in a comfortable hotel along the way.  He might have been welcomed to spend the night with a hospitable home along the way, but if not he would have to rough it. 

The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a difficult expedition, not taken lightly.  I can imagine that there may have been, at times, grumbling and complaining about these annual festivals, grumbling about the expense of it, about the lost time at work or in the fields, grumbling at the danger and difficulty, grumbling at the overcrowded streets and lack of rooms, and the heat and the stink and the, and the, and the …

But not the psalmist.  No.  The psalmist rejoiced when those around him said, “Let us go up to the House of Yahweh.”  It’s that time again. 

“I rejoiced among those who said to me,
we will enter the House of Yahweh.”

Psalm 122: 1 – Anchor Bible

 I’m one who grumbles at holidays. I know. I know; I’m a terrible person. You’ve heard me say “I don’t like Christmas,” and I probably seem like a bit of cantankerous old scrooge, but I am truly fascinated by the Psalmists attitude here. He rejoiced at this celebration.  He celebrated the obligation to visit the holy city. His enthusiasm stirs something in my three sizes too small heart.  I can hear the delight in his words, and I want to know something of that feeling.

“I rejoiced among those who said to me,
‘we will go up to the house of Yahweh!’
My feet were standing
within the gates of Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, which was built as his city,
which was compacted by him alone.
122: 1 -3 Anchor Bible

More than the capital city, Jerusalem was the place for the Psalmist to come together with his brothers and friends and with all the members of this faith to worship their God together and to celebrate the salvation of God together.  There was a unity in this city. It was a “compacted” city or “seamless.” Everything was in its right place, not a stone or brick left out.  The walls around the city were firmly built.  The towers were strong.  The Temple The city was well built because it had been built by God himself.

Obviously were not just talking about bricks and mortar here.  There’s something more than just the physical city.  There is an expectation about this city, a hope.

This city, this idealized Jerusalem, built by God and closely compacted by him alone, is the place where tribes of Israel go up, the place where they all came together in unity.  Together they were the city, closely compacted by God. This was where God dwelt, in the praise of his people

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Psalm 22:3 (KJV)

Jerusalem.  Jerusalem. The city of God.  The city of peace.  In Hebrew the name itself means “foundation of peace.” It is the ideal city of peace between men and peace between men and God.  It is the place where relations are restored and wounds are healed.  It is the place where divisions are put away and the people of God are united in praise and worship and love.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you.

Psalm 122:6 (NASB)

There is a beautiful rhythm and rhyme in these verses that is lost when translated from the Hebrew.  The words: pray (shaal) peace (shalom), Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), and prosperity (shalavah) ring together in a pleasing assonance that we just don’t hear in the English translation.    It’s a unity of sound that verbally echoes the compacted and well built unity of the city itself.

We are to pray for peace and prosperity for the people of this ideal city – but what is peace, and what defines prosperity, and who are the people of this city?

Shalom is more than the absence of war, though that definitely is within its definition.  Shalom is not the absence of conflict.  Conflict is inevitable, but combat is a choice.  If we choose to fight then we are choosing against peace because war divides us. War separates us into opposing armies, us verses them.  War destroys the unity and wholeness that defines true peace.  Shalom is an undivided wholeness, unbroken and undivided.  Shalom is unity.

War destroys our unity and destroys our prosperity.  It consumes our resources – the money, food, and materials that could be used to heal and feed and save are foolishly squandered in destruction. The Hebrew word for prosperity (shalavah) also includes the sense of leisure and quiet.  To have prosperity in this sense is to be relaxed, quiet because all is well.  But War destroys this prosperity. We cannot relax during wartime. No. We have to keep up our guard, forever on the watchful, forever vigilant. There is no calm, only fear.  There is no prosperity, only the destruction of resources and security.

May they pray for your peace, Jerusalem,
may they prosper who love you.
Let there be peace within your walls
prosperity within your citadels.
For the sake of my brothers and friends
I firmly say, ‘Peace be within you.’

Psalm 122: 6 – 8

I like that particular translation, “I firmly say, ‘Peace be within you.’”  Firmly.   Sometimes non-violent, pacifist, peaceniks are derided as being soft or weak.  But I am convinced that choosing peace – choosing non-violence – choosing love over hate is the more difficult choice.

It is easy to curse or to swing a fist, or to fire a gun.  What strength does it take to wage war – particularly today when so much of it can be done by pressing a button from a distance?  That is easy.  Peace is hard because Peace is the deliberate adjustment of my life to the will of God. (Anonymous)  Peace is hard because it doesn’t come naturally. 

Peace is hard because it doesn’t come at all unless we ask for it.  The “Pray” in that verse “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” really is just that – ask. Ask for peace.  It’s not a formal word. It’s not a ritualized word.  It’s not a fancy word. Ask.  Ask for peace. Ask for security. Ask for it.

But lest we mistakenly think that being a nonviolent, peace-loving, pacifist means being soft and passive the last verse of this morning’s psalm says, “For the sake of the House of Yahweh, I will seek your good.”   I will do what is good. I will do what is best.  I will do.   This is an active non-violent peace making.  “If you want peace, work for justice.” (Pope Paul VI) Making peace is hard work, harder than fighting a war – but the rewards are incomparable.  The rewards of peace are security and wholeness, unity and leisure.  The rewards (such as they are) of war are division, destruction and poverty – poverty of material goods and a crushing poverty of spirit.

So I will do what is good.  For the sake of that beautiful city – the holy city – the place where God dwells, I will seek peace. I will pray for peace and I will work for justice and equity and equality.  I will do what I can to make sure that people are fed and clothed.  I will work to comfort the broken hearted and to bind up the broken.  For the sake of that unity among God’s people I will love the unloved.  And, what is more, for the sake of that house of God that is the unity and praise of his people, I will love even my enemies.  

This is not easy. True pilgrimages aren’t.  They are long and dangerous and difficult. But we rejoice to make that journey.  Let us go up to the house of Yahweh!